SCCA Solo C Street Discussion

[MarkR171]

Originally Posted by simpleisbest

Data values for BRZ, 350Z, and RX8 will be off, as just the perceived performance of the TRD parts will make the FRS more attractive to top competitive drivers.

The BRZ is is not 2secs slower than the TRD FR-S.....what you are seeing is more of a gap in driver skill vs gap in vehicle performance.

Correct, that's why I noted sample size. Top 5 of 6 drivers in the BRZ cannot be compared to the top 5 of 35 in the FRS. The top BRZ drivers are closer in pace, but even then, the fact that the most competitive drivers are discouraged from being in Street class at all shows that their pace should be better.

[MarkR171]

Originally Posted by Twinz

To avoid CS becoming a spec TRD class, are there any cars in BS that are slow enough to drop to CS?

If you compare column for Top 5 Non-Corvette in BS, pretty much all B-Street cars can compare with the FRS relatively closely.

BS could be ND and Corvette.
CS could be FRS, 1M, S2000
DS could be BRZ, WRX, Mini

[Twinz]

Originally Posted by MarkR171

If you compare column for Top 5 Non-Corvette in BS, pretty much all B-Street cars can compare with the FRS relatively closely.

BS could be ND and Corvette.
CS could be FRS, 1M, S2000
DS could be BRZ, WRX, Mini

At first I thought splitting the twins was silly, but maybe that's simpler than splitting a single car by option package. (TRD)

[MarkR171]

Originally Posted by Twinz

At first I thought splitting the twins was silly, but maybe that's simpler than splitting a single car by option package. (TRD)

I thought it was silly too, but they do it with the S2000 and S2000 CR. I think it just makes more sense to split the cars (easy) than to split a single car depending what springs and swaybars it has (more difficult.)

[Locust]

Love the discussion here guys. The thing is I've essentially heard from 2 SEB members that they don't mind if a class becomes just a one car class + stragglers so moving the ND into BS isn't even on their radar. It would be up to us to put it on their radar and put forth reasonable solutions.

My one data point that I've seen that concerns me about any possible move up is that at a fast site like Crow's Landing (courses hit 70+mph in several sections) the ND isn't even remotely close to BS but that's one site out of the many in the country and their courses are fairly unique.

I'm absolutely certain if we move down that DS will become FR-S/BRZ spec and CS will become 2015+ ND spec. That seems to be something they are okay with. Does anyone have any friends with 350Z, RX-8, WRX, etc. that would also chime in? This affects a lot more people than just us.

And as far as the TRD/Non-TRD split goes I still think that's what they're going to do.

[MarkR171]

I have a friend with a WRX, but I don't think he'd be happy with the twins going to DS

[klittl06]

Originally Posted by Locust

Love the discussion here guys. The thing is I've essentially heard from 2 SEB members that they don't mind if a class becomes just a one car class + stragglers so moving the ND into BS isn't even on their radar. It would be up to us to put it on their radar and put forth reasonable solutions.

My one data point that I've seen that concerns me about any possible move up is that at a fast site like Crow's Landing (courses hit 70+mph in several sections) the ND isn't even remotely close to BS but that's one site out of the many in the country and their courses are fairly unique.

I'm absolutely certain if we move down that DS will become FR-S/BRZ spec and CS will become 2015+ ND spec. That seems to be something they are okay with. Does anyone have any friends with 350Z, RX-8, WRX, etc. that would also chime in? This affects a lot more people than just us.

And as far as the TRD/Non-TRD split goes I still think that's what they're going to do.

Am I the only one who thinks it's a little disheartening that the SCCA needs us to put reasonable options on the table? Or am I over thinking this?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[Locust]

Originally Posted by klittl06

Am I the only one who thinks it's a little disheartening that the SCCA needs us to put reasonable options on the table? Or am I over thinking this?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Definitely not overthinking it... But it is what it is. I'm told this is how things are.

There are a lot of things I've noticed in the autocross community and, like anything else in the world, if you want to change things you need to do it yourself. They're always looking for more SEB members, BTW.

[simpleisbest]

Originally Posted by MarkR171

...the fact that the most competitive drivers are discouraged from being in Street class at all shows that their pace should be better.

My observations about Street Class is actually the opposite.
If a Street or Stock class is well balanced or the "top car" is popular enough, the class will attract top level talent.

Reference SSR with Brian Peters and Sam Strano, SS with Ken Motonishi and Scott Fraser, AS with Mark Daddio, etc...I would definitely consider all of these drivers among the most competitive drivers in the sport.

While the perception by many is that Street/Stock classes with its limited allowances will attract novices, it also attracts top talent as the places more emphasis on driver skill vs racer car builder skill.

[MarkR171]

Originally Posted by simpleisbest

My observations about Street Class is actually the opposite.
If a Street or Stock class is well balanced or the "top car" is popular enough, the class will attract top level talent.

I was saying the top level brz drivers are discouraged as their car is handicapped in CS. Absolutely agree street classes are full of great talent.

[Laloosh]

My solution:

C5 Vette gets bounced to FS
ND gets moved to BS to run against the AP2/370/EVO/STI/RS/GOLFR
AP1 gets moved to CS to run againsT the TRD FRS
Non TRD Twins go to DS along with whatever else they propose.

[DaWorstPlaya]

Guys I think, you're making this more complicated that it needs to be. Just look at the times of the top drivers in CS, usually their skill levels are about the same, which means, tuning and car platform makes the difference between their times. Usually when these guys drive the same car their times are within a tenth. The logic being these guys are pulling out the max potential from these platforms.

Top ND CS guy Daniel McCelvey East course best time 62.469
Top FRS CS guy David Ogburn East course best time 63.077

On the East course that was supposed to favor speed the ND was 0.6 sec faster.

Top BS guy, Joe Barbato on the East course best time 63.004. The ND was faster. What's wrong with this picture?

The West course which was mostly sweepers that favors lighter cars. In the wet, which would have reduced margins, the ND was 0.4 secs faster. I think this is the data point that should be used when trying to make your argument as it removes a lot of the noise due to driver skill (averages).

I don't like this whole let's build a class for popular cars that the SCCA is favoring. IMHO, it should be based on performance potential ranges.

AS- x to y potential range.
BS- y to z potential range.
etc.

When you start getting lower classes that are faster than higher classes, there is an issue with the way things are being done, IMHO.

[DocWalt]

Part of the problem with that is that there's this "cars of similar types must be in the same class" silliness. There are people that are offended by the idea of the base C5 going to FS, for example. Or the idea of the ND going to AS (where its times are still pretty competitive, mind you ) because we can't have a Miata racing Corvettes!

[Laloosh]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Part of the problem with that is that there's this "cars of similar types must be in the same class" silliness. There are people that are offended by the idea of the base C5 going to FS, for example. Or the idea of the ND going to AS (where its times are still pretty competitive, mind you ) because we can't have a Miata racing Corvettes!

They already ruined that when a corvette plays against an evo/rs/sti/golfr lol....its no different