2008 GCR 9.1.3.C Paragraph 6
"During the initial vehicle classification process, the Club shall assess vehicle performance factors such as—but not limited to—manufacturer’s published specifications for engine type, displacement, horsepower, and torque; vehicle weight; brake type and size; suspension design; and aerodynamic efficiency. Based on such factors, a minimum allowable weight shall be established. At the end of the second, third, and fourth years of classification, the vehicle’s racing performance relative to other vehicles in its class shall be evaluated. If the Club deems that, in the interest of fostering greater equity within a class, a vehicle should be reclassified to another Improved Touring class, such a reclassification shall be made. Alternatively or additionally, if the Club deems that an upward or downward revision in the minimum allowable weight is warranted, such a “performance compensation adjustment” shall be made. Any performance compensation adjustments made after the second and third years of classification shall be provisional. At the end of a vehicle’s fourth year of Improved Touring classification, an assessment of class equity shall be made and the vehicle’s minimum weight shall be established."
If the weight is low you can correct it in the first 4 years. If the weight is high you won't have any data to correct to because you won't have any cars on which to base the correction. Bringing a car in at a perceived or true underdog weight kills that car. Bringing it in as a perceived or true overdog weight allows for adjustment for a balanced multi-make class.
Jeff Roussel
Soon to be ITS Datsun 260z
I thought the uproar over the NX2000 numbers was a bit silly, and confirmed by on track results. Your car is fast, and a few SE-Rs that have been around for a while are fast, but you were no more dominating than the CRX and Integra and 240sx and Miata had/have been.
That said, how is your position on dyno numbers (which is personally understandable) good for the club as a whole? Actual corrected data is used to fix problems with outliers and overdogs. I think it is healthy to share it, and good for IT. Not knocking you, but just want a bit more explanation:
1. How can the process ever be totally objective? If it is just a plug in numbers equation you get things like the CRX, and my car in ITA.
2. Don't you think it is better to put the numbers out there and defend them, than just have people guessing and speculating, perhaps even more unfairly?
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
It absolutely is not, Jeff. Never said it would be. But, let's face it: as a competitor, my concerns are not for the Club as a whole, but for my personal competitive advantages. Simply put, I compete not for the Club, but for myself, and I am completely unashamed of that.
Unfortunately, the system is designed expecting each competitor to work for the Club as whole. While that's a wonderful utopian ideal, that's not how reality works. The base problem with such a system is that it is predicated upon the free sharing of information among motorsports competitors, something that causes them to work against their own competitive advantages, all without a way to enforce that should someone choose not to participate (in the commune? Sorry, couldn't resist... )
Then the CRX and our car get moved up/down a class and re-weighted for that new class. Physics is neat that way.How can the process ever be totally objective? If it is just a plug in numbers equation you get things like the CRX, and my car in ITA.
If that doesn't work, then the process needs to be re-designed.
Why would I POSSIBLY want to subject myself to that? What possible advantage/reason would I have for doing that, unless I just like arguing on Internet boards and writing letters to the CRB to defend my position (and, despite evidence to the contrary, I really don't...)? If I keep my mouth shut, then no matter what people THINK I can at least always reply "you don't know what the hell you're talking about".Don't you think it is better to put the numbers out there and defend them, than just have people guessing and speculating, perhaps even more unfairly?
I personally don't have a self-confidence problem where I'm worried about what people think about my driving versus the performance of the car. As long as I'm tarnishing your butt, I really don't care if you think it's the car and not me. What it all comes down to is the checkered flag and who gets there first.
Face it, Jeff, this isn't a big beautiful world where we all get along, working together for a common good. This is competition, by design an antagonistic process where people work for their own individual advancement. The rules process should be designed with that in mind...
GregA, looking forward to building an engine for the 'Teg and, regardless of the result, keeping it to himself...hey, just sayin'...
and no one expects anything less from you.Simply put, I compete not for the Club, but for myself, and I am completely unashamed of that.
can you not see the big picture? if you only fight for your own personal interests without any regard to what's good for the class as a whole, or even the club as a whole, where does that lead you?
Travis Nordwald
1996 ITA Miata
KC Region
Greg's point is a valid one, from a personal perspective. But we all must understand that a singular set of dyno numbers changes nothing. Greg could have told us that his car makes 200whp. So what? Is it a trigger to start collecting data? Probably but if you are going to try and do your best for the category as a unit, you have to 'know' that the numbers are suspect. Suspect in that it would be a single data point with no validation on legality, repeatability, or really anything.
The dyno stuff *I* put stock in are numbers based on years of experience and evidence. Not lows, not highs, but the numbers the experts know cars can make. If they are outside the standard 25%, then I submit we NEED to use them or else we end up with one car classes. That, I can document very easily.
So it's not about a big, happy family where everyone is sharing info. It's about making educated decisions with known information that can be documented and backed up. I submit it isn't perfect but I would rather have 25 cars 'correctly' classed out of 30 instead of 5. It's best-effort stuff...no gurantees, just an honest best effort.
I'd go a bit further. We all want to win and are competitive. We wouldn't be doing this otherwise. At the same time, I don't want to win at the expense of running a category/class, and I think that is true of most of us. If a car is a known overdog, with repeatedly numbers to back it up, due to a classing erro I would want that car "fixed" whether it was someone else's, or my own.
Yes, that sounds a bit like a comp adjustment, but here I just have faith that the current ITAC and current IT culture will only allow this to happen in rare circumstances. But part of making that process work is at least somewhat open sharing of information.
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Oh, it is even worse. If someone actually builds the car, chances are he won't be part of the in-crowd/the cool kids/the BMOCs. So, when he builds the car and finds out that the car has been classified as an underdog, his concerns will be dismissed because either a - it's just one car and that's not a large enough sample on which to make a decision or b - he "...really hasn't put together a top-notch, full-built effort because we don't know who the hell he is."
I agree with that. Unlikely a full tilt one will get built at that weight so the car is "stuck."
The flip side is true too though. If it came in light, like the E36 did, the top notch builders would be all over it, build a bunch of cars that would win out of the box, etc....of course then we do have a means of correction.
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Sometimes things are black and white, but, going in, I knew this was most definitely not.
The ITAC really has to use stock hp ratings...can you imagine the uproar if it got out that we were using some, but not others? Sheeesh. And we think THIS is bad...if Mazda's doing something loophole-ish to get that number and it's not what the engine really makes, well tough nuggies. Sorry. They win some and lose some with that approach.
As for expected gains/real world numbers, the rotary is a great example. First gens, second gens, the Renesis and the new one are all distinctly different "genres", even though they are all rotary. Now, if we categorized all piston engines in the same bucket, and applied XX% factor to them all, we'd be in a mess, right? We have to apply different build factors to different engines. We try to do that by engine genre...but honestly, while that aspect creates some consistency, it can also fail. Inline 6s and high strung fours and old American smogged up POSs don't respond the same. There are some old American smogged up POSs that actually weren't that bad, while others sucked, and can make huge gains once freed from the smog gear, but they get the same factor. Choose wisely son, and you can find a bit of gold in the hills. But be careful, there's no guarantee.
In this case, we went with a low build number, stock hp and a break for TQ. Personally, I think that the Renesis is very similar to the S2000 in that it is maximized from the factory, and my feeling is that both cars are too heavy, but, the process was done consistently, and with reasonable methods.
The club has gotten into trouble in the past when it listened to "trusted" friends who submitted "secret" numbers...then went out and whumped everybody in the mis classed car at the Runoffs. And the club took huge and deserved grief for listening to that person...not because of the result (which was bad) but because of the clear conflict of interest status, and the principle.
I hear a lot of arguments above that make me think I'm on the Prod board...but none of us want to be Prod right? It's a slippery slope, and each one of us has our "line" that we are willing to walk to on the way, and while mine might be at the 10 foot mark, I have to respect those who stop at the 7 foot mark.
Again, we got input on this car and the numbers were all over the place..nearly a 500 pound "recommended" weight spread, and curiously, the weights aligned with the competitive desires of the letter writers (see Amy above). We did the math, and the result was in line with other classifications sharing similar conditions (S2000), and falls in between the extremes.
Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
for sale: 2003 Audi A4 Quattro, clean, serviced, dark green, auto, sunroof, tan leather with 75K miles.
IT-7 #57 RX-7 race car
Porsche 1973 911E street/fun car
BMW 2003 M3 cab, sun car.
GMC Sierra Tow Vehicle
New England Region
lateapex911(at)gmail(dot)com
And (devils advocate talking here), you know that, like the BMW, there would be a huge cry of "Foul! You are punishing us for doing better work than anyone else because WE are superior". And, "This is a competition adjustment".
I got a phone call late last fall after a certain car won a major IT race from the winners builder who said we did exactly that ...we punished them unfairly for being superior in the first place....over two years ago.
And how many BMWs stayed and raced after the "adjustment" and how many left? (Answer more left than stayed) But...how many ITS competitors were lost before that because of the overdog status of half built BMWs? (Answer, hard to say, but it was clear we had issues and you, Jeff, will be the first to agree that ITS has taken two years to rebuild but is very healthy now, arguably way healthier than 3 or 4 years ago, right?) (Some of the letters we got from guys winning in the E36s with junkyard motors defending their builds was hilarious)
Point being that there are costs on both sides of the coin. (And doing the accounting for those costs depends highly on your position)
Last edited by lateapex911; 05-22-2008 at 11:26 AM.
Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
for sale: 2003 Audi A4 Quattro, clean, serviced, dark green, auto, sunroof, tan leather with 75K miles.
IT-7 #57 RX-7 race car
Porsche 1973 911E street/fun car
BMW 2003 M3 cab, sun car.
GMC Sierra Tow Vehicle
New England Region
lateapex911(at)gmail(dot)com
I don't really see a problem with the RX-8 considering all the other ridiculous "calculations" in ITR.
I agree, Greg. It's great to see the cars classified (as they're obviously not going to do anything in SSC any longer), but with personal experience on the subject I can't understand the weight of the R/T and ACR either. If anything but equal in weight, the Magnum engine cars (R/T and ACR) could use to be a bit lighter than the 1st generation DOHC cars due to their poor handling characteristics. At least in IT trim competitors can put some real springs under the car and fix what hindered them so badly in SSC.
-Jeff S
'07 Mid-Am ITA Champion
'07 St.Louis Region Driver of the Year
www.plainoldgas.com
Honda S2000 for ITR in the works
Back to the ITR and the V8s vs. the M3.........
I guess I am having a hard time understanding how a M3 is bad for the class but a v8 mustang or camaro is good for the class. Both have insaine Hp potential in IT trim. True, the v8s are the lower HP versions with gobs of torque, but it only takes bolt ons to make them breath. So the weight would still need to be close to 3500# to make them fit. Is this any better other than it might bring some people into the class? If someone can explain this to me I would very much appreciate it, because up to now, I cannot see how in the world it makes sense.
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