Heres some race results. I ran at Blackhawk last week against avery good second gen RX-7. Richard Walke Ex firehawk car, original owner. He ran 1:20s in qualifying, thought he set a new lap record. 2680 pounds minimum.

I have run about 90 races at blackhawk The last time I ran there in a CRX at 2180 pounds I turned a 1:23.6. (about a second off of lap record.) My Del Sol, which now weights with ballast 2612. My best qualifying was 1:24.48 and best race was 1:24.60. I ended up being beat by two Spec Miata's - One who's best race time was mid 23's and the other was mid 24's.

I got the jump on the Miata’s at the start and could hold off the miata’s for a while but within 5 laps I was passed by the one and by 15 laps I was passed by the other because my tires were going off and I had concerns about serious abusing the brakes for a half hour. And this was a race at 70 degrees in april. Its going to be a lot worse when it gets hot.

My car ended the race at 2612 pounds with a weight balance 63% front 37% back. In comparing the Del Sol to my ‘88 CRX, the Del Sol is marginally quicker down the straight but I give most of the speed back in Blackhawk turns 1, 6 and 7. In a CRX Si, using the same tires, I can run even with most Miata’s through those turns turns at blackhawk, not in a Del Sol.

Here is the problem,

1) In my CRX the front weight was about 1450 pounds. In a Del Sol, the front weight 1640 pounds. As a result, in the same speeds that the CRX can drive through a turn, the Del Sol washes out the front end. When I go into a turn, the best strategy is trail brake it in and scrub (have the front and back end slide) through the apex and get on it as soon as possible which is about the outside edge of the track. The problem with this is three fold.

a)I am scrubbing off a lot of speed compared to a lighter CRX I can’t put power down until the turn’s exit. Whereas on a CRX, I am floored from the apex on.
c)All this sliding the front end kills the front tires

2)My Del Sol has a 63%/37% FR weight balance. This 1650 pounds on the front tires causes 2 problems.

a)The front end weighs a lot more than comparable rear drive IT cars. For example, the RX-7 I was racing against might weigh 2700 pounds with a 55/45 weight balance. That’s 1485 pounds on the front tires which is comparable to my CRX at its old un ballasted weight. A 1:20 time is no surprise then when it pulls like or better than my Del Sol down the straight but brakes like a miata (50/50 weight balance) and turns like a CRX in the turns.

b)It also limits the amount of braking I can do. If I make some hard braking, it locks up the rear and tries to swap ends especially under trail braking. Granted, I can try biasing more brakes to the front but as I mentioned before, I ran out of fronts before the end of the session.

The bottom line is that any set of rules that puts a Porsche 944 with a 50/50 weight balance or a RX-7 with a 55/45 (my guess) weight balance as the same as a 63/37% Honda front drive Honda may need som re-thinking. This is the gist of what I will be communicating to the ITAC

bob