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Letter has been submitted.  IMHO you don't MAINTAIN parity by changing the rules.

Under the proposed rule the STi would have to run at nearly 3100lb (stock is 3200-3300lb), with a 200lb weight disadvantage to the Evo (which has an almost identical weight to the STi in stock form).  Admittedly, SM/SM2 minimum weights are a little flaky, given there are limited legal ways to remove weight, but 200-400lb reductions from stock seem to be fairly typical on fully prepared cars.

The BMW M3 has won every single SM title until 2007, yet as soon as they have some competition, something must be done.  Looking at the history of SM & SM2, if we include the ladies classes there have been exactly 1 AWD champions vs. 19 RWD champions.  Do you understand why someone with a AWD car might feel an increased AWD penalty is unfair?  Why are only the AWD cars capable of further development?  I think the new BMW 135i is the car you should be worried about in the future (for SM, with the C6 Z06 pushing the RX7 off the top rung in SM2).

 P.S. I would feel much better about an attempt to change the multiplier for forced induction engines (and a change to a multiplier as used almost universally in other classes, rather than the SM/SM2 unique addition factor) to slow the Evo (& STi, 135i, etc.) instead of an increase in the AWD weight penalty.  Given that AWD actually has little to no advantage over RWD with unlimited tires sizes on tarmac in the dry.  For example, consider that Porsche drops the AWD system for the street 911 Turbo when building the 911 GT2 production racecar.  And other than one year with the Audi Trans Am car, I can't think of a single major road race series ever won by an AWD car.  Actually Audi won in Speed World Challenge for a couple of years, but those cars were limited to relatively small, relatively low grip spec tires.
 

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Bruce Funderburg
'02 CMC 7 - DM
'04 Subaru WRX STi - STU

It will be of little avail ... if the laws [or rules] be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood...
Alexander Hamilton

Sorry Bruce, I understand your perceptions.  However your last line casts alot of doubt on your understanding of what it takes to compete in the class. 

 Why would I do a 135? What weight could you achieve with that car?  My guess is a E36 car with the 335 motor would be smarter than the 335 itself.  And the C6Z06 will always be a tough hall on size alone.
 

 -Andy
 

 

Actually I was thinking the big 135 advantage was size.  But you are right, they may never be able to compete with a E36 on weight given the SM weight reduction allowances and their relatively hefty stock weight (a problem for many otherwise interesting new cars). 

 

As for the C6, it is a little smaller than the C5, which is fairly competitive now.  And given the 2900lb max weight, they can run as much HP as they can control with no impact on their weight.  New ZR-1 600+hp motor, no problem, same weight.  Add a blower to your LS7, skies the limit.  And a lot easier than building a 3 rotor.

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Bruce Funderburg
'02 CMC 7 - DM
'04 Subaru WRX STi - STU

It will be of little avail ... if the laws [or rules] be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood...
Alexander Hamilton

HP is not nor has it ever have been the problem for the Z06 , size as in width is.  Back on topic, the proposed AWD multiplier puts the class winning EVO in a holding pattern at its current weight.  Why is that a bad thing for the class?  And why would an STI at 150lbs heavier not be competitive given all the SM allowances?  And if you want the STI's weight to be the same as the Evo, then start with a 2.0l motor.

 Just playing Devil's advocate here.  If you write a letter, try and base it on sound logic and address the issue directly.

-Andy M. 

The SMAC has the hardest job of all the advisory committees.  This category has 2! classes and a wide variety of cars to consider.  I don't envy their job.  I don't agree with every decision that the SMAC makes, but I like the pro-active approach of soliciting input from the competitors.

If Daddio's car was pretty much on the proposed minimum weight for '09, how close was Vic's car to its minimum weight last year?  If it was above it any real amount, why not raise the RWD minimum weights too?  If he was 100 pounds over his minimum, why not propose to raise the RWD factor to 225lbs per liter to maintain status quo?  If that was the reason for the bump in the AWD weight, why not use the same logic to increase the RWD minimum weights?  

Let's not forget that if Vic's last run was clean its a virtual dead heat...  Performance looked pretty equal between those two cars and drivers.  If you're going to "keep the field level", make sure that you are doing so impartially.  It wouldn't be fair to prevent Mark from reducing the weight of his car but leave Vic an opportunity to drop weight.

Playing Devil's advocate back at you...

Andy H. 

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SM ~ '96 Subaru Impreza
Old Car: A Stock ~ 2000 Honda S2000

Good point Andy.   Vic's car is probably about 100-150lbs over minimum weight, but I think he has significantly less room for improvement than Mark as he is a few years farther along looking for all those little ways to shave. 

 -Andy M.
 

boxboy:

Good point Andy.   Vic's car is probably about 100-150lbs over minimum weight, but I think he has significantly less room for improvement than Mark as he is a few years farther along looking for all those little ways to shave. 

 -Andy M.
 

Agreed. Vic is also running significantly more tire. If we saw an Evo on 315s or 335s, possibly regeared to optimize the powerband for the taller tire, I think we'd see an even faster car.

We can't forget that min weight is a function of engine size. A 1.8L with a twinscrew can make mid-300whp pretty easily, and destroking a 2.0L+ to 1.8 would give a more favorable rod ratio and allow more rpm. 3.0L NA motors can also be built to mid 300s. Decouple the stock motor from the chassis when considering these proposals. It's quite possible a 2.0L WRX is a better starting point than an STI. I think Andy H has taken that even one step further.

Maybe 300# is the right number. It's a fine balance between being proactive to help people avoid having to make additional investment/change after they're already built, and being too proactive before we have enough data. I really wish JRho wouldn't have sold his 240SX. That car had the potential to blurr the lines between SM and SM2, and would have done a lot to shake things up and give us more data points. I hope at least most folks take these proposals as an attempt to create parity amongst a wide range of chassis, and attempt to make "new" cars be competitive with existing top SM cars, and continue to make the mythical "class killer" car non-existent.

 

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Randy Noll

Is anybody stupid enough to build a mythical class killer car?  80K + car that can run less than one year before the rules are changed.

 

Rule stability will keep the class strong.

 

Just bought another set of Slicks so SM2 is not in my future anymore  (well till I wear these out).

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Want to go faster, please send money.

Grintch:

 P.S. I would feel much better about an attempt to change the multiplier for forced induction engines (and a change to a multiplier as used almost universally in other classes, rather than the SM/SM2 unique addition factor) to slow the Evo (& STi, 135i, etc.) instead of an increase in the AWD weight penalty.  Given that AWD actually has little to no advantage over RWD with unlimited tires sizes on tarmac in the dry.  For example, consider that Porsche drops the AWD system for the street 911 Turbo when building the 911 GT2 production racecar.  And other than one year with the Audi Trans Am car, I can't think of a single major road race series ever won by an AWD car.  Actually Audi won in Speed World Challenge for a couple of years, but those cars were limited to relatively small, relatively low grip spec tires.
 

This entire thing, plus the stuff that Andy already referenced basically kills any resemblance to a knowledgeable post.  You obviously haven't driven a high powered car around at 40 mph.  On a real track, the lack of actual acceleration kills a lot of AWD's advantage.  Furthermore, AWD cars have been banned, or are given LARGE penalties in every form of motorsports they've been entered.

 

 

The more I think about this.... the more I want to see the whole displacement issue just thrown out.  The STi and EVO situation makes it plainly obvious.  There's zero reason why the two cars should have different min weights, especially a sizeable difference.

What needs to happen is have minimum weights based on drivetrain layout alone.  Want a RWD car?  Your min weight in SM is, for instance, 2500 lbs.  The end.  For AWD, make it 2900 lbs.  Unfortunately, that sucks for a car like Andy's older Impreza.  However, if SM/SM2 wants to be a showcase for Solo to show off "cool" cars that are marketable to the mass public, keeping the weights higher is going to help that.  XP can be the place for really lightweight stuff.... and I'd have the imagine that anyone who's already built a 2600 lb AWD turbo car can't be TOO against running XP.  They obviously built a "race car" in order to compete.

There's no way that a 5.7L engine is "worth" 400 lbs of ballast over a small displacement twin-screw'd 4 cylinder.  As it sits right now, for the most part, the "ideal" powerplant on paper is a small displacement motor with a lot of money dumped in it.  That's not going to bring new people in.  What's going to bring people in is just setting a weight for drivetrain layout and leaving it alone.  It's also easier to police come Impound time.  Let the advantage of the smaller engines be that they basically fit into smaller cars.  But it costs more to make the kind of power to run with the big engine/big car folks.

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Jesse
-2002-2006 E-stock 93 MR2 (sold)
-2007-2008 XP Spyder

Joe_914:

Is anybody stupid enough to build a mythical class killer car?  80K + car that can run less than one year before the rules are changed.

 

Rule stability will keep the class strong.

 

Just bought another set of Slicks so SM2 is not in my future anymore  (well till I wear these out).

 

Why not?  There's logical steps to XP, and D/EM... and those classes aren't showing themselves to be any faster.  So you basically have 2 more classes that you could jump to with your class killer.  What it WOULD do is give the SMAC some real data.

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Jesse
-2002-2006 E-stock 93 MR2 (sold)
-2007-2008 XP Spyder

Joe_914:

Rule stability will keep the class strong.

Is anybody stupid enough to build a mythical class killer car?  80K + car that can run less than one year before the rules are changed.

Rule stability will keep the class strong...   ...once a good portion of the class is built to the limit of the rules. Think of these actions as trying to move the rules to the current cars, so that we reach this point sooner--call it Car Stability.

The question of the class killer is not just if anyone will build it, but also who isn't building other cars because of the possibility of someone building it. At one point there was probably hesitation on both sides--people were wary to build the 'class killer' for fear of it being a one-year car, yet people were also wary of building another car for fear that the class killer would show up and nothing would be done to stop it.

It's funny this comment is coming from an XP driver, where the possibility of a killer like a Lotus Europa is very real. How does leaving the rules open to the possibility of this car crushing the class keep XP strong?

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Randy Noll

rnoll98:

It's a fine balance between being proactive to help people avoid having to make additional investment/change after they're already built, and being too proactive before we have enough data. ......... I hope at least most folks take these proposals as an attempt to create parity amongst a wide range of chassis, and attempt to make "new" cars be competitive with existing top SM cars, and continue to make the mythical "class killer" car non-existent.

In a nutshell, this is why the SMAC's job is so hard.

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SM ~ '96 Subaru Impreza
Old Car: A Stock ~ 2000 Honda S2000

By the Way Jesse Nice driving this past weekend.

I got a ride in your car once at Dothan Last year.  I am still giddy about how fast it was back then in Sm2 trim.

I was in SM2 by accidental internal engine mods.   Anyway thats water under the bridge.

XP is where I am cuz thats where my car fits legally.  Competatively who knows as I am still trying to go fast.

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Want to go faster, please send money.

Joe_914:

By the Way Jesse Nice driving this past weekend.

I got a ride in your car once at Dothan Last year.  I am still giddy about how fast it was back then in Sm2 trim.

I was in SM2 by accidental internal engine mods.   Anyway thats water under the bridge.

XP is where I am cuz thats where my car fits legally.  Competatively who knows as I am still trying to go fast.

 

Thanks Joe.  Unfortunately, we had some alternator problems on Sunday, so I never really got a "real" run in.  The first run was a "8/10ths just to get in a clean run" because we didn't know if the car would make it.  On my 2nd run, about 5 seconds into it... the motor started sputtering, and the electrical system went haywire.  I just opted out of my 3rd.

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Jesse
-2002-2006 E-stock 93 MR2 (sold)
-2007-2008 XP Spyder

129STS:

The more I think about this.... the more I want to see the whole displacement issue just thrown out.  The STi and EVO situation makes it plainly obvious.  There's zero reason why the two cars should have different min weights, especially a sizeable difference.

What needs to happen is have minimum weights based on drivetrain layout alone.  Want a RWD car?  Your min weight in SM is, for instance, 2500 lbs.  The end.  For AWD, make it 2900 lbs.  Unfortunately, that sucks for a car like Andy's older Impreza.  However, if SM/SM2 wants to be a showcase for Solo to show off "cool" cars that are marketable to the mass public, keeping the weights higher is going to help that.  XP can be the place for really lightweight stuff.... and I'd have the imagine that anyone who's already built a 2600 lb AWD turbo car can't be TOO against running XP.  They obviously built a "race car" in order to compete.

There's no way that a 5.7L engine is "worth" 400 lbs of ballast over a small displacement twin-screw'd 4 cylinder.  As it sits right now, for the most part, the "ideal" powerplant on paper is a small displacement motor with a lot of money dumped in it.  That's not going to bring new people in.  What's going to bring people in is just setting a weight for drivetrain layout and leaving it alone.  It's also easier to police come Impound time.  Let the advantage of the smaller engines be that they basically fit into smaller cars.  But it costs more to make the kind of power to run with the big engine/big car folks.

Regardless of whether your idea would work in the long run, a change like this would probably cause 75% of the class to abandon their current motor, and 25-50% of the class to abandon their current chassis. So it's neat to think about in theory, and if the class died and a new one needed to be started, it could be entertained, but it's probably not a realistic alternative right now. It's an idea that would probably work great if we had 6 sub-classes like SP does.

For 2 classes, there are as many flaws as there are now, if not more. Anything that can't get down to the min weight for it's drivetrain layout would be a non-starter. We've already seen the need to ballast lighter cars used as a reason for people to go to XP, so anything that starts below the min weight is probably also a non-starter. So what we'd end up with is a narrow field of cars that probably start out 100# over your min weight. While simpler, your proposal does little to help the cars that can't fit a V8 or the cars that can't get below 2800#.

In general, this is a lot like tuning a car. The more knobs you have to turn the better the car can get, IF you know how to turn them the right way. The more factors we use for classing/weights the better parity we can create amongst different cars, IF we adjust the right things (a point which is always up for debate). If you take away the tuning knobs, you limit the ultimate capability of the car. If you give the SMAC less factors to adjust in classing, you're going to limit our ability to try and equalize the many chassis we have to class. You can always disagree with how well we're using the factors, but taking them away isn't going to magically equalize things.

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Randy Noll

rnoll98:

129STS:

The more I think about this.... the more I want to see the whole displacement issue just thrown out.  The STi and EVO situation makes it plainly obvious.  There's zero reason why the two cars should have different min weights, especially a sizeable difference.

What needs to happen is have minimum weights based on drivetrain layout alone.  Want a RWD car?  Your min weight in SM is, for instance, 2500 lbs.  The end.  For AWD, make it 2900 lbs.  Unfortunately, that sucks for a car like Andy's older Impreza.  However, if SM/SM2 wants to be a showcase for Solo to show off "cool" cars that are marketable to the mass public, keeping the weights higher is going to help that.  XP can be the place for really lightweight stuff.... and I'd have the imagine that anyone who's already built a 2600 lb AWD turbo car can't be TOO against running XP.  They obviously built a "race car" in order to compete.

There's no way that a 5.7L engine is "worth" 400 lbs of ballast over a small displacement twin-screw'd 4 cylinder.  As it sits right now, for the most part, the "ideal" powerplant on paper is a small displacement motor with a lot of money dumped in it.  That's not going to bring new people in.  What's going to bring people in is just setting a weight for drivetrain layout and leaving it alone.  It's also easier to police come Impound time.  Let the advantage of the smaller engines be that they basically fit into smaller cars.  But it costs more to make the kind of power to run with the big engine/big car folks.

Regardless of whether your idea would work in the long run, a change like this would probably cause 75% of the class to abandon their current motor, and 25-50% of the class to abandon their current chassis. So it's neat to think about in theory, and if the class died and a new one needed to be started, it could be entertained, but it's probably not a realistic alternative right now. It's an idea that would probably work great if we had 6 sub-classes like SP does.

For 2 classes, there are as many flaws as there are now, if not more. Anything that can't get down to the min weight for it's drivetrain layout would be a non-starter. We've already seen the need to ballast lighter cars used as a reason for people to go to XP, so anything that starts below the min weight is probably also a non-starter. So what we'd end up with is a narrow field of cars that probably start out 100# over your min weight. While simpler, your proposal does little to help the cars that can't fit a V8 or the cars that can't get below 2800#.

In general, this is a lot like tuning a car. The more knobs you have to turn the better the car can get, IF you know how to turn them the right way. The more factors we use for classing/weights the better parity we can create amongst different cars, IF we adjust the right things (a point which is always up for debate). If you take away the tuning knobs, you limit the ultimate capability of the car. If you give the SMAC less factors to adjust in classing, you're going to limit our ability to try and equalize the many chassis we have to class. You can always disagree with how well we're using the factors, but taking them away isn't going to magically equalize things.

 

In SM, power output is a simple relation to $ thrown at it.  You yourself have spent a lot of money on a new engine that essentially equals the power of a 5+L V8, but is allowed to be put into a car at a significant weight advantage than said V8.  The knob only makes people spend money.

In SM, the chassis and drivetrain layout is what matters.  The other stuff is a blank canvas.  Size, ability to fit wide tires, and suspension design are main factors that influence what would be a good SM car.

If you keep the "engine must be from the same manufacturer" rule, then I don't think you see 75% of people getting rid of their motors.  Nor do I see people having to abandon their current chassis.  You say anything that can't get to minimum weight is a non-starter?  I don't understand.  Daddio's car is much heavier than minimum weight suggests.  That's why I proposed more realistic (heavier) minimum weights.  As it stands, people are willing to use a larger engine and not be able to attain the current minimum weight.

Let's take SM2...   Right now, the advantage of the RX7 is that it can fit the wide rubber, but it's still small compared to a Corvette or Viper, and the chassis can handle huge power effectively.  The advantage of a Miata is that it's much smaller, lighter.   That doesn't change if you have just have X minimum weight.  The RX7 will be heavier than a Miata, but it has other advantages.  The Miata probably gets to be AT minimum weight, but the same issues that keep it from winning now (real or imagined) are still there.



 

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Jesse
-2002-2006 E-stock 93 MR2 (sold)
-2007-2008 XP Spyder

129STS:

Grintch:

 P.S. I would feel much better about an attempt to change the multiplier for forced induction engines (and a change to a multiplier as used almost universally in other classes, rather than the SM/SM2 unique addition factor) to slow the Evo (& STi, 135i, etc.) instead of an increase in the AWD weight penalty.  Given that AWD actually has little to no advantage over RWD with unlimited tires sizes on tarmac in the dry.  For example, consider that Porsche drops the AWD system for the street 911 Turbo when building the 911 GT2 production racecar.  And other than one year with the Audi Trans Am car, I can't think of a single major road race series ever won by an AWD car.  Actually Audi won in Speed World Challenge for a couple of years, but those cars were limited to relatively small, relatively low grip spec tires.

This entire thing, plus the stuff that Andy already referenced basically kills any resemblance to a knowledgeable post.  You obviously haven't driven a high powered car around at 40 mph.  On a real track, the lack of actual acceleration kills a lot of AWD's advantage.  Furthermore, AWD cars have been banned, or are given LARGE penalties in every form of motorsports they've been entered.

 

 Is it just the AWD comment you are arguing with or the multiplier too?  Can you list instances of where AWD cars have dominated RWD cars, particuarly in relatively unrestricted pure racecar classes oh wise one?

Here is evidence to the contrary, a little research finds this interesting item:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-wheel_drive#4WD_in_road_racing
Which pointed me to the Lotus F1 and Indycar experiance.  In Colin Chapman's prime, Lotus built the AWD 56 and 64 Indy Cars and the 56B and 63 F1 cars.  NONE of them ever won a race.  In 1969, three other manufacturers also tied AWD F1 cars, Matra, McLaren, and Cosworth.  None of these cars ever won a race either.

 The Lotus experience with the 63 as documented in "Lotus - All the cars" was that the car was too complicated, too heavy, had heavy steering, power understeer, and in testing, the drivers invariably adjusted the torque split as much to the rear as the available parts on hand would allow (often to full RWD, with no power going to the front wheels).  This was in the period after the Lotus 49 dominated F1, and just before the Lotus 72 would dominate, so Lotus was at the top of the heap at the time.

 Look at an extreme example, drag racing.  As AWD is all about getting power to the ground (it doesn't help in cornering or braking), it should dominate here.  Now go to a drag race and see how many AWD cars there are, other than a few tuner cars, none.  No real drag cars are AWD.  Why?  AWD adds weight, and adds it to the front, the last place you want it.  Then it causes increased driveline losses spinning that additional hardware.  Also, when the car is launched, most if not all of the weight is transfered rearward, thus unloading the front tires (often lifting them off the ground).

 AWD is great if you have a FWD platform or rain or snow or dirt.  But read some reviews where Porsche 911 Carrera and Carrera 4's are compared (Car and Driver did this a few times), and you will see the RWD car was always preferred by the drivers and performed better.  If AWD is a magic bullet, why are no BMW guys using the AWD 325ix as the basis of their SM car, adding the M3 motor or just turbo charging the heck out of the the existing motor?

 
Do you want to argue about the multiplier issue now?

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Bruce Funderburg
'02 CMC 7 - DM
'04 Subaru WRX STi - STU

It will be of little avail ... if the laws [or rules] be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood...
Alexander Hamilton

Jesse,

You left the class because you didn't want to ballast. Now you want everyone else to?

Let's make the min 2400# for SM2 RWD, no motor restrictions, for giggles. Here's what happens:

I build an SC V6 for my MK2 MR2 that makes 475whp
Andy puts in a 3-rotor that makes 475whp, no change in weight
Erik sheds 300+# from his car
The Miatas and MR2 Spyders that might be competitive under the proposals at 320whp, 275s, and 2100# are now forced to add 300# of ballast and should probably build a V6 or rotary motor to keep up power-wise. Hopefully they can cram 285s in back.
Vettes are hosed because they no longer have any power advantage.

Sounds like the class gets faster and everyone spends more money, we might lose Miatas for good.

Lower it to 2200#

I ditch my chassis, build the same 475whp SC V6 into a Spyder with as big a rubber as I want.
MX5s are built with 2 and 3-rotor motors with 400+whp and any rubber
"Old" Miatas are hosed because they still can't keep up tire-wise and still have to ballast to get to min weight
RX7s are now at a disadvantage, they're 300# over weight--I can't think of any reason someone would build an RX7 over an MX5 as weight is pretty much the only difference between the two.
Vettes are laughable at this point, being 700# over weight and at no power or tire advantage.

Again, cars change a little, we lose Vettes, class gets even faster, and everyone spends more money.

Raise it to 2600#

Miatas and Spyders are laughable at that weight--chassis buckle under the ballast
Vettes are still 300# heavy, and still don't have a power advantage because we took it away
RX7s are just right, Erik loses over 100#, Andy gains hp -- the winners get faster
My MR2 gets the same SC V6 and gains 100+whp, and a little ballast

Class still gets faster, some spend more money, less parity, we lose Miatas.

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Randy Noll