Quote:
Originally Posted by solidONE
It's hardly a moot point. I'm all for 'free' modifications to exploit, but when you penalize something as common a modification as lowering spring with .5 yet no point penalties added to something as obvious a performance adder as bbk and sways(particularly the BBK) is where I will have to disagree. Without even looking I can confidently say that if you looked in any other rule book with any other organization you will find that similar or the same amount of points are assessed to sways vs. lowering springs. Even more points are assessed for BBK if not disallowed altogether in certain classes. The points are hardly moot.
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Here's how I see it (Mike can provide his own views on the matter):
- The points system is based on a stock car running a specific track, and how much faster each mod can make you.
- Brakes, big brakes or aggressive compounds or whatnot, are meant to be of the mindset that they allow you to increase braking power. However, this is severely limited by the available mechanical traction on the car (tire compound/grip, treadwear rating, section width, suspension, etc etc) as well as aerodynamic traction on the car (front/rear splitters, wings, and other aero enhancements). Thus, a BBK or track-only compounds are only as good as the tires the car runs on.
- Some tires are more aggressive than what the treadwear rating suggests. Unfortunately the RS3 is one of these tires. Unless there's a better rating system available, treadwear rating is the only way to comfortably gauge tire performance.
- Sway bars tie in to the overall suspension setup, but doesn't have a big of an impact on lap times as do springs, shocks, or coilover systems.
A good read on sway bars here.
In my car, with bigger sway bars I'll end up overloading the tires on steady-state corners. It's not all that good for my purpose and won't make me any faster.
If you have any evidence of lap time improvements with only a sway bar or BBK mod on the FRS/BRZ, feel free to document it and give us some supporting information. I know you referenced other series, but they have justification for what they are doing with specific parts classed the way they are, and we are asking for this justification.
TL;DR -- if you have a good reason for parts to be reclassed points-wise, give us evidence that isn't just "these other series do it too".
-alex