Sowdiv IT Truck

[TStiles]

My preference would be for us to promote the existing IT classes , get them healthy and then add classes.

I would love to stay in ITA , but wondering if I might need to spend the money to develop my car as an STU ( or STL if that gets going down here ) The problem is that the budget to do a proper / competitive STU car might get really expensive vs what I've got right now. Not a great time for an arms race.

The truck might work well for LeMons / Chump

[Matt93SE]

Trey, you can run the car in STL as-is, but of course there's nobody to run against right now.

While I welcome any chance to get entries up, I wonder what the right direction is.

I don't know the last time I saw an ITS/ITE/ITR entry in our division- it's been a while and I know there used to be a bunch of them. There's usually a small handful of ITAs and Gersch in his ITB and that's it. The ITtruck idea would be 'fun', but I don't see it being incredibly well-subscribed and my fear is the increased "slow traffic". We already have a bad enough problem with some of the dangerously slow SRX7 and "STU" traffic. At the June TWS race, the guys in the back were 40 seconds a lap off the leaders in small bore. I can't count the number of times someone came down on me into a corner and I nearly bit it trying to get around them as well. There will always be traffic, but if we're going to add cars to the field, we might need to investigate an additional run group for those cars. Maybe stick slicks together and DOT-Rs together and have a 'fast' and 'slow' DOT race? i.e. STO, SP, T1/2/3, STU, in one group and IT*, SS*, and STL in another?? just throwing out ideas here.

Any ideas on what we can do as members to get participation up? I'm new to club racing and none of my friends really want to go through the expenses they're seeing me pay for 45 min of track time a month. they'd rather stick to DE days with their weekend toy and run a couple LeMons races a year where they get several hours of seat time.

This is something Rogerson mentioned in the past, but do you think there's enough interest (and the ability) to allow LeMons/Chump cars to run in ITE or something similar on a club race weekend? Many of those things like Troy Hogan's Z are full-bore race cars with proper cages (the cage in our Miata is SCCA legal, but we can't put a hard top on it due to height....), and the cars are usually gutted too much to be legal for IT simply because of the weight and junk removal.

any other ideas?

[TStiles]

Matt , I like the thought process , but I'm not sure how many LeMons / ChumpCars would fit in but I'm willing try it.

If we had time in the schedule , we could add a group for those cars to attract entries ... It might ( or might not ) attract entries.

I'm like you , most of my buddies are fine doing lots of DE's and an occasional LeMons / ChumpCar event.

I think one of the major challenges the club has is that the barriers to entry are very high. Example : I've got a buddy who I instruct with , he's got a miata with a full cage and safety gear , but it's got a few non compliant parts , he's also blazing fast , he raced karts in England , and he does LeMons & Chump ... For him to run an SCCA race , he would need to go to one of the infrequent driver's schools , get a waiver on the 2nd school , go get a medical , prep the car to class specs , ect ... Get the picture ? ... The barrier to entry is just too high for a lot of people.

I think for the club to prosper long term , we need to revise our program to make it easier for new racers ... Maybe low entry barrier to the slow classes and high entry barrier for the faster classes ? ... One thing is for sure , it's going to require almost everybody to give up something to have it work for everybody.

[jhooten]

At the Sowdiv meeting Saturday the division Exec Stew said to bring him a rule set for ITL(emons) and he will consider it.

The current discussion is centered on reducing the number of run group not adding more. I suggested combining SRF and SM into one group. BTW if the numbers for both of those classes continue to drop they will loose their single class groups. Formula guys do you really want a single run group for all formula cars? If the number of FF FV and F5 do not increase it may happen. FB are about 40 seconds a lap faster on the TWS 2.9 than a FV. Think that is a good combination? Putting SM in with slow closed wheel, and SRF in with FV, FF, and F5 we are down to 4.

There was a heated debate on the number of races in SOWDIV.. The area director believes we are having to many race weekends not just the number of races. Thoughts?

Restricted Regionals on R/N weekend are dead. Not enough IT drivers chose to stay and run on Sunday. Most weekends next year before September 1st will be Double Rationals

OH, just a heads up, any of you drivers with worker points you want to redeem for the $20 rebate on entries do it before August 1st.

What else was there? If I remember anything else important I'll add it then.

[TStiles]

Jerry , Sounds like serious discussions took place at the division meeting.

FWIW : I'm a fan of all weekends being Double Rationals , I see it as a step in the process.

In regard to the number of weekends , I'm assuming that the number of race weekends we have will be a function of entries , workers & the region's ability to make the numbers work.

In regard to groups , I wish I had the answer ... I would prefer 3 shorter sessions per day , I think the fact that we have 2 sessions per day puts us at a serious disadvantage vs. NASA and the track day guys ( the next generation of racers ) always wonder why they should pay more for 1/2 the sessions.

Mixing SRF & FV ( or any other formula car ) is really tough. I love the SRF car , but it's hard to see a FV from those cars ... When I drove FC , we had a few sports racers that were far off the pace ( lapping them at least twice per race ) , It was a challenge , but we made it work.

Also in regard to groups , there's simply not a good answer. I've run SRF with IT ( Moroso 24 hrs ) and SM with SRF ( SW Division Enduro ) ... Mixing those groups would be a huge change in the nature of the racing , but it could be done

Is this what your looking at ? :
- small bore
- big bore
- sports racers & formula
- SRF & SM
- Increase number of sessions or shorten the day ?

[TStiles]

BTW : If we do a Chump / LeMons class , don't change the Chump / LeMons tire rule.

Racing on those bricks takes a little different approach , but we started and ended on a set we ran a previous weekend. That set looks pretty good after 22 hours of racing. They must not have fallen off , I ran faster on 8 hour tires than I did when they were stickers.

If it took off , I might Chumpify my car so I can run cheap tires that last forever.

[jhooten]

Other than Lone Star's March three day NN it is extremely hard to work the GCR required practice and qualifying time in the schedule with 6 groups and not have to pay the track overtime. I would like to see a short warm-up/practice/shake down session, a qualifying session, and then the race for each group

The tentative schedule for next year has Lone Star two weekends, Texas three, and Houston four.
One N/N
five RN/RN
two R/R
one R/Enduro
If I remember right.

We can only do nationals or rationals up to the runoffs. Anything after that can only be regionals until the start of the next rules year. One of the reasons, besides the weather, the enduro is done later in the year.

[Butch Kummer]

At the Sowdiv meeting Saturday the division Exec Stew said to bring him a rule set for ITL(emons) and he will consider it.

The current discussion is centered on reducing the number of run group not adding more. I suggested combining SRF and SM into one group. BTW if the numbers for both of those classes continue to drop they will loose their single class groups. Formula guys do you really want a single run group for all formula cars? If the number of FF FV and F5 do not increase it may happen. FB are about 40 seconds a lap faster on the TWS 2.9 than a FV. Think that is a good combination? Putting SM in with slow closed wheel, and SRF in with FV, FF, and F5 we are down to 4.

We face the same issue of declining small-bore formula car counts here in SEDiv. Many regions run them all together, but what we've started doing in Atlanta Region is combining all open-wheel cars for qualifying but then give them separate races. It doesn't buy a LOT of time during the day, but it does make the day shorter. There was a bit of grumbling when I first floated the idea but so far everyone seems to play together well during qualifying. We also sent all the Vees out together during the qualifying sessions so (at least initially) the faster cars would encounter them all at once rather than in onesies-twosies on multiple laps.

We run SRF with the small IT/Prod cars, but do split-grid qualifying (SRFs together) and split starts for the races. Again a bit of grumbling, but it seems to be an effective compromise.

We ran SM & SRF together one time and I vowed to never do that again. Despite similar lap times and a split start, we had a major "encounter" when the pack of leading SRFs came up on the pack of leading SMs. Simply put, cars that race in packs should not be grouped with another class that also races in packs.

[jhooten]

SM and SRF play well in the Enduro. I doubt they would do so in a sprint race. Too many hot heads in both groups. They both have their own run groups here simply for the fact that the average entry numbers for both classes were in the 50s a few years ago. They are both down in the low 30s high 20s on a big weekend now and in the teens on a mid season weekend.

[TStiles]

[QUOTE=jhooten;325702 Too many hot heads in both groups..[/QUOTE]

Having run both ... That's putting it mildly

Like I said earlier , it would change the nature of the racing , but I'll stop whatever I'm doing to watch the show ... You might want to budget for security in impound