I looking to get into IT and would like to ask everybody what is a good dependable and fairly inexpensive car to race in this class to start out in? thanks [email protected]
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I looking to get into IT and would like to ask everybody what is a good dependable and fairly inexpensive car to race in this class to start out in? thanks [email protected]
What class?
ITB VW Golf or GTI. Perhaps a Ford Pinto
ITA RX7s can be had cheap.
ITC - Honda Civic, VW Scirocco (tie)
ITB - VW MkII Golf/GTI
ITA - Honda CRX Si
ITS - Mazda RX7 (GenII)
Each has a good knowledge base, parts support, proven reliability, lots of use examples available, and no excuses (well, almost none) if you want to step up to run closer to the front ($$).
Kirk
Kirk, pleasure meeting you Saturday. Hope to see you back at VIR soon.
I'd add a couple of things here. Look at the car counts in your division before making a choice. For instance, there really aren't a whole lot of ITA cars here in teh SEDiv, but there are lots of IT7s and ITBs. Not many ITCs, but I know that is different in other regions.
For a new guy like myself, I'm not sure there is a better starter car than an IT7 RX7. There's tons of them around. They are rear-wheel drive. They are cheap as dirt. You can basically order bolt on go racing kits at very reasonable prices. They can be difficult to drive, but a good driver can make them go fast. You can find a semi-competive one for $5000 or less.
Good and dependable?
Think Japanese products, beginning with"H" and ending in "A".
I don't race them myself, but that is an honest answer.
Cheers.
So, how much has this discussion changed during the past few days? And how much more will it continue to change?
As far as classes, I'd suggest ITA or ITB (IT7 in certain regions). One of the big factors is how much do you want to spend? Remember that faster cars often go through parts (brakes, tires, rotors, ect.) faster.
Definately look at your region and look at the numbers of entrants. Just my opinion, but you probably don't want to pick a class that only has a few cars in it typically.
Where are you from? Might help us make a better suggestion for you. Best of luck!
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Dave Gran
NER #13 ITA
'87 Honda Prelude
Nice to meet you too, Jeff. You and lots of other nice people. I have to say that I've really been made to feel at home at both Roebling and VIR, by everyone involved.
Gran's point about changes in the last two days is a good one. I'd ad the SOHC NEON to the list of good starter cars - pending confirmation that it will end up in ITA - assuming you know someone who can point you around the common failures that they suffer. You NEED to know how many hours you are going to get on front hubs for example, so you can replace them before they bust.
K
Not IT exactly but Spec Miata. Lots o' fun to drive, lots o' people to race with.
If I was starting over again it would be a Miata. SM/ITS/ITA it really doesn't matter. The number of good RX7s is drying up. And the Miata has bolt on performance parts that you can go to the local Mazda dealer and buy. The avaliable knowledge base is hugh and growing everyday.
The older ones (in running order even) are in the paper every week for as low as $2k around here.
[This message has been edited by jhooten (edited March 26, 2004).]
I started with a Mazda RX3. Cheap to buy but parts are hard to find. I ran it one year (crashed), replaced it with a 1st gen RX7 in 1999 that I've been running ever since; 5 or 6 2-race weekends each year. Same engine, same tranny, same rear end, (no failures or rebuilds) 4 1st's, one season championship. One DNF-a crash. Stock and race parts are readily available and reaonably priced. The IT7 class is a blast. I've never regretted my choice. If starting over today, I'd be tempted to go Spec Miata, but the cost of the car would be double and that might keep me in the RX7.
Have to pipe in on the SM issue. One thing I really like about IT is that each car has its different strengths and weaknesses. 240zs are light and tossable, with good power. RX7 has better brakes. 944 is a good hanlder but down on power. 325..oh yeah, no weakness.
But anyway, my point is that an IT race, for me at least, is a lot about giving up someting to a car here, but taking it there. I've found that to be very enjoyable so far.
How does that work in SM? SM races to me seem to involve long parades of cars, with the leaders only a few seconds faster at most than the backmarkers. People only pass when someone else makes a mistake. Not a whole lot of back and forth/give and take.
I don't know. I mean, all the Miatas are good for SCCA I suppose, but at the same time, when 35 Miatas show up at VIR and only a handful of ITC an ITA cars, I'm not sure the quality of racing doesn't suffer.
One last point -- I see more spec miatas do crazy, car threatening stuff, than any other make. It's like this are throw away cars to these people. At VIR, I got passed in turn 4 of the FIRST as in pit out lap of a WARM UP session, by a Miata that went on to nearly spin in the next corner, and then took two other cars three wide into Oak Tree, resulting in metal to metal contact. At my school at Roebling, three of the wrecked cars where Miatas. Craziness.
Has there ever been a spec class with this much popularity?
Spec Wrecker Ford might have been close when it was new.
Several of the IT classes at Summit Point had a bad reputation in the late 80's and early 90's. IIRC, the ITB class was the worst.
Let's not forget the ITS Melee (the "OH S**T") at turn 1 at Summit where the ITS Zcar was so high off the ground, my friend in another Zcar saw the underside, and the flying Zcar was parallel to the ground!
It's because it atracts a lot of new people to racing. I saw the same thing when they started Spec RX-7 in Texas, then with Spec Miata.
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Ony Anglade
ITA Miata
Sugar Hill, GA
Pre combat, oops I mean race, SRF check list:Quote:
Originally posted by CaptainWho:
Spec Wrecker Ford might have been close when it was new.
1) Check tire pressures
2) Check fluid levels
...
n-4) Discard rear body panel (gonna lose it anyway)
n-3) Tighten bolts on battering ram mount
n-2) Sharpen those twirly things on the end of the axles (see Ben Hur)
n-1) Swap out the Snell certified helmet for one of those WWI "Kaiser" models with the spear on top, in case it gets to hand-to-hand combat.
n) Reload missle launcher
SRF is still the biggest class here. Saturday there were 44 cars in the SM/SRX7 run group and 46 started SRF.
SRF is still a big group, but it seems like most of the hand-to-hand-combat types have moved on to other classes. We only had a handful of metal to metal contacts at Road Atlanta's turn seven over the weekend, and most were incidental. But it was a national race, too. At a regional Spec Miata run, it sometimes resembles a demolition derby more than a race.
Being in the racing industry in general, I have to conclude that a lot of this is specific to the racing culture in which one participates. We have customers who race on flat oval tracks having no walls (think high school 440 track) where you are expected to punt your competition off the track and, at the other end of the spectrum, vintage racers tooling around in 1/4 million $ Ferraris where any contact will get you excluded from the club.
Then there are the drag boat guys (2,000hp surfboards) and Pikes Peak hill climbers who race White Freightliner tractors and expect contact with nothing other than 180mph water or the Rocky Mountains, respectively.
Different strokes...
I believe any IT car is a great racecar value. Why? Because you can go racing without a sponsor (although they always help). Spend $10-20K on the rig, race it a few years and, if you need/want to quit, get a chunk of your $ back. Per year, some folks spend more on entertainment at Blockbuster.
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Gregg Baker, P.E.
Isaac, LLC
http://www.isaacdirect.com
Hmmm. That might be, but it doesn't explain why different classes at the same event under the same sanction are so different.Quote:
<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">Being in the racing industry in general, I have to conclude that a lot of this is specific to the racing culture in which one participates.</font>
At the SCCA races I've watched and worked at Road Atlanta, the formula cars stay away from each other. I suspect that's largely due to the serious consequences that often attend contact between open wheel cars.
The IT cars lean on each other a bit, but usually nothing big. The Spec Racers (all types) Production cars have similar contact levels to the IT cars. The GTs and ASs typically stay away from each other, even when racing hard.
The Wreck Me Otters, however much I like the cars and the concept of the class, often resemble a barroom brawl. At one of the regionals last year, only about two SM cars out of fifty or so came home with no body panels bent and no "donuts".
Some of it appears to be inexperienced drivers (I'm one of them, but not in SM) driving over their heads. There also appears to be a correlation between the number of drivers that do their own wrenching in a class compared to the number that pay someone else to maintain their cars. But that's just a seat of the pants feeling on my part.
Personally, we evaluated SM and the IT classes before deciding where to go racing. To us, it looked like IT7 was the best bang for the buck. So much so that we've now bought another IT7 car and put our ITS Celica up for sale.
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Doug "Lefty" Franklin
NutDriver Racing
http://www.nutdriver.org
I'd go find myself a nice ex-SS Neon!
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Darin E. Jordan
SCCA #273080, OR/NW Regions
Renton, WA
ITS '97 240SX
http://home.comcast.net/~djjordan/Web/DJ_AV1.jpg
I'm starting out with an RX-7 in the ITS class.
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Drew
17 years old
Wyndenup Racing
ITS Mazda RX-7 #99 - Me
Historic '76 Porsche 914-6 #49 - Team Owner
Yeah I kind of like IT for the simple fact that there is a variety of cars, not just colored cars. http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gifQuote:
Originally posted by JeffYoung:
...But anyway, my point is that an IT race, for me at least, is a lot about giving up someting to a car here, but taking it there. I've found that to be very enjoyable so far.
How does that work in SM? SM races to me seem to involve long parades of cars, with the leaders only a few seconds faster at most than the backmarkers. People only pass when someone else makes a mistake. Not a whole lot of back and forth/give and take.