[joelster]

Originally Posted by VR Baron

My nmca events in kali have been sold out in like two minutes since April 2020.

NMCA, UMI, Optima DriveAutoX, Akron Sports Car Club, etc all have a great thing going.

[VR Baron]

Originally Posted by joelster

NMCA, UMI, Optima DriveAutoX, Akron Sports Car Club, etc all have a great thing going.

[AustinTXracer]

I got a chance to do back to back testing of sticker 275/305 Falken RT660 and 15 run 305/305 Nankang CR-1 on dry concrete this weekend. BS SS 1LE on 19's, 6 AX runs each, starting on Falken in the morning and switching to Kang in the afternoon. Results were Falken being faster by a second on average. Falkens had some understeer but put power down well. Nankangs felt nicely balanced but struggled to put power down on the start and were not as good with blended inputs. The Kangs also had notable graining (rolled up rubber) across the tread after the runs. I have to assume that the Kangs just didn't work on this specific surface, as I know several folks have had good luck on them. I will still likely give them a try at nationals, but it seems the Falkens are still the best bet.

Anecdotal, but other cars on Yokohama were seeing really high tire wear this weekend. Several corded front tires.

[Scargoes]

I think it's going to come down to how one drives and what they like in feel. I haven't driven on high grip surface yet, only lower grip asphalt. But I'm having one of my RT660s delaminate after 12 runs spread out over 8 hours(3 runs at a time with 5-7 minutes between runs). Running 315/30R18s.

[AustinTXracer]

Has anyone had their SS 1LE Ediff not work for a run? I had that happen last month. First run of the day. I left the line and immediately felt one wheel spinning. Throttle out of each corner, same thing - inside wheel spinning. Lots of pedaling to keep the wheelspin under control. No warning messages, just no ediff. Got back to the grid, shut the car off, restarted, ran the rest of the day and the diff worked correctly. Only other weird thing of that first run was that the PDR was acting like it didn't have an SD card, so no video of the behavior.

Also, amusingly, even with no ediff I was just .5 off of my final time of the day on that first run.

[DaveC113]

Originally Posted by AustinTXracer

Has anyone had their SS 1LE Ediff not work for a run? I had that happen last month. First run of the day. I left the line and immediately felt one wheel spinning. Throttle out of each corner, same thing - inside wheel spinning. Lots of pedaling to keep the wheelspin under control. No warning messages, just no ediff. Got back to the grid, shut the car off, restarted, ran the rest of the day and the diff worked correctly. Only other weird thing of that first run was that the PDR was acting like it didn't have an SD card, so no video of the behavior.

Also, amusingly, even with no ediff I was just .5 off of my final time of the day on that first run.

Probably low battery voltage.

[TheRealJA105]

I've said it before and i'll say it again. All of these "stock" classes are stupid and too restrictive. How can you be any sort of car guy and want a totally stock car??? Even Tuner classes in SCCA TT won't allow up trim aero stuff that offers hardly any advantage. It also seems that if you increase your power at all the SCCA thinks you should immediately be bumped to the moon in classing.

How many of those new people you guys are trying to get into the sport have totally stock cars? So they come in with mods and are immediately kicked to a higher class and they get smoked and never come back because they think they have no chance to win.

I didn't read the proposals, but if you can't add up trimmed parts to a lower trim (like SS 1LE wheel widths/brakes/splitter/sway bars on an SS) and stay in the same class, it's STUPID!

Just comments from a guy who started out loving autocross and now hardly ever does it anymore for many reasons.

[Msquared]

Originally Posted by TheRealJA105

I've said it before and i'll say it again. All of these "stock" classes are stupid and too restrictive. How can you be any sort of car guy and want a totally stock car??? Even Tuner classes in SCCA TT won't allow up trim aero stuff that offers hardly any advantage. It also seems that if you increase your power at all the SCCA thinks you should immediately be bumped to the moon in classing.

How many of those new people you guys are trying to get into the sport have totally stock cars? So they come in with mods and are immediately kicked to a higher class and they get smoked and never come back because they think they have no chance to win.

I didn't read the proposals, but if you can't add up trimmed parts to a lower trim (like SS 1LE wheel widths/brakes/splitter/sway bars on an SS) and stay in the same class, it's STUPID!

Just comments from a guy who started out loving autocross and now hardly ever does it anymore for many reasons.

If you have modified your car in various, there are plenty of other classes for you in the SCCA framework. A lot of pony car guys end up in CAM-C, which is nearly a free-for-all on mods but still requires street tires you can street drive. Nobody is being excluded just because there's also a class for guys who don't want to go down the rabbit hole of modifications.

FWIW, the SS 1LE is fantastic car to drive in Street class time. It's still a wonderful driver's car with great balance and almost perfect manners.

[TheRealJA105]

Originally Posted by Msquared

If you have modified your car in various, there are plenty of other classes for you in the SCCA framework. A lot of pony car guys end up in CAM-C, which is nearly a free-for-all on mods but still requires street tires you can street drive. Nobody is being excluded just because there's also a class for guys who don't want to go down the rabbit hole of modifications.

FWIW, the SS 1LE is fantastic car to drive in Street class time. It's still a wonderful driver's car with great balance and almost perfect manners.

Yeah and the poor guy comes with intake, exhaust, and wheels on his Camaro and has to compete with CAM builds. That is exactly my point...

[foshjowler]

Originally Posted by TheRealJA105

I've said it before and i'll say it again. All of these "stock" classes are stupid and too restrictive. How can you be any sort of car guy and want a totally stock car??? Even Tuner classes in SCCA TT won't allow up trim aero stuff that offers hardly any advantage. It also seems that if you increase your power at all the SCCA thinks you should immediately be bumped to the moon in classing.

How many of those new people you guys are trying to get into the sport have totally stock cars? So they come in with mods and are immediately kicked to a higher class and they get smoked and never come back because they think they have no chance to win.

I didn't read the proposals, but if you can't add up trimmed parts to a lower trim (like SS 1LE wheel widths/brakes/splitter/sway bars on an SS) and stay in the same class, it's STUPID!

Just comments from a guy who started out loving autocross and now hardly ever does it anymore for many reasons.

You'll get smoked no matter what class you're in for the first year or two. The idea behind street class is that it's relatively cheap and easy to have a competitive car. If you start allowing untrimmed parts, and there will be combinations that work better than others. Then it turns into Street Touring, just with a more limited parts catalog.



Modifications can be great, but at the same time, I don't want some monster of a car that sucks to drive on the street. My next car I plan to keep in street class. The car will still be my daily driver, and even in street touring, things are taken further than I want to deal with on a daily basis.

[DaveC113]

These cars don't require much to be competitive in CAM-C. The driver OTOH, is not going to be competitive with guys who have been doing this for many years so there's really no way a rookie is going to be competitive in any class without experience doing other kinds of racing.

And in BS, there are a few cars the SLE is going to have a hard time with anyways. TT-S and BMW M3 IME. We have a new BS M3 that just beat every single car in AS in the last race let alone BS. Obviously a great driver too.

If the new FS proposal goes through I do think the non-track pack cars need to be able to run the track-pack wheel sizes though... which in autox might give them the advantage, lol. I'd take a regular SS or even a T4 in FS over a SLE if I could run SLE wheel sizes.

[Scargoes]

Originally Posted by TheRealJA105

Yeah and the poor guy comes with intake, exhaust, and wheels on his Camaro and has to compete with CAM builds. That is exactly my point...

Camber plates, wheels, and an eLSD tune are all I run in my CAM car and I do very well against the heavily modified cars that run in CAM class. Hell, jwisjw did great in CAM in his SS with a cat back, camber plates, and wheels.

[Msquared]

Originally Posted by TheRealJA105

Yeah and the poor guy comes with intake, exhaust, and wheels on his Camaro and has to compete with CAM builds. That is exactly my point...

So you want a class that allows a few mods - just the ones you like - but not a lot of other mods...and no class that allows drivers of fully stock cars to be competitive. There are classes sort of like what you want, but basically if you're going to get serious about autocross competition, then you're going to build a car to a certain class's rules...except in CAM, where nobody is even close to maxing the rules out. If you aren't that serious, then it doesn't matter what mods are allowed - you'll be running for the fun of it and to improve yourself as a driver (i.e. competing only against yourself).

The whole point of stock class is to allow a place for drivers of unmodified cars to run. When a single model of car has at least eight different option package levels (2.0T, 2.0T 1LE, V6, V6 1LE, 1LT, SS, SS 1LE, ZL1, ZL1 !LE), there's simply no way to have a stock class for every version of it. That goes for other cars, too: for example, the regular M2 is not competitive with an M2 Comp in B Street. But in the case of the Camaro, anybody can buy an SS 1LE and compete in F Street if this proposal passes. It's not limited or super expensive. If someone wants to run in FS and buys a regular SS, then that's their fault. Nobody serious is running one of those anymore anyway, because the E90 M3 blew them all out of the class.

Originally Posted by DaveC113

And in BS, there are a few cars the SLE is going to have a hard time with anyways. TT-S and BMW M3 IME. We have a new BS M3 that just beat every single car in AS in the last race let alone BS. Obviously a great driver too.

The car to beat right now appears to be the M2 Comp. Although the current M3 Comp is fast, the M2 is smaller and lighter. For reference Tony Chow in an M2 Comp just beat Dave Marcus in his Supra at the Bristol Champ Tour! That caught my attention, because I would have expected the Supra (which is really just another BMW) to be at least on par with the M2, and Marcus is a top-of-food-chain driver. And next year the C6 Z51 is probably moving to BS, along with naturally-aspirated 996 911s. So yeah, the "track ponies" have no business being in BS.

[Msquared]

Originally Posted by Scargoes

Camber plates, wheels, and an eLSD tune are all I run in my CAM car and I do very well against the heavily modified cars that run in CAM class. Hell, jwisjw did great in CAM in his SS with a cat back, camber plates, and wheels.

I agree. There are lots more things one could do, but running 12" wheels with 315 Falkens front and rear, camber plates, rear aftermarket toe links (to get more rear camber), the eLSD fix, and not much else would make the car competitive with most CAM-C efforts right now.