Nov '12 Prelim Minutes & Tech Bulletin

[coreyehcx]

Kirk, do you think #4 would have people more frustrated and looking to move to other classes? Some people might not want to wait for that to get cleared up after a year of certain cars dominating. I guess it would depend on how swiftly the fixes would happen based off your revamped rules.

I know this goes back to the "The car you chose to race" and "no guarantee of competitiveness", "driver talent".

I do appreciate the work you guys do the more I follow it all, obviously due to my own investments in ITB.

[jjjanos]

I am serious about this. ITB takes up TOO....MUCH...TIME. As a result, we don't get bigger picture stuff done and don't work on the other classes. R needs some corrections. C needs a hard look. We need to start looking at forced induction.

Well excuse ITB. Y'all made it a mess, so y'all need to clean it up. Y'all starting classifying cars using lower gains and don't expect the guys who got classified using 35% or 40% gains to bitch? Yeah, that's a realistic world view. Some huge preponderance of the work y'all need to do is ITB and ITC. You locked down ITC, so yeah, ITB is going to take almost all of your time. Lock down ITB and ITC is going to seem to be taking "too much time."

Forced induction? What happened to rules stability?

None of that gets touched because we have to argue about 30 year old Audi microfiches. I suppose it must be done, but I'll be honest -- I think the class as a whole could use with a bit more relaxation, more racing, and less 'weight advocacy.'

Y'all tossed out the gut feeling approach and went formulaic. Well, now you've got a bunch of popular and once popular cars misclassified and their owners know the cars are misclassified. What did you expect?

[Harvey]

Its ITB and or ITC, the UNIMPORTANT classes.

[mossaidis]

This thread "is hotter than a whore house on nickel night." Keep the comments constructive and please, please, please thank the ITAC and remember it's a volunteer club organization. ok... back to drinking wine for me.

[Ed Funk]

This thread "is hotter than a whore house on nickel night." Keep the comments constructive and please, please, please thank the ITAC and remember it's a volunteer club organization. ok... back to drinking wine for me.

Is it that Greek rot-gut?

[JeffYoung]

Well excuse ITB. Y'all made it a mess, so y'all need to clean it up. Y'all starting classifying cars using lower gains and don't expect the guys who got classified using 35% or 40% gains to bitch? Yeah, that's a realistic world view. Some huge preponderance of the work y'all need to do is ITB and ITC. You locked down ITC, so yeah, ITB is going to take almost all of your time. Lock down ITB and ITC is going to seem to be taking "too much time."

Forced induction? What happened to rules stability?

Y'all tossed out the gut feeling approach and went formulaic. Well, now you've got a bunch of popular and once popular cars misclassified and their owners know the cars are misclassified. What did you expect?

You remain one of the most myopic people I know. These same issues exist in C, A, S and to a lesser extent R.

And yet, the ITB group remains the most vocal and the most timeconsuming of the bunch. And for the most part, the ones most likely to play the "I'm packing up my ball and going home card" if they don't immediately get what they want.

Breathe. Relax. It's club racing. Everyone else is having fun. You can too!

[JeffYoung]

Its ITB and or ITC, the UNIMPORTANT classes.

Far better than most folks, you know that's not the case (at least on the ITAC).

[jjjanos]

You remain one of the most myopic people I know. These same issues exist in C, A, S and to a lesser extent R.

1. Your (singular) capacity to stick to a theme despite all evidence and commentary shredding the thesis of that theme is amazing. Either ignore the rebuttal and continue with the mantra or ignore that you raised the point. Kudos to you sir.
2. You don't know me and you din't know Jack Kennedy either.
3. Sigh, I had assumed that as a member of the ITAC, you would be aware of this, but I should know better about you. 100lbs on a B car is a larger problem than the same weight on a A, S or R car.
4. It isn't the same problem in R. The R cars either don't exist or are in far fewer absolute numbers.
5. It isn't the same problem in A. Why bitch about your car being 200-lbs over weight if your car isn't a Miata?
6. It's your (collective) own damn fault. How much time was wasted on the MR2 because y'all couldn't convince the "it's an FA motor" jack-asses that Prod =! IT. If y'all aren't getting to an ITR request for classification/correction because you are dealing with ITB requests -- too damn bad. The request from ITR is no different than the request from ITB -- they are member requests. They should be dealt with FIFO.

[ShelbyRacer]

Quit trying so hard. Seriously. The first step toward failure is trying to "get it right." Get it somewhere sort of, kind of, mostly in the same ballpark and call it good.

When someone gets the idea that y'all are going to strive for the Truth, it sets up completely unrealistic expectations and just encourages bad behavior. It's enabling all of the paddock and board BS.

1. Do B over from scratch.

2. IGNORE all of the things you think you "know" vis-a-vis on-track competitiveness.

3. Set everything at 1.25 unless you're dealing with DIN HP ratings or some systemic crap like that - use the spreadsheet that I spent 100 hours working on as the starting point and you're halfway done. Apply any different math to entire generations/types of car; not individual cases.

4. Sign a pledge that says "on track performance will be considered as a trigger for alternate multipliers when same make/model ITB car wins 80% of the IT races in the nation, if and only if no other example of the same make/model finish anywhere in the lowest 20% of finishers in any same race." We have made "overdog" way low of a bar.

5. Apply the same practices to additions/changes to the other classes.

6. Go racing.

The point is that you do NOT have to go looking for dyno sheets and do all that song and dance unless you have TRULY COMPELLING evidence of a major system failure at the standard multipliers. The Process ALLOWS that; it does not compel you to do it. And we simply don't have the sample size to make any well founded judgments re: specs anyway. I fear that we are chasing compliance with the ITCS weight specs as often as not.

Set IT free.

K

Kirk, I know this is about where I am philosophically. I believe the rest of the ITAC is in a similar place.

1. B and R are in dire need. We're looking into doing exactly this.

2. I don't know anything (said only half in jest), so we're good there.

3. Yes. I just got a spreadsheet. I assume it's either the one you made or a version of it. I'm learning a lot, not only about IT, but about Excel (and I *thought* I knew quite a bit about both). I agree that any variances need to be based on overall architecture, not specific "problems".

4. Understood. I'm not sure I've personally encountered this yet, being new.

5. That's the plan.

6. Damn, I hope so.

[Harvey]

Far better than most folks, you know that's not the case (at least on the ITAC).

Yes I do, I also know that ITB and ITC in my opinion show a flaw in the process that no one will admit. The reason that I see thrown around about the cheated up cars is not a valid reason either, it was based on assumption and we all know what that will do for us.

[Greg Amy]

Final November Fastrack is out:
http://www.scca.com/assets/12-fastrack-nov1.pdf

November GCR:
http://www.scca.com/assets/2012GCR-updatedNovember.pdf

Updated Master Tech Bulletin:
http://www.scca.com/assets/2012Maste...erFastrack.pdf

Updated recommended rules changes; board meets next month?
http://www.scca.com/assets/Recommend...l.2012.pfr.pdf

[Ed Funk]

Final November Fastrack is out:
http://www.scca.com/assets/12-fastrack-nov1.pdf

November GCR:
http://www.scca.com/assets/2012GCR-updatedNovember.pdf

Updated Master Tech Bulletin:
http://www.scca.com/assets/2012Maste...erFastrack.pdf

Updated recommended rules changes; board meets next month?
http://www.scca.com/assets/Recommend...l.2012.pfr.pdf

Thought you were supposed to be enduring.

[JeffYoung]

Quit trying so hard. Seriously. The first step toward failure is trying to "get it right." Get it somewhere sort of, kind of, mostly in the same ballpark and call it good.

When someone gets the idea that y'all are going to strive for the Truth, it sets up completely unrealistic expectations and just encourages bad behavior. It's enabling all of the paddock and board BS.

1. Do B over from scratch.

2. IGNORE all of the things you think you "know" vis-a-vis on-track competitiveness.

3. Set everything at 1.25 unless you're dealing with DIN HP ratings or some systemic crap like that - use the spreadsheet that I spent 100 hours working on as the starting point and you're halfway done. Apply any different math to entire generations/types of car; not individual cases.

4. Sign a pledge that says "on track performance will be considered as a trigger for alternate multipliers when same make/model ITB car wins 80% of the IT races in the nation, if and only if no other example of the same make/model finish anywhere in the lowest 20% of finishers in any same race." We have made "overdog" way low of a bar.

5. Apply the same practices to additions/changes to the other classes.

6. Go racing.

The point is that you do NOT have to go looking for dyno sheets and do all that song and dance unless you have TRULY COMPELLING evidence of a major system failure at the standard multipliers. The Process ALLOWS that; it does not compel you to do it. And we simply don't have the sample size to make any well founded judgments re: specs anyway. I fear that we are chasing compliance with the ITCS weight specs as often as not.

Set IT free.

K

THat's the thing though. I think the very few outliers we have to deal with -- the Audi, the MR2, the Volvos -- make it seem like we are trying so hard to get it right on the money. When in reality the idea is get it close and let folks race.

Yeah, 50 lbs matters. Yeah it matters more in ITB. But would it prevent me from making a car choice as a result? I guess it could, but lots of other stuff WITHIN THE DRIVER'S control matters more.

I think most of the ITAC, no all of us really, does just about that above. Where it gets screwy is on the 25% default rule. If we have evidence -- and on track creeps in sometimes although I can't say we've ever made a change based on it -- then it can be hard to ignore.

If you have 7/8 dyno plots on a particular car not making 25%, a single car, do you just ignore it? I don't think you can as you lose just as much credibility that way.

I still think how we operate the process internally is correct although it may look a bit wonky externally.

And yeah, JJJ, you need to chill out and race more dude. If 50 lbs matters that much to you, you are in the wrong class. Seriously.

[gran racing]

I do not doubt that the ITAC has spend a considerable amount of time on ITB for a while now. How many changes have been made over the past year or two in ITB as far as car classification changes? It's probably just me not noticing the large number, but it's seemed fairly small. Is this incorrect? Any idea how many adjustments have been made?

[Greg Amy]

Thought you were supposed to be enduring.

Leaving early in the AM. First qually isn't until something like 5:30 PM Friday. - GA

[jjjanos]

Yeah, 50 lbs matters. Yeah it matters more in ITB. But would it prevent me from making a car choice as a result? I guess it could, but lots of other stuff WITHIN THE DRIVER'S control matters more.

The people complaining aren't making a car choice. They already made the choice. Then the rules were changed and what they perceived as parity did too. I didn't pick my car because I thought it could win. I picked my car because one was available and I know a Honda guy.

And yeah, JJJ, you need to chill out and race more dude. If 50 lbs matters that much to you, you are in the wrong class. Seriously.

You'll note that I have not asked for weight to come off my car -- though were my car still 160 lbs too heavy, I too would be asking.

If you are serious about locking down the rules, then what else is there for the ITAC to do then clean-up the mess left by the previous rules adjustment?

[JeffYoung]

We are doing it.

But we do need to start looking at the next class above R. R caps out at 240 stock hp right now which, if you haven't noticed, is basically what a stripped Kia sedan will get you.

If we don't have a new class in place in 5 years, we are struggling for relevancy again. I don't consider that instability. Not a rules change. Now, part and parcel with that though is FI because so many new cars are FI. We are going to have to deal with that at some point.

Beyond that, NO MORE fundamental changes. Or even minor ones.

THe problem remains that B consumes so much time putting out fires that we can't work on big picture stuff. And those fires come from membership.

S, R, A, C all have the same issues B does. R has a more fundamental problem in fact, in that the bogey car used wasn't in the sweet spot of the weights, but at the low end.

But those guys are building and racing their cars and not screaming on the internet about constant injustices.

[Chip42]

What Jeff said. the next level of IT must be identified and codified, and it will likely include FI cars. if it does not, it will not capture alot of the forthcoming cars that "should" fit into IT.

so we have to figure that out. and direct injection vs. process gains and modifiecations. in part, the industry needs to catch up (Engine Management solutions for GDI motors are not nearly as common or affordable as regular EFI)

I race B. I like B a lot. between TrackSpeed and our clostest friends, we have 8 B cars (all MR2 or various hondas). so I'm VERY interested in getting B right. but I'm also interested in sorting out the category where needed, and thankfully it's a pretty balanced rule set and doesn't need a lot of attention other than the new class, which does, and making sure R is right and B is sorted. C is pretty much what it is, nothing new fits well, the process doesn't work right there, and no one complains, so we're inclined to just leave it alone "forever."

we can continue to accumulate data to fix B (we need help here!!), fix/unfix nearly the whole thing with a 25% or "REALLY WELL KNOWN, I PROMISE, HERE LOOK" reset, or just lock it down. what's preffered?

[Tristan Smith]

YES, some of us ITR guys are suffering, you insensitive ITB Bastards!

[Knestis]

Kirk, do you think #4 would have people more frustrated and looking to move to other classes? Some people might not want to wait for that to get cleared up after a year of certain cars dominating. I guess it would depend on how swiftly the fixes would happen based off your revamped rules. [Emphasis added]

I know this goes back to the "The car you chose to race" and "no guarantee of competitiveness", "driver talent".

I do appreciate the work you guys do the more I follow it all, obviously due to my own investments in ITB.

It's NOT about "warts and all." It's about the ITAC and the Club helping people to understand what "dominating" means. Drivers at one track watch one racer beat up on his local neighbors and call that 'dominating.' It's not. Or it IS, but it's about ONE driver/car/budget/tire/talent combination dominating, NOT one make/model.

The category cannot respond to local competitive conditions but instead has to make compromises to be the best it can be for an entire nation.

Look at the uproar over "turbo cars" in STU, on the heels of the RubOffs. Folks are talking about major changes to category rules, not just spec line item tweaks, in reaction to one race that legitimately included only a half dozen driver/car combinations. That's lunacy.

(See Gran's post on the previous page for a different, but very perceptive, perspective.)

And turbos in IT? That would be a ruinous, unholy mess, particularly if anyone is even REMOTELY thinking about balancing them with NA cars.

K