SCCA Solo C Street Discussion

[Locust]

Originally Posted by Twinz

What data point's are you using to get to a "a couple tenths quicker"?





Dave won CS last year and widened his gap over all other Twins this year. In fact he created such a large gap between himself and other twins (in a class packed full of twins) it's rather evident that he is an outlier on the fast end of the talent spectrum.

The ND's did not have any driver pull away from other drivers in the same car the way that David did with the rest of the twin drivers.

I'm not trying to say the ND drivers aren't great drivers. Cars don't yet drive themselves and McCelvey won a hard-fought battle for his Jacket. However, even if you explain-away the huge gap Dave put on all the other twin drivers by assuming all of the ~38 other twin drivers were driving more than a second and a half off the pace per day (average for both days), that still leaves Dave more than half a second off the pace on the dry day.

0.6 seconds is not a crazy gap, but I don't think it should be euphemistically described as "a couple tenths".

Exactly. If you're not David Ogburn you're 1+ seconds behind the top 8 Miata drivers. That's pretty significant.

[Locust]

Originally Posted by MarkR171

I am not basing that statement on data as it's difficult to tell with all the variables and only 3 runs on one course. Maybe Dave changed something and it didn't work as well this year. Maybe he didn't get the run he wanted. His last run was slower than his second, maybe he made a mistake that cost him. It happens to the best drivers, Sam Strano coned all 6 runs this year.

I'm not saying the ND isn't faster, it definitely seems to be, at least on this year's courses. It could just as well be a half second quicker, all things being equal. Maybe I'm just being optimistic hoping the gap isn't quite that wide.

Still doesn't change anything though. All we can do is voice our opinion to SCCA and see what happens... or go and buy an ND. There seems to be the car to have in most street classes, so I don't see why they would treat the ND any differently if it proves to be the CS car.

The problem here is that the CS car is as fast as AS and BS. It's not reasonable to have it remain in CS if it actually competes evenly with BS. The only argument you can make is that having the ND in CS gives you high participation. CS will become ND Miata spec class with a few stragglers who are holding onto their cars because they can't switch for financial or emotional reasons. The 350z, RX-8, and twins are far enough behind that there's no reason to keep running CS against the ND nationally.

And let's be VERY clear here. Local events don't mean anything as far as classing goes. There's money involved in national events and if you're going after prize money you want to go where you have a reasonable chance to win. Right now it looks like CS in anything other than an ND Miata is not that place.

[MarkR171]

Yea, I'll admit you guys are making good points. I think the most solid point is the CS ND = top AS/BS cars though. Who knows, I might jump ship if it stays this way another year myself, haha.

[Twinz]

Originally Posted by Locust

The problem here is that the CS car is as fast as AS and BS. It's not reasonable to have it remain in CS if it actually competes evenly with BS. The only argument you can make is that having the ND in CS gives you high participation. CS will become ND Miata spec class with a few stragglers who are holding onto their cars because they can't switch for financial or emotional reasons. The 350z, RX-8, and twins are far enough behind that there's no reason to keep running CS against the ND nationally.

And let's be VERY clear here. Local events don't mean anything as far as classing goes. There's money involved in national events and if you're going after prize money you want to go where you have a reasonable chance to win. Right now it looks like CS in anything other than an ND Miata is not that place.

I have always considered contingency to be a means of merely offsetting the cost of the hobby rather than covering it, so prize money has never been the primary concern. (Although I did run BFG's this year at a couple national events because their contingency was worth about 3X what Bridgestone was offering for my STU 350Z)

I intend to run my new FRS for at least the next season. -If for no other reason than to be one of the many data points that hopefully leads to a change. I really enjoy driving these cars. If they get relegated to the back of the pack for too long, I will probably still keep my car and just go back to tire-warming for national events.

[DaWorstPlaya]

Locust makes some good points. Start writing your letter to get the ND moved to BS guys.

[DocWalt]

Please just get it moved to AS, I don't need that thing in BS with me next year

[Locust]

I just ran the times for all the NDs and all the 86s through a spreadsheet and got the averages.

Average ND Times
East: 64.544
West: 61.972

Average 86 Times (including Ogburn)
East: 65.723
West: 63.056

So ya... it's over a second better on each course on average. The lowest ND finished 67th. Lowest twin was 84th. 7/23 trophies went to NDs for 17 entries. 10/23 trophies went to twins for 40 entries. That's a 41.1% trophy rate for the ND and a 25% trophy rate for an 86. Based upon class participation you would expect an even distribution to be 4-5 NDs (~4.5) in trophies and 10-11 (~10.7) 86s.


More numbers for everyone...

Average A-Street East: 64.491
Average B-Street East: 65.406
Average Miata East: 64.544
Average FR-S Only East: 65.579 (still a full second gap even if you remove BRZs)
Average BRZ Only East: 66.638 (sample set of 6 drivers only)
Average D-Street East: 66.947

Now I have no way of knowing which FR-S drivers are on TRD parts and which aren't so the BRZ only statistic isn't very representative since the sample size is so small. However, just looking at the times there does anyone have any doubt that we would kill all of D-Street if moved down? Meanwhile the ND Miata is just five hundredths off A-Street and NINE TENTHS faster than B-Street.

[Locust]

BTW I'll go through the rest of the Championship Tour results for the year later on when I have more time. Based on my observations earlier in the year and locally against an ND here I expect the data to come out the same as the nationals results.

[MarkR171]

Originally Posted by Locust

BTW I'll go through the rest of the Championship Tour results for the year later on when I have more time. Based on my observations earlier in the year and locally against an ND here I expect the data to come out the same as the nationals results.

Do that, and send scca a letter with the results

[ryan t]

Thats the data we need to flood the scca with to get ND moved. Good work!

[DocWalt]

Agreed. ND doesn't belong in the same class as the 86. Move 86 down or ND up

[gtslow]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Agreed. ND doesn't belong in the same class as the 86. Move 86 down or ND up

If we can keep the TRD parts with a move (which would be interesting precedent if they forced a removal for DS) I may remove my header and tune and stay playing in CS. I was getting bored with my car and saw the inevitability of autocrossing in CS with the ND's skewing the class. I'm a shitty driver, but I don't want to handicap myself in an inferior car.

That brings me to an interesting point. How bad is PAX going to be for CS now that the ND in CS is faster than the BS cars?

[Locust]

Originally Posted by gtslow

If we can keep the TRD parts with a move (which would be interesting precedent if they forced a removal for DS) I may remove my header and tune and stay playing in CS. I was getting bored with my car and saw the inevitability of autocrossing in CS with the ND's skewing the class. I'm a shitty driver, but I don't want to handicap myself in an inferior car.

That brings me to an interesting point. How bad is PAX going to be for CS now that the ND in CS is faster than the BS cars?

Very, very bad.

[DocWalt]

If they bump the ND to BS or AS Rick will take note of that and not totally screw over CS