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JenC,  did you actually bother to read my second post.  It makes clear that the first post was a joke.

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2002 Mercedes C230k, retired, 2005 Nationals STU DFL

1969 Beach Solo Vee and 1985 Lynx B Solo Vee

Your right, hand waiving and cooing wont be good enough; but, how is adding new cars any different than manufacturers building new cars that have to be classed? Some of them are competitive, some aren't, but they are all added to classes that have been around since the beginning of time. That is maturity. STS may not be as mature, but it is a mature class nonetheless, and we have also seen a good number of people leave for other classes, including yourself.

 I know that isn't reasonable justification as to why new cars should be classed into the existing structure, Im just saying it's not a real reason to not preclude the reclassing or insertion of additional cars. SP might get a potential reorg in the near future, ala Best of Breed, there has been alot of talk, and alot of nervousness about it. If that is the case, I could see why they would not want to do all of this at once, but I can also see how its better to get it all done at once, especially with these newer classes.

 
I would love to see more diverse cars in the ST classes. I think the tire limitations help neutralize the performance inequities among the different cars. You can only push so hard on a 245 tire, or mount so big a tire on a 7.5" rim. I love that I can drive to the event on my race tires and drive home. And while this isn't as true for STX/U as it is for STS/2 and even less so now that the Bridgestones are available, I love that I can autox on a competitive tire that costs less than $100/corner, and I think others do too.


 

 

 

amaff:

AST, BST, CST, etc etc 

 

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'91 CRX Si (STS2)

amaff:

Why not have a class structure like the rest of the classes?  I think that would clear up a lot, and not force every car to fit 1 of 4 categories.

AST, BST, CST, etc etc 

ha!.. we've had a structure like that in Houston for several years, and of late, it gets attacked every year by people who want to

consolidate them into the national ST classes b/c they believe that that much diversity dillutes competition.  I personally think

it's a good way to go, but can also see the point that with that setup -and- the national ST classes (speaking only of Houston's unique situation),

that a fair bit of dillution can result.  Currently, there's only 1 regular competitor in STX, for example.  STU on the other hand, has at least 10 people per

event... though no real fast guys (the last one defected to AS this year). 
 

We call them 'STx' though.. STA--STF, and they largely follow the SP classes, rules-wise... other than tires of course.

 

Now, doing away with the current four ST classes and adding two more to make 'A though F' probably won't dillute things that much. 

 

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#555 STU HouSCCA
underprepped and proud of it! ( or just very, very cheap, your call :p )

Ok I agree with Scott in that there are some inconsistencies in the way some cars are classed.

 

 

But with everyone else jumping off onto tangents about creating 10 new ST classes...I don't get it. A few points:

1. Making more classes just distributes participation even more thinly than what we already have (dilution). Wasn't there a discussion recently about a championship in a class with 5 people as compared to 30?

2. If it isn't broke - why are we trying to fix it?

3. I don't know if anyone has noticed lately but the fastest, most well developed ST cars don't get driven to events.

4. Street tires suck for racing. We are "racing" remember? You think someone who spends 60k on a car for SS plans on skimping out on tires and says "hey why don't I run a street tire class at nationals instead of the more fun and faster stock class?" The only people that will run in a AST or SST will be those on a local level - it is without a doubt not in the spirit of the National Championships to have 10 more classes with 5 cars in each of them.

5. The rules are written for the National level - not Joe Schmo driving his sunday cruiser. Racing at a high level is not cheap and it takes a lot of work. If you drive your ST car to events and do well - thats great. Good for you. But don't complain about how you can't afford to do this or do that. You have to pay to play.

6. There are certain cars that should be in ST and are not - 350z and the S2000 are just a few.

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Nick Jackson
04 S2000 - BHP Brakes
71 240z w/some stuff

SerNick:

6. There are certain cars that should be in ST and are not - 350z and the S2000 are just a few.

I myself have wondered for a long time how some 2 seaters, S2K and 350Z, would do in STU trim limited to 245 tires like the AWD cars.....

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Jason Isley
2005-2006-2007 B Stock National Champion

I agree with Nick in that we don't need as many ST classes as we have Stock classes.  There just isn't a need for it, and there aren't as many SP classes as Stock classes either.

But I do think we need to find fair places for the currently excuded 2 seaters.  The later Miatas (and people are constantly complaining about having to yank the stock LSDs out of the 1.8s to run in STS2, so let them run in STX), MR2 (STX), and S2000 and 350z (STU) are excellent examples of cars that really should be in the ST classes but aren't.

The reasons given so far are the philosophy of STS when it was created being NOT for "sports cars" and the potential for shaking the current apple cart too much.  The question that needs to be asked is... Are those valid reasons?

In other words, is it time to revisit that original STS philosophy given the popularity of ST and is the fear of pissing current folks off a valid reason to not make changes.  On the latter, every time a manufacturer rolls out a new car and it gets classed there is the potential for upsetting the status quo.  Remember when you couldn't spit at an autocross without hitting a Neon?  Now its Subarus and Minis.  5 years from now it'll be... xxxxx.

In short, are the reasons given here so far legitimate and valid reasons???  Discuss...

 

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'91 ITB Civic DX

Not sure if this info will be relevant, but for different reasons, I wanted to calculate the average number of entrants per event per ST class yesterday.

The TOTAL number of ST entrants for all Tours last year was 400.

400/11/4 = 9.

 

4 being STS, STS2, STX and STU. There were 11 tours last year.

 

So...we had an average of 9 entrants in each of the 4 ST classes per Tour last year.

There were 154 ST class entries for Nationals.

 

This does not include the PRO's or Ladies classes. For my purposes yesterday, I didnt need to know that and the ladies numbers were minimal.

 

Like I said....I have no idea if this is relevant, but thought I'd share since I had already done the work. 

 

 

 

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I live my life one cone at a time........

SerNick:

Ok I agree with Scott in that there are some inconsistencies in the way some cars are classed.

 

 

But with everyone else jumping off onto tangents about creating 10 new ST classes...I don't get it. A few points:

1. Making more classes just distributes participation even more thinly than what we already have (dilution). Wasn't there a discussion recently about a championship in a class with 5 people as compared to 30?

2. If it isn't broke - why are we trying to fix it?

3. I don't know if anyone has noticed lately but the fastest, most well developed ST cars don't get driven to events.

4. Street tires suck for racing. We are "racing" remember? You think someone who spends 60k on a car for SS plans on skimping out on tires and says "hey why don't I run a street tire class at nationals instead of the more fun and faster stock class?" The only people that will run in a AST or SST will be those on a local level - it is without a doubt not in the spirit of the National Championships to have 10 more classes with 5 cars in each of them.

5. The rules are written for the National level - not Joe Schmo driving his sunday cruiser. Racing at a high level is not cheap and it takes a lot of work. If you drive your ST car to events and do well - thats great. Good for you. But don't complain about how you can't afford to do this or do that. You have to pay to play.

6. There are certain cars that should be in ST and are not - 350z and the S2000 are just a few.

 

You make very good points here. Inclusion of more cars into STS/X/U would be a better solution than creating multiple levels of ST on the national level.

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'91 CRX Si (STS2)

Whiplash_Motorsports:

Not sure if this info will be relevant, but for different reasons, I wanted to calculate the average number of entrants per event per ST class yesterday.

The TOTAL number of ST entrants for all Tours last year was 400.

400/11/4 = 9.

4 being STS, STS2, STX and STU. There were 11 tours last year.

So...we had an average of 9 entrants in each of the 4 ST classes per Tour last year.

There were 154 ST class entries for Nationals.

This does not include the PRO's or Ladies classes. For my purposes yesterday, I didnt need to know that and the ladies numbers were minimal.

Like I said....I have no idea if this is relevant, but thought I'd share since I had already done the work.

Marcus Meredith published attendance figures for 2006 on SCCA.com a while back:

http://www.scca.org/garage/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4485&PN=3

It shows 192 ST competitors at Topeka which subtracted from your 154 indicates 38 Ladies in ST.

The numbers also show that stock and ST combined contributed 52.4% of competitors at Topeka and 57.5% of competitors at Topeka and National Tours combined. Using those figures, if class numbers matched participation we would have 18-20 Stock and ST classes instead of 13. Thirteen classes means 57.5% of competitors have 37.1% of the classes, contingencies, bragging rights, etc.

Interestingly enough, you could make a case that with 18 classes, you could still estimate about 3% of overall National attendance in each class. Multiplying .03 x 1100 competitors = 33 competitors per class...a seemingly non-diluted quantity.

Hmmm, 4 indexed Stock street tire classes: AS/BS, CS/ES, DS/FS, GS/HS and another ST class combining all AS-CS 2 seaters using wheel and tire size constraints as competiton adjustments. The Stock classes could be synonymous with NCAA Division II with true stock rules to go along with 140+ tires. 

Catch 22:

the suggestion to add a pony car class:

FS -- STGT -- ESP

Don't know if there is interest in "STGT," but maybe there is. 

I, for one, would envision it as skating on wet ice with dull skates.

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Aaron Hull
Northwest Ohio Region
Occasional co-driver of: STS - '91 Saturn SC; FS - '95 Z28 1LE

mugwump:

and what about the ASP cars?  Should they go in STU as well? 997 GT3 FTW.

An M3 LTW would be a blast in STU trim too!

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"If you can't take a joke, get off the internet"

NightTrain:

Catch 22:

the suggestion to add a pony car class:

FS -- STGT -- ESP

Don't know if there is interest in "STGT," but maybe there is. 

I, for one, would envision it as skating on wet ice with dull skates.

No kidding.

Only thing more "interesting" would be SS Corvettes in ST.  Scary.

--Andy 

Andy Hollis:

No kidding.

Only thing more "interesting" would be SS Corvettes in ST.  Scary.

--Andy 

Actually I think that GT3 on 245 street tires would be a hoot.      To watch, that is.  

Mike
 

NightTrain:

Catch 22:

the suggestion to add a pony car class:

FS -- STGT -- ESP

Don't know if there is interest in "STGT," but maybe there is. 

I, for one, would envision it as skating on wet ice with dull skates.

Me too, but what do I know?

I have had a couple of current FS people tell me that you'll never really see any of these cars in STU because of this.  They just won't hang with the current sports sedans and coupes there.  But that they might be interested if the pony cars actually had thier own class as they do in Stock and SP.

<shrug>  I dunno.  Again, you might not know if they'll come unless you build it.

But yeah, there does seem to be zero interest in a ST class for SS and ASP type cars, so thats probably not worth looking into.  I think the "If you spend $60K on a Solo car you aren't concerned with the tire budget" point is probably a valid one.

My suggestion at this point would be to add the 2 seaters to STX and STU instead of just creating STX2 and STU2 right now.  IF the 2 seaters DO come in like an invading hoard and completely flip the apple cart THEN you look at breaking it out into the "2" classes.  But I honestly don't think that would happen, especially if you saddled them with the tire restrictions the AWD cars have (I like that idea, at least in the beginning, until a "feel" can be had for the true performance potential).

I just think its better to see if unclassed and excluded cars actually fit well in current classes before creating new ones.

 

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'91 ITB Civic DX

Like you, I say "what do I know?", but I can only guess that we won't see STX2 and/or STU2 unless and until all the current ST classes are granted full, National, championship status.  Then, perhaps, we'll see some movement toward expanding ST for higher performance 2-seaters.

Interest in ST is just going to be limited by the level of interest in putting higher perfromance, perhaps heavier, cars on restricted-width street tires.  It's a Touring category (Street Touring moreover), so catering to "GT" cars may not be really feasible.  It remains to be seen how much faster STU will ever get than STX, because of the impact of the ST category rules on higher performance cars.

As always, Jen C makes the key point.  STS2 and STU have not yet reached their full performance potential.  No, STS2 may not be consistently faster than STS right now, nor STU consistently faster than STX, but when STX was new it was consistently slower than STS.  That's no longer true.  Hence the wisdom of the STAC/BOD strategy of easing the classes in through supplemental status over several years.  Letting them develop toward their full performance capability not only lets participation bulid.  It also allows performance to develop to a level that it justifies a separate class.

If we just injected the other cars into an existing class prior to their reaching something nearing their full potential it might have to be split later or else kill off the original occupants as the new cars' development progressed and surpassed the original cars.

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Aaron Hull
Northwest Ohio Region
Occasional co-driver of: STS - '91 Saturn SC; FS - '95 Z28 1LE

As a former AS S2000 driver and a current STS2 CRX driver, I have to say, I'd LOVE to prep my S2000 to run on street tires in STU... The thought of it brings a tear of joy to my right eye.

Yeah, why can't I go play with the AS --> STU sedans? 

NightTrain:

Like you, I say "what do I know?", but I can only guess that we won't see STX2 and/or STU2 unless and until all the current ST classes are granted full, National, championship status. 

No guessing about it.  That exact statement was made as part of the original STS2/STU birthing announcement.  No new ST classes to be considered until those two go through the gestation period.

--Andy 

Andy Hollis:

NightTrain:

Like you, I say "what do I know?", but I can only guess that we won't see STX2 and/or STU2 unless and until all the current ST classes are granted full, National, championship status. 

No guessing about it.  That exact statement was made as part of the original STS2/STU birthing announcement.  No new ST classes to be considered until those two go through the gestation period.

--Andy 

Now why bring documented facts to this off-the-cuff discussion about what might or ought to be?

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Aaron Hull
Northwest Ohio Region
Occasional co-driver of: STS - '91 Saturn SC; FS - '95 Z28 1LE

NightTrain:

Now why bring documented facts to this off-the-cuff discussion about what might or ought to be?

Sorry.  I'll go climb back into my SCCA-issue black helicopter and fly off...

 

--Andy