What is a "touring car?"

[Greg Amy]

Thank you for your input, Andy.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Thank you for your input, Andy.

[JeffYoung]

I think further fracturing of classes in the SCCA (sports car STL v. non-sports car STL or whatever) is a huge mistake.

That said, I understand the issue and that I am part of the problem. I probably WOULD build a FrankenNSX or an Esprit or some nonsense for the class....

It seems to me if you are at the "how" v. "why" stage that the real difference between sports cars and non-sports cars is frontal area. If so, what you are looking for is a CD X frontal area modifier of some sort.

Beyond that, I think any of the characteristics you are looking at are red herrings.

[Andy Bettencourt]

If the SCCA is at the 'why' stage then they had better 'fracture' the class. To create a class, have people build dedicated cars and then potentially outlaw those cars would be ridiculous.

If we are simply talking about a reorganization of how to 'penalize' sportscars, then I could potentially listen to that - as long as it is done on a fresh piece of paper.

If we are talking about any addition of 'penalty' to what the weights are right now, I call total BS as the data that I see simply does not support it. The Majors and the Runoffs results show parity. Any other data that proves the contrary I would love to see.

And Jeff, I suggest that you would choose a 'frankenNSX' or Esprit because you would simple rather drive that layout, not because you see an advantage that you could expose. The weight differences are quite significant. And only 7" wheels...

[Z3_GoCar]

As I stated in my letter, the parity you seek can't be achieved by whole sale changes based off of vehicle architecture. Thank you for the polite reply, but it appears you're not ready for the reality of the situation. I predict that no matter what happens my car will be made even less competitive than it already is. Talk about kicking an under dog while it's already down.

[adamjabaay]

you guys make it sound like the sky is falling..they talked for HOURS about this the other night..... Nothing was rushed, no conclusions were jumped to...

I'm sorta betting that, after the runnoffs this year, nothing drastic is happening

[Greg Amy]

I'm'a not gonna get into an Internet play-by-play, ain't got no time for that. But something you need to keep in mind is that there will be no more new classes. In fact, you need to start paying attention: within 5 years the SCCA will start whittling down the classes to "14-16". So you're just wasting your time arguing that.

More importantly, however, if Super Touring gets caught up in that consolidation, then the "competitiveness of our cars" is the least of our worries...for STU/STL to continue to exist as discrete classes, they need to differentiate themselves from all the other categories; they need to be something more than a "DOT-tired and winged version of EProd".

Right now they're decisively not.

GA

[JeffYoung]

If the SCCA is at the 'why' stage then they had better 'fracture' the class. To create a class, have people build dedicated cars and then potentially outlaw those cars would be ridiculous.

If we are simply talking about a reorganization of how to 'penalize' sportscars, then I could potentially listen to that - as long as it is done on a fresh piece of paper.

If we are talking about any addition of 'penalty' to what the weights are right now, I call total BS as the data that I see simply does not support it. The Majors and the Runoffs results show parity. Any other data that proves the contrary I would love to see.

And Jeff, I suggest that you would choose a 'frankenNSX' or Esprit because you would simple rather drive that layout, not because you see an advantage that you could expose. The weight differences are quite significant. And only 7" wheels...

Not entirely. I think frontal area is a huge overlooked (maybe for good reason) advantage/disadvantage in IT. I see it in my car. CD sucks. But frontal area is small. It matters and probably would with an Elan, ESprit or NSX.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Not entirely. I think frontal area is a huge overlooked (maybe for good reason) advantage/disadvantage in IT. I see it in my car. CD sucks. But frontal area is small. It matters and probably would with an Elan, ESprit or NSX.

So how do you qualify that frontal area as an 'advantage'? If it's top speed vs other cars in ITS, how do you then separate frontal area from 'class leading torque'?

Just curious how anyone is mathematically coming to the conclusion that poor CD + small frontal area is...what?

As to the SCCA and classes, no doubt we don't want to add more. But the issue is to look beyond that hard stop and see where growth could happen while at the same time actually consolidating something. I would say, 'we have X classes today. If we were to clean sheet this we would go with the elimination of these 3 and the addition of these 2'...or something like that. Rip the bandaid off if you have to. I like that there is an effort not to expand, but you can still add classes without 'expanding', you just have to be willing to trim the dead branched to allow for new growth.

No ideas what classes those would be, just a conceptual example. Maybe all the classes are perfectly healthy. LOL

[JeffYoung]

Uh, my car doesn't have class leading torque, trust me.

The data I've seen of Miata v. RX7 v. Z car v. TR8 v. Mustang shows me that you either need slippery, or small frontal area. It IS an advantage over 100 mph, sometimes markedly so.

I fully agree with you it is hard to quantify this stuff, which is why we stayed away from it in IT.

However, if STL is looking for the difference between "sports car" and "nonsports car" then this is it. Everything else seems like a red herring to me (doors, engine orientation, etc.).