I have had a bit of input with my feelings on the proposed re-classings, and
I figure I should at least give a bit on this too.
Most of the stock allowances make alot of sence and there will always be
someone willing to push the envelope if they feel it will be an advantage.
Shocks seems to be one of the big deals here. I just bought shocks (Koni
single adjust yellows) for my 95 Celica ST to run in EStock. The original
shocks were still on the car with about 75,000 miles on the car. It needed
shocks. Should I pay about $90 each for stockers that can't be adjusted, or
$150 each for the Koni yellows?? It was a pretty easy choice. I still have
the original exhaust system, and will likely open it up a bit with a better
muffler, it is starting to rust at the joint in front of it. I will test with
GEEZ (hopefully G-Dyno) to see if it makes a power difference, but I am not
optimistic. Tires are a given, I wish they still made 90 tread wear rating
race tires, as three sets a year is getting crazy, but you have to to keep
up. Even street tires wear out pretty fast in autocrossing, so they are a
consumable like gasoline. I get less than 10 mpg while racing, so figure $2
for every 8 runs or so, it adds up. Tires last about 80 runs for $600 so it
is a bit more, but part of the cost of having fun ;-) I ran 2 seasons on
Yokahama A008rtu's back when they were the hot tire. I also put in a K&N air
filter, wow it cost less than factory Toyota, and will last as long as I own
the car.
The sway bar rule is a bit odd and out dated, but some use it and swear it
works for them, I am not so sure, especailly the smaller front bar, go ahead
and do it, but I won't. The body lean is probably killing more grip than the
front bar is able to take off the front inside tire. But who am I, just
another shmo. My inside rear tire is in the air, less front bar puts it
higher in the air. No change in weight transfer, the back is at 100% already.
More front bar may actually work. Yup, some Celica drivers have gone to a
stiffer front bar, with front drive and NO limited slip. These are drivers
choices, I'll stick stock until it proves to be better.
I feel like equiped cars should be classed together. This should be a main
basis for classing. If you take cars with more power but less grip, and say
they made similar times, you have a big course dependancy problem, this is
where my biggest beef is with the re-class. Same goes true for super light
cars with low power. Similar torque to weight cars should run together, and
suspension differences can sort them further if they need to be. Double
a-arms have better camber curves, but many strut cars can get static camber,
should they class together, well we have limited classes, so a decision does
need to be made. I can see NON v-tec Integras running with non vvti Celicas,
twin cam Saturns, single cam Neons, most Civics, even the hotter Escorts and
the Focus, they fit well and run close. Throw in the vvti and v-tec motors
and some turbos and you have cars that will get from corner to corner faster.
Toss in a v-6 with strong torque and it gets out of the corners better, but
it is saddled with more front end weight. This makes it course dependent
again. It is a package, and matching them up is a daunting task. The biggest
part of the package is THE DRIVER.
Too bad cars get classed based on so many different drivers. If a car is
driven better, it gets a tougher class?? I think the Mechanical components of
the car need to carry a bit more weight in the classing structure. One sample
of a car doing well, and another sample of a different car doing poor does
not meen car A is better than car B. It is very possible car A was driven
better.
I see the need for having to put differing cars together because there is
only 9 stock classes. That is alot already, and I don't propose adding more.
There are current ES cars that fit HS and current GS cars that could fit ES,
but making these three classes into just 2 is not going to work without
making many more cars un-competitive. Moving the fast GS cars to the equal of
DS helps, and may make DS into something other than a Neon show. Maybe more
work needs to be put on this area than on ES/HS where several different cars
can run strong.
Sorry if that makes waves, I am trying to make a point.
I admit I don't have the answers, I am doing most of this talking to push
some thinking. I sympathise with the AS SS croud wanting another split, but
it should not be at the cost of classes that are competitive and well
subscribed.
At last years Nats
AS ASL SS SSL totaled 102 entries
ES ESL GS GSL HS HSL totaled 103 entries
About the same, maybe they both should have 3 classes, or just 2, Hmm. tough
call.
Gary M.
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