Classifications , one more time.

[Dave Barker]

The poll re " Too many classes " hasn't seem to give us much in the way of answers as to how to procede or even IF we should make any changes for next year. Only 23 have responded with only 12 giving clear cut answers including only 2 who like the status quo .

During my previous post Rob McAuley came up with an alternative classification system that utilises all the CCCs hard work done on the performance indices while scrapping the family system of classification ( certainly an arbitrary sort of thing ) .

When looking at Chris Sorensen's PDI file of all the cars classified and their performance indices ( PI from now on ) we can see a range from 87.6 down to 5.5 but we could effectively use a system with 10 classes of 5 points spread between 25 and 75 with a class for PI of over 75 and one for under 25 giving us a total of 12 classes . Presently most classes have a range of PI from 12 to 15 with the exception of C1 which has a relatively small range of 8 . If we were to adopt this system the base cars would always have a narrower range of cars to compete against but might find themselves up against cars with lower PI that have been improved . I would suggest an increase in performance index of 2 points for every prep point .

This system handles the issue of how to deal with the class A1 supercars and leaves more flexibility for lower classes . Presently an A 3 car can run up to 8 points in ASS2 but if he only wants to run a few points in ASS2 he is very unlikely to be successful . We all know there is no purpose in running ASS1 only to be propositioned by an A1 car . The advantage of this system is that there is a much wider variety of improvement classes that a driver can run in without having to go to a specific number of prep points ( and $ ) to be competitive in a class. A car with a mid pack PI might go for a small improvement and not even move up a class or go for larger improvements that might move him up just one or up to 6 classes depending on what he wants to do.

The calculation or the PI might need some massaging and would have to be standardized as opposed to weighted differently in different types of cars . Did you all know that a Type R integra has a PI of only 46.5 which is LESS than a 2000 Chev Impala , a Toyota Avalon and a V6 Mustang ??! . ( I'm sure Acura / Honda would be devastated to hear their hot car is the performance equivalent of a Beretta ) This is not a problem as long as all C class cars have their PI calculated similarly as we do now but won't work with the above suggested system .

The weakness of this system is that a lower car may improve its performance more for a given number of prep points than a car that is highly tuned out of the box such as an S 2000 or Z06 but as we've seen no system is perfect if its simple ( and certainly not if it's complicated )

In summary this system would have
1) fewer street car classes meaning better population
2) narrower performance indices per class
3) offer a wider variety of improvement levels for a car to slot into and
4) utilise the performance index to classify all future new cars and not their body type .

Do anyone besides Rob and myself think this is worth persuing ??

[Chris P]

This is basically what i already said...........


And i know people will give the argument. "What if my car ends up at the bottom of the class?" Or should i say "what about all those poor cars that end up at the bottom of classes".

Well, with the current system we already have that problem. Live with it, choose your car wisely. if you want to just come out and have a good time atleast you'll have a full class to do it in. When your ready to be compedative, get the "right car".



Boy, don't i wish i had the "right car", not some 76 hp cube from the 80's. :)

[Taylor]

Nothing for Nothing Chris but you can't just up and say "Buy the right car". That's the/a problem with the current system. People in C class don't want or can't afford a $30,000 TypeR, just as A class people would rather not to have to spend $70K (or whatever) on a Z06 to be competitive. What I want to see is a system that puts you in competition of cars with similar performance numbers (PI) so it's driver and setup skill that separates the competitors, not the ability to throw down cash on a class dominating car. I'm more in favor of this proposal than that of the current system. However if the TypeR's PI is set below that of a Toyota Avalon, obviously the system for establishing a PI index has got some serious deficiencies. I can only assume the Avalon is above the TypeR is because the index is based largely on HP and Torque, which as Honda shows time and again, is not everything. Obviously then the PI rating becomes very subjective and likely to cause it's own problems, question is, are the once that'll complain a worse problem than the ones that are already complaining? :) Maybe not, at least it looks as if we'd have well populated classes.

I think we should keep in mind that anyone new to the sport is already going to be at a disadvantage due to their lack of experience and undeveloped skill, is it fair that they also have to be penalized for not having a class competitive car? Although SCCA has the participation, I think it's primary success is that you can show up with a STREET STOCK car and be competitive, of course you can also show up with a hybrid and kick some ass.

I ran 4 events and still managed 2nd place in BSS2. There's just something not quite right about that. :)

[tanney]

Hey, why not concentrate on talking some of your buddies into coming out and bring up the numbers at each event and give the current classification system a chance.

One season is hardly enough to determine whether or not it will work, specifically with the competetor numbers being down 24%.

If the numbers were in the 70-75 range at each event, the classes (with the exception maybe of mod classes) would be better populated and then there might be competition.

Sure there probably is room for improvement in the current system, but until it is proven the it does or doesn't work with the right numbers why bother rearranging the whole thing again.

That's my 2 cents worth!

[Taylor]

Originally posted by tanney
Hey, why not concentrate on talking some of your buddies into coming out and bring up the numbers at each event and give the current classification system a chance.

Who are you specifically responding to here? Dave, Chris or Me?

[tanney]

I am not bashing anyone nor am I saying quit whining. I am posting this to the entire Solo 1 community and specifically those that do not think the current classification system is working.

It seems that the people who are voicing their opinions here are the ones without a class or those who think their car is classified incorrectly. The people who want class population should encourage their friends or associates with similar cars, or any car in good working order, to come out and have a fun day at the track.

I am not saying that the current system is perfect. I think that there are some specific issues that need to be looked at. I personally got my butt kicked all season and had a great time getting kicked, although I have to admit sometimes it is frustrating, but, oh well.

24% decline in competitors is substantial. In my opinion (not that it may be worth much) is more competitors, we need more competitors to fill in the classes.:D

[turboawd]

I think we're getting somewhere now. Sounds much better.

I would also like to see some sort of option for cars without a full class to get full points, even if it means moving up a class with some multipling factor.

I believe the downturn in attendenance is partially due to the classification system itself. Many people dropped out because they found it frustrating to have no class or be totally uncompetitive. The above suggested changes may bring back some racers.

.... later.

[Christian Sorensen]

You cannot compare the PIs from one family to another.

As can be seen on the Tables tab of the spreadsheet, the weightings used to calculate the PIs differ for each family.

This is explained in the rules on 7.0.1 H and illustrated in table 7.0.5 (mislabelled 'Handling Indexes', really 'Performance Index Weightings').

If one were to use the A family weightings for all cars the Type R would have a PI of 58.81 and the Avalon's would be 47.68

Chris

[Dave Barker]

Chris P . the beauty of this system is that
a) the maximum spread in PI in any class is 5 , not the 12 to 15 found in our present system and
b) if your car is at the lowest PI in the class then you can put a couple of points in your car and stay in the same class . As it is now in some of the lower classes , to move up to an SS2 class involves alot of points and $ or else you do nothing and stay totally stock .

Chris Sorensen , a PI of 58 seems pretty reasonable to me for a type R . higher than a 3 rd gen camaro and lower than a 4 th gen . so maybe recalculating on the same basis is feasable for all cars .

[Taylor]

Well if we can shuffle the classes so there is less of them and less of a gap in vehicle performance in them, that that essentially covers mine, and apparently everyone elses concerns. So if the PI numbers need to be based on Family with a weighting to make them more common-sense-accurate then why not use that method of calculation?

Course, I'd have a word or two to say about weightings along the likes of those seen in regional Solo 2 to calculate PAX.

In a nutshell, as it was explained to me as Tony McGrath was kicking everyones ass in his Forced Induction Miata, myself in my Stock S2000 needed to go something like 2.5 seconds faster to equal his pax time. However I was told that looking at the pax numbers it essentially meant was that if Tony got in my car, he would only be 1 second slower. So that meant I had to be within 1 second of the forced induction miata with a tuned suspension to beat him (in Pax #) in my stock S2000. Riiight.

Guess no system is perfect and some cars will be at a slight disadvantage and some at a slight advantage. (Hence the 5 point gap suggested at the start of this thread). It's the huge gaps that really chew ass. You know.. like a E46 M3 in the same class as an E36 M3. :)

[Dave Barker]

Wes Tanney and Nino M , I know of at least 2 competitors who only ran a few events this year as opposed to almost the whole season in 2000 due to the fact that their cars had a much lower PI than the class leading cars and they knew they didn't stand a chance ( and they were right )

Also if we subtract the carts and mod cars the best we could run is 65 cars in 18 classes for an average of 3.6 per class vs 12 classes for an average of 5.4 per class . Personally I might prefer only 10 classes but the PI spread per class might get too large which is definitely a complaint now .

[Rob McAuley]

Dave's suggestion of coming up with a point spread to put the right number of cars in a class is interesting, and reminded me of my daughter's swimming competitions.

The competitors are seeded (based here on stock model and prep points to generate a PI), then broken into "classes" of 5 competitors. You may run against different people from event to event. For some, you may have the highest PI, for others, you may find that you are at the bottom. Regardless, all competitors should be closely matched. Good drivers should gravitate to the top over the season, even if they don't win every event.

The only problem is the guy with the fastest car, who is always at the top of the top class. But if he's the series sponsor, then that may be okay.:p

[Chris P]

Dave's system sounds good.....how do we implament it?

[Dave Barker]

Chris , at this stage there are only 19 respondants to the poll but there seems to be strong support for utilizing the performance index . If enough people vote in favour then I would think the CCC would have to listen . I hope we can have more responses before the workshop next wkend . Considering all the work the CCC has done already , implementing this would be a cinch .

[tony mcgrath]

The proposed idea of ranking all the cars based on a PI is a good one and should be persued further. This same type of system was discussed in 1994 but it was felt that the formula used to come up with the PI for each car was too subjective. Reading some of the replies on this topic I see that this feeling still exists. How do you decide which weighting system to use to determine the *most* accurate PI? I'm glad some "bigger brains" are working on the problem than the ones we had back in '94 ;)
There are some cars that will tend to outperform their PI indexes because they have some extra factory engineering that seems to defy normal formulae. Most Honda products come to mind, consistantly outperforming in real life what their basic horsepower , torque, weight and wheelbase numbers would suggest that they should be capable of.
You may find a few models that are turning times beter than cars with a PI 5 points higher. Also, Good luck in drawing the lines that will separate the classes!

On another note, Taylor mentioned he had a problem with the PAX system for SOLO 2. I think it is more of a lack of understanding than anything else.
He mentions that his stock S2000 was uncompetitive against a street prepared Miata that I was driving that day. What he fails to realize is that the Corvette Z06 is also in class A1 with his S2000. The handicap for each class is based on the fastest car in that class, so the PAX for his class was based on what a Z06 could do on a given course in A1. Eric Juraschka was driving a stock Z06 at that event along with the owner Blair Duguid. Eric bumped himself up to "street prepared" so as not to interfere with Blairs chances of getting into the finals in A1. However if you look at Erics time in the Z06 and PAX it in A1, it would have had a slightly*better* time on index than the Miata I was driving. This actually proves that the PAX indexes are bang on between these classes. :D

For a more in depth discussion please email me directly ...
Tony McGrath

[GTRACH]

Appreciate alll the thought that you are putting into this. Bottom line is that no system is going to be fullproof. The old system had its flaws, but while I was competing under that stable umbrella I was having fun. I cannot see voting for either system as both are changes to changes. I haven't totally digested all the nuances of your proposal.
My concerns lie more with the season being pre-booked by a few keeners, blocking out those who do not have the ability to commit for a whole season. Half way through the season those who locked up the entries cancel leaving lots of gapping holes in the capacity of the later events. I believe that we are missing two important points. One is that we should be concerned with the future of our sport (Solo 1). Is the series in place for a few now , who when they move onto other things will leave huge gaps to fill, or should we be concerned with having more people doing fewer events , giving a stronger base to build for the future. I would like to see the number of events that can be locked up (reserved, entered) at the beginning of the season to one half of the season plus one. Half way through the season , if the positions are open then one could enter more events.
My second rant (its late and my thoughts are wandering) is that it is becoming more difficult to commit to as many events as is required to be part of the series. I feel that to have participated in half of the events, or say six events is sufficient to be part of the series.
My question : is the series for the use of the fewest number of entrants competing in the greatest number of events, or to have the greatest number of entrants competing in fewer events?
My view revolves around: should we be concerned with succession planning? Is succession planning (making sure that we have new blood to run the series) linked to the number of people entered in the series? I say it is.
This is probably not the simple clear cut vote that you wanted. I t is something that has been bothering me for some time. :)

[Shaman]

My only interjection is that one of the problems I see with the family ratings is that if people use magazine articles to determine performance of cars, they'll come out very strange. I don't know how the ratings were done - and am not criticizing them - just that magazine articles are often far off.

Take for instance, a car which I know well, the Z/28. Fast Fords and Muscle Mustangs - despite their best wishes - ran a 12.8@110mph with a stock 2001 Z/28 and then backed it up with 13.0x later in the day in 115 degree summer heat. But Road & Track lists a 13.9@103mph for the same car. Probably almost one second difference down the Fabi back straight between good drivers and poor! On Solo-1 tracks, acceleration makes more difference than in Solo-2 (though less than most expect) and a 2001 Z is going to blow the doors off several stock cars which have made similar performances in the same class although a particular magazine rates them close in performance.

Food for thought, that's all. I'm far too busy to be a real contributor to the rules, so I'm just going to interject here and there when I think I have something to add.

[Taylor]

Tony: Hmm yeah good point, you're right, Eric turned in an awesome time that was up there with you in terms of Pax so I suppose it worked in that case.

Still doesn't change the fact that it's ludicrous to think that there's only a 1 second time difference between the pax you were posting and the one I needed to post. The Z06 is hardly your typical Stock car. It's a TypeR corvette. You've driven a TypeR.. you know. :) I had to be within 1 second of a street prepared car... Anyhow whatever it's just an issue for the Shootout and I got beaten by Perry that day anyhow, I'm not upset, it's just fuel to the fire that classing cars to be competitive with each other is a difficult feat and damned near impossible to do where everyone has an equal shot.

[Taylor]

I'm with GTRACH in that at the Open House all the events except for the 2 later Shannonville ones were sold out. Then as the season wen't on there were shortages of a dozen plus people. So people (like myself actually) who attended the open House but didn't buy into any events due to the fact I didn't see 2 (well 4) events at the track the furthest away from me were being part of the series. Luckily for me, I managed to attend 13 of 14 events and all the lapping days. But anyone else attending might not have bothered to go the distance I did this year (and I think I can say that I've dived into this sport more so than most rookies typically do). So with that brutal sell out a tthe open house by most of the veterans we're essentially locking out new blood. I'm not exactly sure how to solve this issue. I guess the registrar would know best but I would probably reserve tickets for people who participated the most this year, then reserve a block of tickets for newcomers. So if someone only did 4 events last year, i'd put them at the end of the list. (with exceptions due to broken cars perhaps). LEt the people who really particiapte in the series get first dibs, then try to get the new blood in, then allow the stragglers in. I dunno. First come first serve is the fair way, but if we want to promote the sport and new blood, we can't have all the events being bought up and then 40-50 registrants dropped mid-way through the season. Maybe Solo 1 should oversell some events a bit. There's always cancellations right? And so what if the event has 5 more over the typical limit?

Or along the lines of GTRACH's suggestion. Just allow prebooking of the required number of events to win the series. Just a thought.

[Dave]

This is a very interesting thread for a number of reasons. Here's what I've got from it so far.

1. We've got 20 of 133 competitors from 2001 voting in favour of a indexing system for creating the Families and classes therein.

Though certainly not a majority, this poll does show support from some regular series competitors for the idea of a index-only based classification system. This is a very interesting idea and I too would have voted in favour of this idea one year ago. However, from the countless hours the CCC spent last winter bashing this very idea around I'm now of the opinion that it cannot work for a series like ours. As Tony McGrath points out, this is not a new idea and has been looked at long and hard by more than one group of Solo1 rulemakers. The reason this approach has been rejected several times now is this. Though you will get a very appealing grouping of cars in stock form, our series allows various levels of modifications and the initial groupings become increasingly uncompetitive as you increase the level of modifications to the cars because you inevitably get a mix of 4 cylinder FWD cars with FWD/AWD/RWD sedans powered by big fours, sixes of all kind, and even some high horsepower V8s along with some V8 powered sports cars. Based on our attempts to get groupings using a straight indexing system that also tended to group similar cars together (ie. predominantly V8 sports cars in one group), without totally skewing what we felt were reasonable weightings of the index this could not be achieved. Inevitably really good FWD 4cyl cars like the Integra Type R made it's way to the top of the index and ended up lumped in with C4/C5 corvettes and other high horsepower cars that will destroy a Type R once modifications of the suspsension and especially the engine begin. Similarly, cars like the Miata tended to find their way to the top of the index but again once you start to modified the various car types in these intial groupings the performance of each tends to become more and more disperate.

We also looked at lap times from past seasons and it is clear modified V8 powered RWD car is going to be way too much for 99% of 4cyl and 6cyl cars without forced induction. We could do the same for the lap times this season and I'm confident that you'd find the same trend.

2. Some people are of the opinion that he new rulebook has hurted attendance.

I beg to differ. Overall number of competitors went up to 133 this year from 108 a year ago. Attendance per event has held dead even (Chris has already posted numbers on this) even though we've stepped up to a 14 event series this year. Although there may be a few people who didn't compete because they felt that the new rulebook hurt their chances of being competitive, with the increased number of classes it is a mathematical certainty that more cars have a chance of being a class leading cars.

What hurt attendance this year was the number of broken cars and consequent cancellations of regular series competitors like myself, Blair, Robb Smith, Adam Hutchison, Steve Cole, and so on. The other thing that hurt attendance was the slightly down year we had in terms of attracting series rookies. We had a few less rookies come out this year and if we can do a better job at attracting new people to the sport next year we'll see a lot more full classes, particularly since it was the stock classes that were underfilled most often and these are the classes that series rookies tend to run in.

3. Looking at the current indexing system across the 3 families and comparing the index spread within each is a useful way of examining the overall classification system.

Again, I beg to differ. As Chris Sorensen has already pointed out, you CANNOT compare indexes across families because we've weighted them different for each family in recognition of the fact that what makes a C-family car fast isn't necessarily what makes a A- or B-family car fast. In other words, you're attempting to compare apples to oranges and this cannot be done accurately.
Because of the different weightings of the index in each family, you can't compare the index spread within the classes from one family to another. Same logic applies. In other words, a 10-15% index spread within a A-family class means nothing compared to a 10-15% index spread in C-family because the index weightings are different.

The index spread within classes is not a useful diagnostic tool in any case. This spread is simply a function of the weightings we've chosen and we could easily change the weightings to give the appearance of closer clusters of index numbers for each class. This would, however, defeat the whole idea of the index system being used in as objective a way as possible, though as Tony McGrath points out you should not fool yourself into thinking that the indexing system is somehow utterly scientific and objective, because ultimately the decisions about what data to index and how to weight the indices is a subjective matter that comes down to the best efforts of the rulemakers at the time. Our goal in using the indexing system was to move towards a far more objective and data-based classification system that would make it far easier for new cars to be "plugged in" and classified fairly and reasonably accurately without all the debate and dart-throwing of years past. It is an effort to make things more systematic, but there is no way that I'm aware of to take the human element out of car classification, particularly if we're going to have a series that allows modifications to cars. If this was a totally stock series, things would be MUCH simpler! We tried looking at the classification from a 'Stock class up' perspective, which is basically what Dave Barker is suggesting by going with a full-out indexing system for classification, and we also looked at 'Modified or Street-Prepared down' perspectives to see which gave us the most competitive series overall when taking into consideration the kinds of cars we've traditionally had compete.
In the past we've generally had over 50% of the cars competing in non-stock classes and this year the trend continued to move away from stock classes to more super-stock and street-prepared cars. Based on this reality, we opted for a system that was as balanced as we could make it taking into full consideration the realities of car modification and how this alters the ultimate performance levels of various kinds of cars.

If you eliminate the 'car type' family system as being suggested by Dave Barker and others with this poll, what you'll end up with in my opinion is a group of very competitive and interesting stock classes and utter chaos as you move up the modification ladder to super-stock and street-prepared levels and a far greater proportion of Solo1 competitors feeling as if they've been left out in the cold than we saw this year. No system can make every competitor happy all of the time, but I personally believe that the system we've developed is a lot closer to making the majority happy than going to a pure indexing system as proposed in this thread.

Thus endeth my rant. Back to work for this fella!

Dave Pratte

[Dave]

Actually, before I get back to work (whatever that means), I'd like to suggest a couple of things.

It seems to me that the entire basis for the preference expressed by 20 individuals for a pure indexing system is based on a comparison of the final index numbers for all the cars in the series this year. However, as Chris pointed out earlier and as I tried to point out in my previous post, because the weighting of the indices are different for each family you cannot make comparisons from family to family. In other words, a 57% overall index for a A-family car is NOT the same as a 57% overall index for a B- or C-family car because we've weighted the 4 indices used to calculate the overall index different for each family. If you've been looking at the final indexes and thinking that "gee, shouldn't a Type R with a 65% index be running with a C5 Corvette since it also has a 65% index?", the whole basis of your analysis is faulty.

To address this situation, you need to take the Excel spreadsheet that is currently being used for indexing the cars (available to everyone online at the SoloOntario website) and set it up so that all the cars (regardless of family) are indexed using the SAME weighting system. The CCC developed our 'suspension rating' index collectively for all the cars listed in the rulebook, so a 50% rating IS the same across families though the weighting of this index for the overall index score of a car is different from family to family. If you accept that we're in the right ballpark with our 'suspension ratings' then you won't need to change any of these. The rest of the data is taken largely from 'Car Guide' and is as accurate as can be expected since they're just raw numbers like 'curb weight', 'horsepower', and 'torque'. Of course we could argue all day about how GM rates their horsepower compared to Honda, but these are the "best" number available to us despite any potential sources of error within. Assuming you don't want to use difference sources for your raw data and more or less agree with our suspension ratings, all you have to do is weight the indices however you like to create the overall index for each car and sort from highest to lowest. Once you've done that, you'll see how all the cars TRULY stack up against each other. As it is, I don't believe you've actually seen how this will look since it is apparent from your earlier post that you've been looking at the overall index and comparing across families.

Once you've made these changes to the spreadsheet, have a look at the overall ordering of the cars and ask yourself "if I break these down into X number of families and X number of classes, will this create a competitive and fair series for the majority of competitors?". Furthermore, ask yourself "are the X number of families and X number of classes I've just created using this indexing system going to be robust enough to foster fair competition among the cars grouped together as they become more and more modified?". If you can anwer a resounding yes to both of these questions, then I think you're onto something really special. The CCC went through this very process more times than I care to remember and we couldn't not answer yes to both.
If, however, you can and feel that most other competitors would agree with you then I would URGE you to bring this classification system to the Open House on Saturday and show us how it works.

Without taking the time to make a fair comparison of all the cars based on their overall index numbers by using the spreadsheet to re-index all cars based on the same weightings, you're actually making arguements in favour of a system you haven't even taken an honest look at yet. Furthermore, by encouraging other competitors to make comparisons based on data that isn't comparable across families, we're actually getting further and further away from a more competitive and equitable classification system and thus Solo1 series.

That's the only light I can shed on this issue. Take from it what you will, but I hope that you'll all at least make an honest attempt at looking at an indexing system with index weightings that are the same for ALL cars before arguing for a change of this magnitude.

Dave

[Dave Barker]

Dave Pratte , before you go too far on the issue of calculatling PI you should refer to the 5th paragraph of my original post . I , and I think most of the people on this forum , are well aware of the different weights given to torque , susp etc . in the different classes and that at this stage no one can say which class they would be in until the PIs are calculated using the same weighting . If you had read my original post more thoroughly you could have saved yourself alot of typing . The original suggestion of having a class made up with a PI spread of 5 was just to get us down to 12 classes ( or fewer) .

Within A 2 class there is a PI spread of 15 points and I would think most competitors would feel that 5 points would be more competitive given the total range in A class alone is over 40 points . Its just that with or without improvements some of those cars presently in B and C classes would be running directly with us as opposed to in parallel classes that run similar times and are also undersubscribed .

Also Dave , there would be NO SS or SP classes so I'm not sure what you are referring to .


I don't pretend that this simplistic system would be " perfect" nor do I believe in the unwavering accuracy of the calculation of PIs . Unfortunately the present system has left us with , in my mind and at least a few others , too many classes and I think needs to be modified . Rather than having people compete in classes with wide ranging PIs lets let them compete in more tightly controlled classes and get over the idea that once a car is modified it can't compete against a stock car no matter how little or great the mods may be . ( The z06s have proved that a false premise )

Also this proposed system would let anyone improve their car by just 1 or 2 points and still be competitive within the same class or the one with the 5 point PI spread immediately above . In the present system its all or none if you want to be competitive . I would certainly suspect all SS and SP winners this past year ( assuming there were enough entries to actually have a declared winner ) had maximal points for their given class which for an A3 , B3 or C3 car means spending alot of money . ( Actually I don't believe ANY of the improved classes were won by a car from these root classes )

Frankly with this system we could finallly charge prep points for the most obviously overlooked performance improvement ,
race tires . Up until now we have not been prepared to charge points for race tires because many stock cars run them and want to be called " stock " .and not jump into an " improved" class where they may be up against much more highly modified cars . We all know that race tires are likely the single biggest improvement we can put in our cars and with the PI system of classification the addition of tires would only mean that the jump up in class would be livable and not devastating as it might be now if we charged points for race tires . It also means that a newbie on street tires could be competitive without having to spend $ for rims and tires , surely something that would attract new comers.

[Dave]

Dr. Dave, sorry if I have partially misunderstood your proposal. I did read your earlier posts but I've clearly misunderstood your intention to do away with SS and SP classes but rather use a sliding scale of sorts where you'd move up from your "root" grouping to higher ones should you make any modifications to your car. This is correct? It's an interesting idea and certainly one with merits, though as you've recognized in your original post there are also potential problems.

Things that concern me about it:

1) How to assign a PI value to modifications for every car? As you've recognized in your orginal post, some cars are going to benefit far more than others from modification. Headwork, for example, on a GM engine can often yield major horsepower numbers because their stock heads are known to be quite restrictive. On the other hand, Honda heads are far less restrictive from the factory and generally only minor gains can be realized by porting&polishing the head. Do we charge the same PI increase for this modification for all cars? I think this opens a huge can of worms. Any thoughts on how your proposed system would deal with this problem equitably? I don't have any answers, just looking for more input on your ideas so that I can make better sense of them.

2) Cars at the lowest level have a lot of different options (if I'm now understanding your proposal clearly) in terms of classes since they can move up many classes with various modifications. But what about the cars that start at the top of this scale? They have nowhere to go so presumably they stay in their root class regardless of the level of modifications they make? Is this right? Doesn't this pose a fairly major problem for guys that start off with top ranked cars like the Z06? All it would take is for one of these guys to start making modifications and he'll be way ahead of the class, forcing everyone one else to match this in an endless spree of spending. Not sure the Z06 boys would like that too much. This is an extreme example perhaps, but all the cars in the top 1/3 of the initial index will have reduced class options compared to our current system and compared to all the cars below them in your proposed system. So from this standpoint, we're not starting from a system that treats all cars equally in terms of class choices, though perhaps this shouldn't be a goal at all.

Unless you propose to develop PI values for every modification for every car classified, I don't think you'll be able achieving a competitive balance once cars are modified (which represents over 50% of the cars brought out for competition). This, in my tiny brain at least, is a pretty serious problem with the proposal. This is not to say that it's impossible to address, since theoretically PI values could be developed for different modifications for a good number of cars that compete or perhaps a fair system to do so could be developed. It's not impossible, it'll just be a lot of work and it is certainly filled with the same possibilities for inequity as any other system I've come across. I'm not sure this would be an improvement over the 'car type' system we've got now to be honest.

Why do you want to attach a prep point value to R-compounds? I agree that using R-compounds is one of the best mods you can make in terms of on-track lap times, but these are available to everyone and they're not particularly expensive, especially when compared to ultra-high performance street tires. I tend to think that r-compounds are also safety enhancing (more grip equals more control), though perhaps you'd disagree with this. My initial thought about charging people prep points for r-compounds is that it will inevitably lead to some of us hunting for the stickiest ultra-high performance street tires that money can buy, which will have performance capabilities close to r-compounds, but cost A LOT more and will allow people to stay in their root class with very little loss in tire performance. I think this would have the net effect of increasing tire costs for those wanting to stay in their root class.


Anyway, my apologies for misunderstanding your initial proposal. I hope I now have a clearer understanding of it. Please know that I appreciate all the thought you've put into this and I am, for one, taking your proposal seriously. At the same time I'm trying to be as critical of it as I can because this is how problems are identified and addressed. I'm trying to understand and test your proposal as best I can. I'm sure you understand this, but sometimes communicating via a messageboard can lead to misunderstandings, as I've already demonstrated.

Best regards,
Dave Pratte

[Rob McAuley]

I can see a number of classes above the stock A1 where there would be room for improved Z06's (and other cars in lower classes with lots of mods).

Some of this is repitition, but for Dave P's sake, I'll repeat it...

A number of people have mentioned that the same mods on different cars will produce very different performance results. However, it may be true that the more mods one does, the less the incremental gain.

So we could do a sliding scale. The actual numbers would have to be worked out, but the first 5 prep points would add say, 2 PI points per prep point. The next 5 prep points would add one PI point per prep point, and after that, you are charged 0.5 PI points for each prep point.

R-compounds would count as 3 points. We may have to come up with a list of "certified" R-compounds. If we really wanted to get ambitious, we could rank tires: Hoosiers & Kumos cost 3 points, Toyos and BFG are 2, Yokes are 1.

I feel the tire points are important. I've heard from a number of novices that they wanted to learn on street tires, then go to track tires when they were more comfortable with the tracks (they'd rather spin off going slow than spin off going fast). I've also heard from people in my class that they are frustrated that they cannot be competive without investing $2000 in rims and tires.

I hope the CCC can work all this out - It'll be interesting to see how this can work!

[Dave Barker]

Dave , I appreciate your candor . Yes I would assume no prepared or improved classes as such and yes the upper 2 or 3 classes would not likely improve their class much as they already have well prepared cars right out of the box . I don't think this lack of variety of improved classes will likely be much of a hardship for cars with PIs of 70 or over . If it proved to be a problem then we could always add a class for 75-80 PI cars specifically . None of the improved Z06s this year beat any of the stock Z06s which likely indicates the laws of diminishing returns etc. There always is the situation of someone who wants to spend cubic dollars to win but we already have that with no
Vipers running yet.

I know that different improvements have more or less effect on different cars making it difficult to determine prep points in an equal way for all cars . ON the other hand , with this system the driver has more flexibility in how much and what he wants to improve . Therefore if head work is not overly effective on a Honda and causes too much of a move " up-class " then don't do it and spend your points where they are more effective . I think the biggest problem is not between front vs rear drivers etc but between cars that are hot off the show room floor and those that are dogs that can transform with some work . New springs work very well on a stock Mustang and likely have minimal effects on a Z06 but there is a law of diminishing returns here as well .
Putting 12 or more prep points into a Mustang is still not likely going to give you a Z06 beater even though ( at a ratio of PI index change to prep point of 2:1) the car would have to move up 4-5 classes from its root class . (We could possibly have a sliding scale for the ratio of PI change to prep points , 2;1 for the first 5 prep points , 1.5:1 for the next 5 and so forth ) . Therefore I don't think the upper class cars need to worry about mega modified lower PI cars cleaning up. It certainly hasn't happened this past year as I stated that no winner of an improved class came from A3 B3 or C3 .

I still agree this generalization of prep points across the board is less than ideal but calculating different values for different mods for different cars is obviously ridiculously complicated and not necessary . I would suggest that this generalization is acceptable in the name of good competition .

Your comments on assessing points for race rubber are well taken yet I feel that if we don't assess at least one point for race tires we are hurting our beginners . Most experienced drivers would rather spend the money on race tires but most beginners with stock cars are not so keen . Spending much more money for a street tire that is almost as good vs taking one prep point is not good sense unless you are already the top car in your class with the highest PI without wanting to go up into the next class . All the cars that are 3-5 prep points below you in your same class could easily decide to use race rubber and beat you after you had spent all that money . Certainly it gives the lower cars in a class a chance to make the competition even closer.

[Pete M]

I have to admit, I have not really been overly active in both the viewing of this thread, nor the general postings.My apologies. Now, to the task at hand.

I too had misunderstood the general concept of Dave B's proposal. I tend to agree with Dave P's thought that to properly asess (sp?) relative value of ANY mod, one must go through each and EVERY possibility for every car classified. So, to one car a cam might be worth a certain amount, but a different amount for a different car. Also, alignment points would be similarly assessed differently for each vehicle. Am I geting the jist of the concept enough to be properly discussing it?

One of the general ideas that we kind of strove for was that each "really good" example of a car's version was still going to be available to compete with, once a lesser versino of that car had done the same mods. Who cares if one starts with a Z28 or a basic Camaro, if you both do the same mods, why shouldn't you compete against each other?

The reason for the general groupings is that as cars move up their performance modification paths, in general a lower displacement, and normally aspirated engined car responds no where nearly as well as say a larger, less high tech or forced induction car. As an example, an Integra Type R, a 97+ Prelude, a 90+ Talon turbo, and a BMW 328i all have similar performances in stock form, but as soon as you start to modify thes cars, their performances tend to spread. The Type R is already pretty much done when it comes to engine development, where a turbo Talon has a fair amount of potential still available. It is not too far fetched to imagine a 350hp Talon, but you are not going to get anywhere close to that in a reliable package in a Type R until you super or turbocharge it. So, we would need to develop a complete point prep schedule for each car as they move up the groups. We would then get into the situation that the points assessed would be VERY subjective. We have striven to make this classification system as "untouchable" as possible. Once we decide, you just plug in the new car, and out pops it class. Does this create good and bad cars in each class? Of course, but at least you get a situation where similar cars are competing against each other. why on earth would I want to be competing aginast a Camaro, if I were in a Type R? I would surely pray for rain each event, or hope that we go to a tight track. The problem is that those 2 cars are so different in concept, ANY change in condition would upset the relative competitiveness. I just used those 2 cars as an example, but the problem is the basic design of each type of car.

Are you guys following me? This is a very serious problem with just having 12 classes of relative performance. How far down should a Viper start? And how far up a Yugo? We have to leave room for improvement, and the possibility of car manufacturers bringing out worse cars. Then, as mods go up, each type of car will need to be assessed a different amount of points. I am very concerned about someone deciding what those points are.

As a competitor, I want to compete with cars that are similarly prepped, and of similar type. Is this a difficult concept to grasp?

Also, on a similar note, it would be very difficult to assess prep points for R-tires. Would we do it as a performance increase over the OE tire? Or just as a number of points across the board? I dont believe it is such a big problem, and to be honest, this is the first time I have been aware of interest in charging points for it. How many competitors do not have at lest one extra set of wheels and tires, and a novice cannot possible expect to be competitive on his stock tires in his first year.

Anyways, I think that I may have rambled too long, and I would like to say that I wil try to be more aware of this message board, as I think the rest of the CCC already is. If I have raised any interest, or questinos, feel free to inquire, and respond.

Pete Mills
CCC guy

[Taylor]

I gotta side with Dave on the R-Compound thing. Saftey/Safety/Safety. Allowing them with no penalty promotes their purchase (BTW, we have 2 major tire sponsors in the Series don't forget). If a rookie can come to an event and be within 1-2 seconds of the class winner on streets, then give him the class win because that'd be one hell of a feat.

Requiring points for race tires would force a classification system change.

Maybe I'm out of touch, but is street vs. race tires what keeps new people away? I can't imagine that.

Although I'm in favor of an non-weighted index based system, I agree the prep-points part would be highly subjective. (But have a look at the current stock classes and tell me if some of the cars in certain classes really belong with others in it's class). The only solution with the family system is to make more stock classes (or move dominating stock cars to SS). In the interest of simplicity perhaps the current system just needs some massaging. But I think that requires moving some A1, B1 and C1 stock cars to SS classes. Fact is, the Z06 IS an improved C5. To have them in the same class just isn't fair.

To quote Dave:
"Doesn't this pose a fairly major problem for guys that start off with top ranked cars like the Z06? All it would take is for one of these guys to start making modifications and he'll be way ahead of the class, forcing everyone one else to match this in an endless spree of spending. " <- umm.. how is this any different from what's happening now? Notice how there was no ASS1 this year? :)

We could always run a system in parallel to the current one. This way it proves promising to the people that want a change, and would be the basis of proof those that don't want a change.

Dave, I could write a program that worked online to re-work the results of an event based on your classification system. They could be compared and at the end of the season and a far more educated decision could be made. Plus the numbers could be worked and reworked to find a proper balance for individual modifications PI's.

[Pete M]

Just an addition.
If I were to recieve effectively a bonus number of prep points, then I would surely consider street tires. How about old R tires? Would they be considered less of an R?
The problem is not of a lessening of the performance gained from increased numbers of mods, so much as each car responds differently. Especially when it comes to power. A low displacement car is never gonna be able to compete with larger engined cars, because of the ultimate power potential. We have to class our cars based upon stock cars, but at least half of our competitors run modified vehicles. It is hard, but I actually feel we have a pretty good balance in our current system. Could it do with some tweaking? I think I would be being arrogant if I felt it didnt.
Anyways, ahead we go....
Pete Mills

[Dave]

Wow! Good feedback from Rob and Dr. Dave! Thanks for your continued input.

Dave and Rob, relatively minor issues like assigning prep points for r-compounds aside, there's really no reason why your system couldn't be applied. As I've stated earlier, I think it would work extremely well for stock classes and although it would seem strange from a viceral standpoint to be racing Type R's against C4 Corvettes, I think the lap times of these cars in stock form would probably be quite close. It would be fun in a untraditional sort of way and I don't think too many people would object as long as the classes were competitive (meaning we get the balance of the index as close to ideal as possible).

However, my major concern still revolves around cars once they're modified. Lets say, as way of example, that an Integra Type R and a C4 Corvette start in the same root class. In the CCC's early modeling of this type of system the Type R fell within the top 25% of cars and very close to the C4, thus my use of them in this example. The problem with this scenario is that as you modify a Type R, your net gain in terms of performance is much less than with something like a C4 Corvette. A Type R with 10 prep points spent on it will be darn quick, but it will not be anywhere near as quick as 10 point C4 Corvette in my opinion, just by virtue of the different engines in the two cars. I think this essentially forces the Type R (and lots of other factory hot rods) to remain in stock form to be competitive, because other "lesser" cars with greater performance potential once modified will eat their lunch in higher classes. I'm uncomfortable with a system that forces a car to remain in stock class just to be competitive.

One of the goals of the CCC was to develop a classification system that gave every car a stock class to begin from (we didn't have that last year, with some cars starting in SuperStock) and also to give every car at least one SuperStock level of prep and a Street Prepared level of prep to choose from (and within which they have a decent chance at being competitive). Obviously not every car can be competitive at every level of prep, but our goal was to make as many cars as possible competitive at as many different prep levels as possible. One of the outcomes of this is a greater number of stock classes and an increase in the overall number of classes as well, which is in conflict with the notion being expressed in this thread that competition comes from population. We tended to operate more from a "increase the number of cars having a chance at being competitive (meaning class leading) as opposed to having a lot of competition (meaning a lot of cars in a given class). This are certainly differing philosophies, and they're not mutually exclusive. We can strike a happy medium somewhere, though obviously there is some sentiment here that we haven't found the right balance yet. That being said, i would like to reiterate an earlier statement that having a lot of cars in a class doesn't mean it's a competitive class. For example, when my car was running semi-well in C/SP trim I won my class by 3 seconds at the DDT track (event #8 this year) and yet there were 6 cars in my class, the second place driver being my Dad in the same car.

Anyway, if we agree that underpopulation is the most important deficiency of the current system (and I'm not sure how many people feel this is the case, though I agree it is an issue to be concerned about), then there's three approaches we can take to address it as far as I can tell so far:

1) reduce the number of stock classes we've got under the current system (ie. eliminate level 3 within the families and re-divide the cars based on a 2 level root class system).

2) increase attendance via publicity and recruitment

3) Adopt a new system that reduces the number of classes and also revamps the method used for classifying cars in general (ie. your indexing-only approach).

Option 1 is easily enough done and would likely reduce the number of underfilled classes significantly, though I'm not sure if it will completely address the problems Dr. Dave and others are concerned with.

Option 2 is also a possibility, particularly since I think we had a down year due to car failures and a lower than usual turn-out of rookies.

Option 3 is also a possibility, though it not only addresses the population issue but also changes the entire basis of the classification system. This is clearly the most radical approach of the three. In all honesty, I'm not sure that the powers-that-be are willing to go to this extent without giving the current system (with some modifications) more than 1 season to fully test it. This option is the hardest sell in my mind not only because it sets us back to year 1 again but also because I'm not convinced it will make for more competitive classes overall. It will reduce the number of classes and it will make for competitive classes if all cars were unmodified, but I remain unconvinced of it's ability to deal accurately and fairly with cars that have undergone various stages of modification.

To convince me (and I'm speaking just as a little ole Dave, not as an omnipotent and vengeful CCC member), I'd want to see some statistical testing of the the proposed system. This would mean developing a index to apply to all cars (easy enough, considering the availability of the spreadsheet), developing a PI point system for modifications (this will be some work, for sure), and then applying these points to a good number of known cars that have competed in the series, seeing what classes they fall into under the proposed system and then compare them based on lap times from this season. If the lap times show that the classes remain competitive using this PI prep point system for the majority of cars, I'd be convinced. At this point, I think the proposed system would become a much more viable option, at least it would in my mind.

I would encourage you guys (meaning Dr. Dave, Rob, and anyone else interested) to actually do some basic testing of your system and see how the results look. I know we bitter, angry and confused CCC folk will be much more open-minded about proposals making sweeping changes to the system if we could clearly see some data to support the theory. I garauntee you'd have our full attention at that point, but we're not likely to do the legwork for you because we've already come up with a system we're comfortable with. I don't think any of us think what we've developed is perfect, far from it, but after all the time we pumped into it I doubt any of us are willing to do the amount of work that is involved in flushing out your proposal. I'm just being honest here, and I hope I'm not misrepresenting the CCC in any way, but this is my take on things.

To paraphrase 'A Field of Dreams', build it and they will listen...

Dave

[Dave]

Wow again! Missed Taylor's post. TayTay, I really like your ideas of developing a on-line program to test the proposed system and I also really like your idea of running a parrallel classification system next year to test it. This second proposal, in my mind at least, is a good middle ground in that it gives the current system another year to work out some of the bugs to see it's potential more fully realized and at the same time we'll have some hard data on Dr. Dave's system so that we can do a true apples-to-apples comparison and decide at that point which system serves the Solo 1 community best. I am all for this, though I encourage you in the meantime to pursue your simulated testing of the system as well.

TayTay, we finally agree about something! w00t! It's party time! To me the street tire issue is moot, since there is nothing stopping a rookie from competing on street tires as it is. He's not going to be competitive on them, but if he wants to learn on them and then ease his way onto R-compounds he has that option. I don't think we should be discouraging the use of R-compounds since in my mind they are a clear safety enhancing product (faster yes, but waaaaaay more controllable IMO) that are purpose built for what we're doing.

Ok TayTay, to quote myself and you all at once...
To quote Dave:
"Doesn't this pose a fairly major problem for guys that start off with top ranked cars like the Z06? All it would take is for one of these guys to start making modifications and he'll be way ahead of the class, forcing everyone one else to match this in an endless spree of spending. " <- umm.. how is this any different from what's happening now? Notice how there was no ASS1 this year? <-- it's not different, and that's my point. There is no improvement being made, so why would we make this change? Change for change's sake alone won't do it. We need to see tangible and real improvements to make starting all over again with a new system worthwhile.

Would you believe I have about 40 essays to mark for Wednesday and I've barely touched them all day! You guys are responsible for my professional neglegence so stop with all your bright ideas already! :)

Dave

[Taylor]

Yeah I can't argue that the proposed system, at this time, does not prove to be problem free. But I think without a doubt it creates higher populated classes with cars (stock at least) that'd be very competitive with one another in 12 or so classes.

I think something that has more impact on attracting new drivers is perhaps the registration stuff that was brought up earlier. Though a "simplified"(on the surface) classification system with fewer classes would be easier to grasp for any newcomers.

You know... one of the things that was NOT explained at the Solo 1 school.. was scoring and the classification system. I suppose you don't want to confuse the new people, but it's took/taken me a while to understand it.

BTW, Can anyone explain to me why the 3-cars-needed-for-a-class rule exists? (someone buying a $500 C3 car with no C3 comptetitors and winning overall?.. I guess that's a reason. :) At least my class won't have any population problems under the current system next year :)

[Dave Barker]

The main complaint about this proposed system is that it's not "FAIR " that various improvements work differently on different cars even though the driver has full control on which and how many improvements he/she would make and should be capable of deciding ahead of time what should work and what wouldn't . In other words we have to have a system that allows a 10 point Integra to only run against other 10 point cars of similar ilk ( which may be a very lonely class )

Mean while in our currant system , just to give a few examples , in A2 we expect a 2 nd gen RX7 to run against an S2000 Honda . We expect a 4 cylinder mustang to run against an 8 cyl , Mustang in A 3 . How about a Mercedes C class 4 cyl. against a BMW 330 in B2 ?? . It strikes me that the existing inequities are far greater than those proposed in this post . In other words we are now sacrificing competition in stock classes to keep the improved classes happy . ( Interestingly I am in an improved class and I'm not happy )

[Pete M]

I am not sure that the problem with the propsed rule set is that it isn't fair, but it really has no basis in why we would group a set of car together, other than they go the same speed, lap time wise. If the response to this is that is not the case, as we would use the PI to determine that, the only way we are gonna get a comparable set of cars, time wise, is that we modify and change the formula to group them the way we want.

SO, we have a set of cars that go the same speed in stock form, in the dry. To remain competitive in a modded version, I have to make sure I have the right car to modify.

I am expected to choose my mods properly if I am to move up the groups. Why? So that we can have closer competition in stock classes? As an owner of a lower displacement vehicle, I would really be nervous about modifying my car.

I don't know if we (the CCC) is being arrrogant in the way we see this suggested rules changes, just because we have hashed this out so many times or not, but it simply doesn't look right. Why should a Corvette and an Integra (albeit a very good one) compete together, just because they post the same times?

When I started this sport, a stock 1.8L VW GTI and a stock 5L Mustang competed together. Why? Simply because they were close in some conditions, on some tracks. I surely don't believe that promoted good competition, but it made for good population.

I am not sure I want to see the car classifications go towards that.

Rant mode off.

Pete

[Dave]

Dr. Dave, once again you make some valid points. I agree that there are plenty of examples of "lesser" model variants like 4cyl mustangs and 6cyl Camaros that have a greatly reduced chance to be competitive under our current 'car type' family system. The CCC was aware of this problem when we developed it, but we felt it was the lesser evil than going with a system like yours which groups car on stock potential when modified potential diverges in all directions depending on the type of car we're dealing with. The reason we saw this as the lesser evil is based on looking at what kind of cars we've had come out to compete over the past 5 years. We don't exactly see a lot of 4cyl mustangs or 6cyl Camaros and I think this is the case for a reason. We don't see these cars because the people who buy them generally speaking aren't car enthusiasts. People who want to run their car in the Solo 1 series likely are enthusiasts and in the vast majority of cases buy the 'sports' or higher version of the model available because they appreciate and plan to use that extra performance.

Every classification system has inherent bias. All you can do as a rulesmaker is be aware of this bias and attempt to make a decision based on this awareness that disadvantages the fewest number of potential competitors. Now I'm hearing complaints about 4cyl Mustangs and 4cyl Benzes but how many of these are we likely to see? At the same time, I believe your system will hurt the competitiveness of factory race cars, of many small displacement cars that are very good in stock form (such as Hondas, which make a large proportion of Solo 1 population). I would personally opt for a system that gives the cars that we see come out on a regular basis a good competitive home. In C-family I believe we've succeeded quite well in this regard and we have already taken steps to make it more so. And lets not forget that C-family makes up almost half of all our competitors from this season. I count about 61 C-family competitors from this years final standings, out of 133 total. In A-family we've got the Z06 making things very difficult for a lot of people and again we have made chances to address this, which we plan to make public at the Open House. In B-family, we had one of the most competitive classes in B/SS1 but that's not say we got things perfect here either. Again, we've made changes that we'll announce on Saturday.

To be quite frank, we opted for our 'car type' system for more than just logical reasons. We tended to agree as a group that 'car types' do exists and that it makes "sense" for them to compete against each other. I readily admit that 'car types' are difficult to define at times and this is another area of the rulebook that we will continue to work on, but we ended up operating from a position that similar 'types' of cars should be competing against each other because their ultimate performance potential will tend to converge as they are modified due to the similiarities they share in design. This perspective was eventually chosen because of the experiences of various CCC members wil car modifications. Though I'm fairly inexperienced in this area other than with Hondas, Pete and Eric in particular have both done a lot of modifying of different cars over the years and in Pete's case has competed in a lot of different series from Solo 2, to Solo 1, to Regional Racing, to the Honda Michelin and then Firehawk series, to IT racing in the States. It was really based on this experience that we agreed that different 'types' of cars react differently under modification and because of this reality we need to group cars based on their 'type' if the groupings are to be competitive at all levels of modification.

Beyond our 'car type' rationale, we decided that it makes the most sense to market our series to enthusiasts who tend to buy the best variant model of the car of their choice and set up the groupings accordingly. However, with the update/backdate or 'Model Variant' rule in the new rulebook, lesser models can update to non-drivetrain parts from their faster siblings and engine swaps are also an option at higher prep levels. Similarly, because many of the "lesser" models end up in the 3-root class of their family, they do have a lot of prep points to work with and can actually build a very fast car as I have attempted to do with my C3 Honda Civic hatchback. Heck, even before I did my engine swap I was very competitive in C/SS2 with the anemic stock engine that comes in the economy CX model of my car. Not all "lesser" variants are doomed to be uncompetitive, though it may take a bit more creativity to make them fast.

I believe you've already mentioned that under your proposal owners will have to make decisions about whether or not to move up a class based on how competitive they think their car will be and they will also have to make decisions about which mods maximize their performance advantage. I see these decisions being more complicated under your proposed system because you've got a much broader range of car types at every level and the modifications system in its present form expects every owner to understand which modifications will benefit their "type" of car the best. Inherent is this modification system is the realization that there are differences between car types, yet there is no attempt to deal with this reality. I remain uncomfortable with leaving this element of the rulebook to chance. My point being, the current rulebook may seem complicated to some but I don't think this proposal is necessarily moving towards anything more simplistic. In fact, I would argue that it's more complicated for the individual competitor for the reasons I've just outlined.

Looking forward to further discussion on this.

Cheers,
Dave

[Dave Barker]

Pete Mills , I don't see that running a bunch of cars that run similar lap times together in the same class is such a bad thing. On some tracks the advantage might go to one car and on another track under other conditions the advantage would go to another . How is this a bad thing ?? I ended up often judging myself in how I ran against Chris Sorenson , Bruce Murphy , Victor delCol and Jud Buchanan in B classes even though we were not competiing directly but ran similar times .


The other main purpose of proposing this system is to decrease the number of classes and other than splitting B class into A and C class I have not heard any other suggestion to decrease the number of classes from the bloated 18 that we have now .

Also Pete , I wouldn't be too nervous about running a small displacement car in higher classes due to modifications as I suspect if we use a standard calculation of PI that most small displacement cars ( with the exception of the Type R ) will have low enough PIs to allow lots of mods before they get up against unmodified V8s let alone modified ones . Hopefully Taylor can get a program running for the calculation of PI across the board .


BTW if some mods are so relatively ineffective in certain cars i.e. head work in a Type R , then why do it ??? The majority of us and virtually all of our novices drive street legal cars without head work . It seems strange to have a system that is designed to protect people that spend alot of money on modifications that may or may not work from others who spend money on mods that DO work .

[Dave Barker]

BTW CCC guys . I will remind you that the vote is presently 23 to change vs only 7 to keep the status quo . I know that a total of 30 does not represent the whole solo 1 community but there does seem to be a fair impetus to change from a moderately large sample size .

[Dave]

Dr. Dave, just one quick observation about the poll itself. I don't think it's fair nor statistically accurate for you to conclude that simply because 23 people have voted for change that this means doing away with the current system is what these people want.

As a social scientist I do this sort of surveying of populations for a living so I know all too well the pitfalls that exist when you attempt to address a complex issue with only two rather oppositional choices. By giving people only two choices, you've essentially forced everyone with even the smallest beef with the "status quo" as you call it to select the other option, namely your proposed "indexing-only" system. In other words, if competitor X is sitting in his computer chair pondering these 2 dichotomous options and he agrees that perhaps we have a few two many classes or that a few cars seem misplaced within their family and he wants to express his concern about this, he's left with no option but to vote for the extreme option of totally reinventing the entire classification system. I think if you had of given people a few more carefully worded options (like "modify the existing system to address the population problems" or "modify the weighting of the indices within the existing system to better reflect the performance potential of all cars") you would not see such skewed results. As far as I'm concerned, this poll is of very little value from a scientific perspective and I for one will not be using it for the basis of any personal decisions I may make about the merits of your proposal.

Once you, Rob, and Taylor flush out the system a bit more and run it through some tests, we'll be able to do a poll of the membership that allows them to express their opinion from a fully informed position, rather than one based on an interesting classification idea that none of us can say will work better than what we've got.

That's my opinion on the poll.

Dave Pratte

[Taylor]

First off.. I agree with Pratte, the "one-or-the-other" form of the poll is not exactly scientific. About all it does is indicate that 70%+ recognize holes/issues with the current system that they'd like to see changed. I'm sure the CCC feels the exact same way, otherwise you wouldn't be announcing changes in classification this coming weekend. I think we're all agreeing it's not perfect and can never really come close to it without highly subjective elements.

Outside of that message about the poll...I love how I've been grouped into this like it was my idea. :)

The first poll was whether I thought there were too many classes. I forget how I voted at that point, but I know it wasn't "No, it's perfect the way it is". :) Though I probably voted for a new system as I believe an index only system is the fairest way to pit cars against another. I feel in that case it's more about the driver or the mechanic than money or luck.

The next question was an either/or vote on Daves idea. I like it, if it can be made to work, I think it's the way to go. I'm a supporter. But I too have indicated the same reservations that those who favor keeping the current system.

Somehow throughout this I've been viewed at bashing the current system. While I've said a few times that many cars appear to be at a disadvantage based on the current system and that I felt there was a glaring problem with the E46 M3's B1 position, I dunno how exactly that equals "This existing system is a piece of shit and it needs to burn in hell". I apologize if I gave that impression, but I'm looking forward to the CCC's masssaging of the classes, it'll be interesting to see how well some of the issues being brought up can be addressed with some tailoring to the current system. I dunno, maybe I gotta read what I said again, but I didn't think I was bashing it. Though I don't deny playing devils advocate.

I'm with Pratte that change for the sake of change isn't the way to go. But I don't think this proposal should be ignored either. Hopefully it works out that I have the time to build a program that allows us to run a parallel system with this next season. I think this is the most fair way to go about it than an overnight/off-season overhaul which could prove better (or more importantly worse) than what we have now.

I'm sure I'm missing a couple things in my thinking of the top of my head here but what would be the disadvantage to splitting the system in 2, running a stock system and a modified system? The index one seems best for stock cars, and the current one seems to favor Modified cars (I'll agree that "muscle cars" should remain amungst muscle cars when they're modded, there is something to be said about varying conditions and how each type (or family, if you will) of car will handle them as well as how each type will handle modifications. Luckily for me, this, my first, season saw not one day of rain during Solo competition. So I guess I haven't even considered such a thing till Pete brought it up). Then again.. the S2000 in the same class as V8 Cameros doesn't make much sense if you want to talk about how each car responds to mods. :) You could dump 10K into the S and maybe drop a couple seconds. Drop 10K into a Camero and you'll drop like 4 times that.

8cyl vs 4cyl in the same class. Dude (Pete)... this is already happening with the current system (in a few cases). How does an 5L F-Body = a 2L 4 cyl ULEV roadster?

Anyhow... regardless, I can't wait for next season :)

[Dave Barker]

Guys , lets get back to basics here . Here are my original premises:

1) I run Solo 1 because it is fun , not to win a class

2) To have fun I need to have a number of people to run against , not necessarily beat but just run against in more or less equivalent cars .

3 ) In previous years we have had 12 street driven classes , A B C & D in stock , SS and SP forms.

4) This year we went to 18 street driven classes and the number of entrants per class decreased

5 ) Considering that we are limited for logistic reasons to about 65 street driven cars per event , the best way to ensure fun is to decrease the number of classes

6) The status quo family based system leaves us with 18 classes and in my mind less fun .

I really like running Solo 1 and am such a sucker that I probably would run with 65 classes but I'm not sure all my fellow competitors are happy with the existing system so " WHAT TO DO ????"

First I proposed a simplistic solution whereby B class which is made up of Front , Rear and All wheel drive cars is absorbed into A class for rear and all wheel drive cars and C class for front drivers . Seemed to be a good fit considering that more B cars that ran this year were rear or all wheel drive and that C class was well populated . Also B class had the fewest entrants including B1 , BSS2 and BSP that didn't have 1 driver complete 8 events . Problem was lots of people didn't see the benefit of cutting out 6 classes as worth it . Guess they didn't agree with my basic premises 1) and 2).

A poll was taken but unfortunately had way too many choices to give me or anyone for that matter , any direction .
( BTW Dave Pratte that is why my poll only has 2 choices . Of course it is simplistic but we really won't get any changes done with 65 different opinions )

Fortunately in that original post Rob McAuley came up with the idea of smaller point spreads per class . The expansion of that is what you find in this post .

SO : on Saturday ( Nov 3 ) I hope we discuss the question of whether of not we have too many classes before we get into any discussion of reclassification . If most people agree on my premises 1) and 2) then I don't see how we can continue with the present 18 family based classes . On the other hand if everyone is happy enough with the number of classes then I can't see any reason to bother changing the classification system .

Hope for a good attendance on Sat . I may have some trouble getting there on time but from looking at the poll results it seems I'm not the only one with these opinions .

[Rob McAuley]

From what I've seen, the issues are:

The Corvettes challenge anything running in an improved A class.
We don't have enough competitors to fill the classes, so people don't have anyone to race against.
Classes aren't full, so people have no shot at full points


Some suggestions and comments:

Combine B into A and C. Simple, but doesn't address the Corvette problem. Will still end up with cars running similar times in different classes. However, we will have fuller classes.
Use a linear class system. Difficult to determine how prep points affect PI for different models, so may generate inequities as different models of stock cars are modified. We can likely place cars to ensure full classes. Will allow cars in the lower range of their class to be improved without moving up a class.
Keep the system as is, but if a class is not full, compare times to the track record. Simplest to implement. This will make things more interesting than just handing out 95 or 97.5 points, but doesn't deal with the Corvettes or get people racing against other people.
Quit whining, and just get more people out to the events. Given the state of the economy, I'd wager that attendance will be down next year, so this just may not be realistic.


One of my suggestions that never went anywhere:

Adjust the class groupings from event to event, depending on the PIs of the competitors, creating "classes" of 5 cars in each. Forget about A1, ASS1, etc. We would still have a number of winners at each event, and an overall winner based on backup scores. This would make things more interesting as we move through the season, as no-one will be assured of getting 100 points in each event.


One of my comments that was shot down:

Charge Prep Points for R compound tires. Fairer to those running street compound, but complicates classification for the majority of those on the forum because we all run track tires. This is likely a bigger issue for those running in the stock classes than the improved classes. I'd suggest that this only be considered if we went to a linear classification system. And regarding R compound safety issues: People don't use them to be safe. They use them to go fast! The faster you go, the more damage you cause. Street tires tend to make a lot of noise, and let go gradually. R compounds make no noise, and let go all at once. But that discussion belongs in a different thread.


Suggested Next Steps:

Test the Prep Point / PI relationship. If there is a simple scale that we can use, then we should look at linear classes. Taylor offered to look into this, and I hope he has a chance before the meeting!
If the relationship is too complicated, and each model would require its own PP/PI scale, then we fine tune the existing family structure, but let underpopulated classes race against the track record for their class. This may need some refinement, as we need to be clear about which track record is used. I'd like to see the current year's record used, not something from a few years ago, when the classes were slightly different.

[Taylor]

Before the meeting??! Are you on drugs?

There is no way I can do this before Janurary, so forget about Tomorrow. :)

The idea was to build a program that allowed us to tweak an alternate system during the course of NEXT SEASONS Solo 1 Series :) Thats 5 months away, I fully planned on procrastinating for months :)

I'm glad to see that many of you guys support this idea, as I see it's the only fair way to do it. It allows us to prove (or disprove) the system before it's in place. And that's the right thing to do for not only the competitors but also the comittiees.

[Dave]

Quote Dave Barker:
<( BTW Dave Pratte that is why my poll only has 2 choices . Of course it is simplistic but we really won't get any changes done with 65 different opinions )>

So are you saying the point of your poll is to get changes done? If so, that's a pretty awful admission of bias if you ask me. I would have hoped that you and anyone else unhappy with the current system would operate from a position of "lets see what we can do to make things better" rather than "lets see if we can get some changes done". These are two very different things, since we have no idea if the changes you are proposing will make things better. This may be symantics, but the difference is important in my mind if nobody elses.

Dr. Dave, you know full well I'm not suggesting we use 65 different options for a poll. That would be just as meaningless as using 2 options. Both are extremes and neither approach tells us what the population being polled really thinks.

Your first attempt at the poll was actually operating from a sounder scientific basis in that you gave people more than 2 dichotomous choices, but unfortunately the wording of the options didn't directly address the question being asked. Thus the confusing results. This new "simpler" poll is even less useful though, because you're treating a very complex issue with only two options, neither of which allow for the reality that a lot competitors (at least the ones I've spoken with) feel that something in between is the most appropriate approach at this time. I'm sure you get my point and I don't want to harp on it but at the same time I think it's very important for people voting in this poll realize that the results do not necessarily indicate any sort of statistically valid indication that people want to do away with the current system nor does it indicate that they whole-hearted endorse an index-only system. When dealing with a complex issue where there are a wide variety of possible responses, using less than 4 well constructed possible answers to an equally well constructed question destroys any hope of having statistically relevant data in the end. I know this for a fact not only because I've studied the science behind interviews, surveys, and polls for over 10 years now but also because I've done several large scale research projects which involved methodologies including polls and surveys and I've had to get my surveys past scientific and ethical review boards. Since nobody else is challenging the validity of this poll, somebody has to point out the problems with it.

See you guys tomorrow,
Dave Pratte

[Simon Rasmussen]

I just want to register my support for the idea of cars with a similar performance, or in my case lack of performance, being grouped together.
I also like the idea of bonus prep points for cars more than, say 20 years old. As the driver of a 36 year old car( the red Triumph )
I feel that unless you are prepared to go full race like Joe Smiley or some of the Sprites, or have a big displacement advantage like Jud's 5.7 litres against the 2.8 litre BMWs you are nowhere.
Of course we can always choose to bring a more competitive car, I am certainly not suggesting the rules need to be twisted around to suit guys like me who like weird old cars, but it would be fun to see more of the older Mustangs and Camaros able to keep up with the newer stock models.
In the meantime I am trying to get up from 91 rwhp to 100, then if I work on my driving......
See you next summer!