March FasTrack is up

[Andy Bettencourt]

Which, of course, has always made me wonder what would happen if someone was patient/smart enough/sand-bagged enough to wait four years to develop a potential class-killer...

But, hey, that's just me...

On rare occasion—and only after careful review of the actual racing performance of a particular make/model/year of vehicle—the Club may reclassify a vehicle, revise a vehicle’s minimum allowable weight, and/or in the most extreme situation an intake restrictor may be required. Such an action shall be taken solely for the purpose of restoring equity within the vehicle’s class

It's in there...

[Greg Amy]

It's in there...

Yeah, well, the problem is with generating the political will to do it.

Consider the scenario: someone (say, me) builds a car they believe is a winner. Say, further, the car is newly-classified (e.g., Protege). I decide to build it slowly, never dominating, and bide my time for four years. During those four years it appears as a very good quality build. Typically places well, too, winning once in a while, but never by a mile, and usually runs locally so never high visibility. Lots of attention, but nothing outstanding.

Four years in, weight gets "set", and suddenly the car starts winning consistently. The first year gets everyone's attention, but hey, what do you expect? Second year mimics the first: rarely loses except for the rare "break". People start muttering, but nothing really moves on it. Competitors are sending in requests for reclassification, but ITAC/CRB return "correct as classified."

Third year, same thing. More muttering, more letters, more attention, CRB/ITAC start paying attention. Fourth year car gets sold, everybody relaxes, but the new owner continues the string of successes.

Are we there yet? Do we have an objective process of "percentage wins" or "number of track records" or "number of cars beaten" before the ITAC/CRB are willing to use the political capital to reclassify/reweigh the car?

In other words, in theory "the process" is a nice idea, but in reality it's highly unlikely to get applied, certainly not within a reasonable time frame. The A#1 problem with a system not based purely on a formula of physical characteristics is that there are humans involved, and whereas in some cases humans act quickly and decisively, other cases it's hard to get the ship to turn. Subjective opinion is, by definition, dependent on the whims and opinions of those making it... - GA

[dickita15]

By my read the “On Rare Occasion” clause is not tied to any time limit, but as Greg points out it would take tremendous political will to implement, as well it should. I think we will all know when it happens. It is the type of situation that we had with the BMW in ITS and to a lesser extent the CRX in ITA. These events led to a situation where there was a political will to do something even more politically bold than invoking the Rare Occasion clause and that is the invention of a process for classing IT cars.
I am comfortable that the community will recognize a Rare Occasion type overdog although we will have ugly arguments when and if it happens.
In my mind the “mistakes” that will be missed are the cars that where classed too slow. If the process fails them in that direction it never gets fixed.

[spnkzss]

What if I turn the Daewoo example around. You class it with a 25% increase. Lets say the Daewoo only can make 7% more in IT trim (you know because Daewoo is that efficient ). How long goes by until you don't give it a performance adjustment?

Maybe I'm not giving the ITAC enough credit. Maybe the the whole concept of the Daewoo getting classed without some true knowledge of the car at hand won't happen. If someone is interested in getting it classed there has to be some knowledge about the car somewhere. The more I think about it, I guess the whole "Car must be 5 years or older" is the clause that catches that. Within 5 years someone "should" know "something".

[JeffYoung]

I agree with Dick, and would argue (to Greg) that the BMW in ITS fits his example perfectly. Car is classed at (what I believe) was an inappropriate weight. First builds do well, but are not overgods (not a typo, I like that new term). As a few years go buy, pro shops get involved and the BMW starts to win more races. Finally, it is apparent to all that the car is an overgod, and something is done about it.

The process can work. It's not always clean -- and the BMW is another example of that, as I think the SIR situation was messy and effectively ran all E36s out of ITS -- but it works.

[JLawton]

There are just WAY too many variables to be able to say, "X formula is going to be on the nose and create an even playing field every time".

Not only is there a big "un-known" factor when classing a new car, but what about it's performance after? How do you know the car has been built to the limits of the rules when people say the Daewoo is too slow?? Or how do we know that the Daewoo builder isn't a cheater and THAT'S why he's winning. Yes there is going to be inconsistances, but that's mostly due to previous classing. Just because a car was classed incorrectly in the past doesn't mean a new car with similar charactoristics should get classed incorrectley as well.

Unless you can pull apart a known 10/10ths car and dyno it, you'll never know for sure.

And I think the key fact to remember: The process is way better than before!!!

Stay the course.

[lateapex911]

What if I turn the Daewoo example around. You class it with a 25% increase. Lets say the Daewoo only can make 7% more in IT trim (you know because Daewoo is that efficient ). How long goes by until you don't give it a performance adjustment?

Maybe I'm not giving the ITAC enough credit. Maybe the the whole concept of the Daewoo getting classed without some true knowledge of the car at hand won't happen. If someone is interested in getting it classed there has to be some knowledge about the car somewhere. The more I think about it, I guess the whole "Car must be 5 years or older" is the clause that catches that. Within 5 years someone "should" know "something".

That is an issue, and it's a downside of the desire for stability. Many feel that stability is a high priority, (based on reading folks opinions here, private emails I've gotten, and requested input from the members when we proposed "the process") and the constant dorking of the weights and rules, (such as Prod) is to be avoided, even if there are certain casualties.

Even with the 5 yr rule, it is very possible that such a situation could exist, and it is very hard to prove a negative. I can think of cars that haven't been treated by the process particularly well, (i own one, LOL), but I also keep in mind the bigger picture, and feel we've got a better situation than nearly any other.

But...it aint pefect!

[jjjanos]

The case of the underdog Daewoo.

It probably won't get any weight adjustment.

If you are a top-notch builder, you won't touch it because

1. Tthere probably aren't any suspension bits for it and you don't want to pay for custom stuff.
2. You are going to be aware that the car, as classed is NFG and you won't touch it.

That means that the car will be built by either a so-so builder or a complete newbie who when he asks for the car to be reclassified will be told no and the unstated reasons will be

1. He's a newbie, ergo, more track time will improve his lap times.
2. We're only seeing one of these cars and the think there is more weight to be lost.
3. This guy isn't one of the fraternity, so he doesn't know what he's talking about and the car clearly isn't developed as far as it could be.
4. Being competitive is promised. Having a place to race is.
5. There simple aren't that many people impacted, i.e. when there is an overdog, the rest of the class is up in arms and that puts political pressure on the ITAC to make a change.

Bottom line, IMO, if onle one or two are built, it will be viewed as an unrepresentative sample of the cars capabilities and no adjustments will be made because of that.

The ITAC does their best and tries to rate an unknown car as best it can. Sometimes they nail it. Sometimes they underclassify. Sometimes they overclassify. Regardless of what they do, someone will be peeved at them.

[stevel]

Yeah, well, the problem is with generating the political will to do it.

Consider the scenario: someone (say, me) builds a car they believe is a winner. Say, further, the car is newly-classified (e.g., Protege). I decide to build it slowly, never dominating, and bide my time for four years. During those four years it appears as a very good quality build. Typically places well, too, winning once in a while, but never by a mile, and usually runs locally so never high visibility. Lots of attention, but nothing outstanding.

Four years in, weight gets "set", and suddenly the car starts winning consistently. The first year gets everyone's attention, but hey, what do you expect? Second year mimics the first: rarely loses except for the rare "break". People start muttering, but nothing really moves on it. Competitors are sending in requests for reclassification, but ITAC/CRB return "correct as classified."

Third year, same thing. More muttering, more letters, more attention, CRB/ITAC start paying attention. Fourth year car gets sold, everybody relaxes, but the new owner continues the string of successes.

Are we there yet? Do we have an objective process of "percentage wins" or "number of track records" or "number of cars beaten" before the ITAC/CRB are willing to use the political capital to reclassify/reweigh the car?

In other words, in theory "the process" is a nice idea, but in reality it's highly unlikely to get applied, certainly not within a reasonable time frame. The A#1 problem with a system not based purely on a formula of physical characteristics is that there are humans involved, and whereas in some cases humans act quickly and decisively, other cases it's hard to get the ship to turn. Subjective opinion is, by definition, dependent on the whims and opinions of those making it... - GA

Greg, the big problem I see with your example is that it's just ONE car. How could a PCA be justified for just one car?

I would think to justify a PCA there would be a need for several examples of this car built that is having similar results. I think it's too much of a knee jerk reaction to make the change based on one example.

Question, if YOU build/have said car that has too low a weight for its potential, do you write in for a request to review this car's potential again?

s

[Knestis]

I need to go on record, as a newbie member of the ITAC, that I am personally struggling with the underlying questions here. We ARE having conversations in that group about these issues, so please don't presume that there's blind adherence to any preconceived notion about classing/spec'ing cars.

K

[DavidM]

David,

Your comments make sense to me and in a perfect world, I would want that. Let's discuss it further...

I am a firm believer that we need to use what we know. Otherwise, certain cars that can make tremendous gains in IT trim will run amuck as overdogs. Cars with no prior knowledge receive the 25%. Some will make more, some will make 25% and some will make less. I think in a system as granular as this one (to say, not that granular) we get dang close to most every car hitting the 'target'. Not the bulls-eye mind you, but certainly the target. Not so long ago, there were cars in the same class that weren't even in the same stratosphere.

Right now, the PCA system is set up to be mostly 'reactive'. It is the mechanism in place to correct classifications that ruin class parity. I think what you are asking for is a proactive approach to the evaluations. Help design it by sending a letter to the CRB. Here are some questions that would be helpful to know your position on:

1. What cars get re-evaluated and when?
2. What sources do you look to for 'evidence'?
3. How much evidence do you need in order to make a change?
4. How small of a change qualifies for an adjustment?
5. If only select cars get re-evaluated, what triggers that evaluation?
6. How do you prove/validate a negative when guys write in and ask for reductions based on their output?

Fair questions. And tough ones as we all know. I think many of them have been discussed in one form or another on this forum at length. I'll see if I can find the time to contemplate them in more detail and write something up. If nothing else, I think your questions illustrate why I think using real world numbers is a tricky proposition and having some form of proactive evaluation process would be good.

I would ask how was it determined that the cars I mentioned previously, the CRX, Integra, and 240SX, needed to have their weight adjusted? I'm not talking from their previous, before-process weight, but from the standard process weight. It would seem that most of the questions you asked above would have had to have been answered in some fashion in order for their weights to be adjusted using something other than the 25% standard.


David

[dickita15]

One thing I should point out, while the Daewoo example is valid and the car would likely not get adjusted, but the harm would be to those that tried to race the Daewoo while with the overdog (okay overgod) example the whole class is suffering.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Fair questions. And tough ones as we all know. I think many of them have been discussed in one form or another on this forum at length. I'll see if I can find the time to contemplate them in more detail and write something up. If nothing else, I think your questions illustrate why I think using real world numbers is a tricky proposition and having some form of proactive evaluation process would be good.

I would ask how was it determined that the cars I mentioned previously, the CRX, Integra, and 240SX, needed to have their weight adjusted? I'm not talking from their previous, before-process weight, but from the standard process weight. It would seem that most of the questions you asked above would have had to have been answered in some fashion in order for their weights to be adjusted using something other than the 25% standard.


David

I think we can agree the questions are tricky. I believe most people don't consider how in depth the thought process has to be in order to implement strategic thinking like your idea. At some point, it is too complex given the expectations of competitiveness we have in IT.

We applied the process in broad fashion to every car in IT over the winter of 05. We also applied what we knew to the cars we knew it. There were cars that lost weight and cars that gained weight. They didn't gain weight based on their 'dominance' on-track, but since I believe the process to be fairly accurate, it wasn't a coincidence that the 'cars to have' were light by over 100lbs and the cars that were also-rans were heavy by over 100lbs. ANY car that was outside that 100lbs had it's weight reset - up or down. Interesting, the 12A RX-7 gains over 50% in IT trim...it was applied as such and it STILL lost weight. It wasn't about slowing cars or speeding cars up, it was about getting as many legacy cars as we could through the same system we were using to class new cars per member requests - so we could go forward signing the same song.

I understand people are cautious about the ITAC using 'what they know' when classing - but I am a firm believer in these things:

- There is no way we can re-evaluate cars every few years - the data just isn't out there - and the questions I posed to you were meant to illustrate how hard that would be
- It isn't perfect, but it is a heck of a lot better than using a standard amount for everyone. Each class would have it's HUGE overdog
- We DO have a method to re-evaluate and correct a car that is horribly misclassed and is ruining class equity. There just has to be the data to make a move. We haven't had a car yet that we have had to invoke a PCA on 'post-process'. I don't see any right now on the horizon either. Each class seems to have a multitude of choices that can be WINNERS any given weekend.

I can't say this enough - it's an imperfect process in which we try and get better and better with - but it will never be as 'good' as some people want...and that is a good thing IMHO - because THAT is year to year comp adjustments based on on-track performance and that AIN'T GOOD in my eyes.