SCCA Runoffs

[slucas]

Starting this Saturday @ 2pm, Speed Ch. starts showing the American amature road racing national championships (aka "The Runoffs") It can be some of the best racing you'll see anywhere.

Some of the classes you may confuse with vintage (gt5 F,G&H production) but they're still fun to watch. H-Production, for instance, is made up mostly of 1959 bugeye Sprites, 948 cc's of gut wrenching power (the best ones have about 108bhp!!).

For those that may not know, the CASC followed the same rule book as SCCA for car prep. till 1977. That was when we changed to GT1,2&3 in an effort to fatten up the race class numbers.
Compare what the US is doing to what we are doing now.
Did we go down the right road?

[JohnG]

Well Scott, G-70 is sort of our Production class, GT is GT in either place, I.T. doesn't exist here, but does both on the east and west coast where they still seem to follow the SCCA much closer. S.S. has never really caught on here for more than a year or two at a time as series come and go.
Somebody sent me an email yesterday about costs for SS that was a real eye opener. I won't go into it, but if that person cares to wade into this discussion, I'm sure a lot of people would be shocked. I know I was.
I don't really think there are enough cars here to dilute the classes too much. I think things are pretty good here.
J

[slucas]

I think we took the right route too.The time and money required to do well in GT or Prod is nuts.They know they have too many classes but triing to decide who gets "kicked off the island" is a tough one.

[rmicroys]

The thing about the SCCA is they at least have the population - it's also Nationally oriented. They may not have enough support region to region, but when the Nationals are held - those are BIG grids. They at least have a National system for club racing.

[slucas]

CASC was torn asunder by the FIA (ie;Bernie E) way back when and there wasn't the heart or wearwithall to pick up the peices and carry on.The "national" unity amongst differant regions was faltering anyway as B.C. , Quebec and the Maritimes where all starting to go their own ways as far as car classes were concerned. What with racing becoming a more mainstream entertainment now and communication being so much easier, perhaps this is a good time to open up the doors to a national forum on amature racing in Canada.
What's the differance between a B.C. Honda Civic , a Nova Scotia Honda Civic and a Ontario Honda Civic?
(Three Hondas walk into a bar... )

[JohnG]

I mentioned that point last year Scott. My brother lives in Moncton and has my old BMW down there so from time to time I follow the atlantic forums. They are dying to find ways to get more "cost effective" racing and more cars. Right now they are discussing the change of rules that put certain cars from one IT class into another, rendering some cars uncompetitive. Sound familiar?
J

[slucas]

Time to start looking in on our compatriots ways of doing things.
Everywhere has the same problems and there is no reason to not work together .

[malcolm]

honestly, I think we have the right system. I would rather have guys sandbagging to keep above a 1:35 than have guys that are 1 second a lap faster that the rest because they spent $10,000 to have some cheater part embedded deep in their engine where tech inspectors might not find it even if they did actually tear an engine down.

I like how Quebec has it right now. They have an essentially open GT series that allows you to bring whatever you want and race... and then they have a Touring and GT series that are based off SWC and the NASA rules. It looks good to me.

I don't think we need to do much in terms of changing around the series rules, as are where we should be for GTABCD. As for the Touring-GT series, I have ideas for what they should do (basically, cancel the GT side of it, and focus on Touring, and move to Quebec/NASA rules, with some modifications to allow older cars, etc, with less modifications... it would have to be phased in over a few years, however. just my thoughts...).

[John Powell]

OK, point no. 1. In my opinion, ASN Canada has completely dropped the ball when it comes to club/amateur racing. Far too much autonomy has been given to the "Regions" when it comes to rule-making, which has resulted in a "Balkanization" of amateur racing across the country. In the early '60s with our CASC displacement classes, competitors frequently ran races in regions other than their own, and when we went to SCCA-based production classes, we often attracted entrants from the US, particularly those in neighbouring states. It is time for drivers and entrants to DEMAND that ASN Canada establish a NATIONAL rule structure for club racing.

Point no. 2. My apologies to Malcolm and other "youngsters" who grew up in racing with the presents GT-ABCD structure, but in my opinion bracket racing sucks! Run 1/100th of a second under your bracket time, and you're DQ'd. - no points and wear and tear on your car, plus your physical efforts, for NOTHING. If driven at the limit, my car will break out of GTC, but it is not quick enough to be competitive in GTB. When I ran in GT sprints in 2003, I had to short-shift at 8,000 to 8,500 revs to avoid breaking out on a clear lap (which wasn't often with having to watch the mirrors for GTA and the faster GTB cars). The problem then was to try to figure out how many more revs I could use in laps with traffic to avoid breaking out, and without spotters and a radio system to give me segment times, I had to play it safe and keep short-shifting, to the detriment of my lap times. My best result was when I managed to latch onto a car driven by a driver who usually finished well and rarely broke out, and go just quick enough to keep him in sight. I got a 2nd. in class, but even then that was only because Ian Law, and someone else who's name I can't remember, broke out. I would much rather run in the last half of the Touring class field while getting the most out of myself and my car than ever run in bracket racing again!

Point no. 3. From what I've been able to discern, the excuse for bracket racing seems to be that it's easier to police than a class-based system and that there are too few entrants for more classes, but to me, the Touring/GT series seems to contradict this. It is (broadly) a class-based system with fairly open rules, and the main issue right now seems to be the disparity between the faster and slower cars in Touring. There are ways to address this which are being discussed right now, and a good tool might be some adjustments to the minimum weight calculations. There are also other tools, such as establishing a "claiming" price for each year and model of car eligible, perhaps based on it's stock "book" value plus a reasonable amount for preparation based on an un-sponsored amateur owner's budget. If we can come up with a computer program to calculate weights based on "plug in" data, we should be able to to the same thing to establish a claiming price. Another tool would be a much more severe penalty structure for those caught cheating, and as for myself, I don't understand the attitude of those who cheat to win, especially in amateur racing - there's no real accomplishment, and no money at stake, so where's the sense of satisfaction? I say give anyone who's caught a 12 month suspension on the first offence, a 24 month suspension for the second (and I mean months, not racing seasons), and rip their licence up for good on the third. After all, do we really need people like that in our sport?

OK, that's enough of a rant for now. Next? :D

[malcolm]

the thing is, you don't need to sandbag. you can just get a tach with a rev-limit chip, and then put in your 8000 rpm chip, and run as hard as you can. I'll write a little more when I am not so tired... haha.

[malcolm]

to add a little bit....

you can still run in Touring-GT as it stands now. You don't need to run in GTABCD. If you don't like bracket racing, then run in TGTC. However, I don't think it's bad at all. With bracket racing, you suddenly make it so that most of the cars are within a few tenths of each other.

In other series, you need to build your car to a set of rules. This series is no different. It's just a lot easier. You can just pop in a rev-limit chip... put in your own cheap restrictor plate... go back to a stock/more restricive exhaust. Boom, all of a sudden you don't have to sand-bag. I think that's a lot easier than building up a car to an extensive rules package.

Also, with TGTC, I've heard rumblings of cheating in the paddock... never heard anything like that in GTABCD. With rules, comes cheating. It's simple. Some people want to win, no matter what the costs are.

anyway... these are just my humble opinions. :D

[John Powell]

anyway... these are just my humble opinions. Malcolm, opinions are valuable as without them there are no discussions, and without discussions it's hard to reach equitable solutions. So don't be humble about your opinions if you're open and honest about them (I'm obviously not ;) ), and hold fast to them unless someone can convince you otherwise with a reasoned, logical argument. End of advice from Old Fart. :o

I could stick to short-shifting (my car has no ECU) at the point that gets a clear lap time just short of break-out, but the problem I had was how to make up time lost in traffic without going too fast and being DQ'd. If there was a time penalty, say double the time by which you broke out applied to that lap, up to a maximum of 30 seconds or so, I probably would have risked pushing it a bit. The problem here is, could our timing system be re-programmed to accommodate such a rule? I broke out in my first race on my return to racing, and seeing the DQ after my name on the results really hit me. I had never been disqaulified when I raced previously, as at that time it implied that you were cheating and it was a black mark against you in the eyes of the other drivers. Plus which, I don't see any satisfaction if you have to cheat to win. As for not cheating in GT Sprints, the rules say no on-board timing devices allowed, but in 2003 I distinctly saw a Hot Laps (?) system installed in a car running in GTB. It may have been disconnected, but who knows? And where there's one, you can be sure that there are others, perhaps just better hidden. Sports are a reflection of life, and there will always be those that cheat to get ahead. Oh yes, and by cheating, I don't mean knowing the rules inside out and taking advantage of things that others may not have seen (although if you do, you have to realise that such loopholes are liable to be plugged by the next season, or maybe sooner :( ).

[Dave Barker]

A few observations from a Solo 1 driver,

For those of us looking to " move up" GTABCD makes a lot more sense than building a car to a certain set of rules. If you have to back off to prevent breaking out, either spend a bunch of money on your car to go faster or buy slower tires. Obviously you won't know where you will be when you first start out but you can change your car appropriately during the season. Anyone who is backing off in Turn 8 in an effort to prevent themselves from breaking out may win the trophy but I am quite sure is not having as much fun ( and isn't that why you are there??)

As far as cheating goes, the more restictive the rules, the more likely cheating is to occur. In years gone by when we had more restictive rules, we certainly had some cheating,( or creative rules interpretation) even in Solo 1, where the prizes are non existant. I don't really understand the mentality, when all that really is at stake is your own integrity.

[inoverdrive]

Originally posted by Dave Barker
A few observations from a Solo 1 driver,

If you have to back off to prevent breaking out, Anyone who is backing off in Turn 8 in an effort to prevent themselves from breaking out may win the trophy but I am quite sure is not having as much fun ( and isn't that why you are there??)



And from a Race Fan
If you have to sand bag, back off or short shift. That is NOT Racing........
How do you explain to your friend's or sponsor that came out to watch you race, that you should have won, but you had forgot to short shift!!
Doesn't make sense to me!.....

[John Powell]

Dave and Inoverdrive, you're both right. Worrying about not breaking out and short-shifting to stay within the break-out times wasn't fun, and it wasn't really racing. I bought my car used, and was told that it was competitive in GTC, which a check of the previous owner's results tended to confirm. As my qualifying time for that first race was somewhere in the high 1:43s or low 1:44s I thought I was safe BUT, during the race I got into a dice with another car (for 5th in class, I think), and the old competitive spirit took over. I broke out in my last two laps, the last lap by about a quarter of a second, and that's when I realised that I was going to have problems if I didn't try to find a way to stay within the bracket times, or move up to GTB. Then I checked the times of the top runners in GTB, and realized that there wasn't a hope of getting close to them, so that was out. I never was a fan of drag racing, so the whole idea of bracket racing was foreign to me, and in my opinion, drag racing can keep it.