[Brian Scott]

Ok,

If the beastly WRC cars are what's terrifying everyone....take the current Open class rules and make the following changes:

- Minimum weight 2900 lbs. or 3000 lbs.
- No sequential gearboxes. Must be "patterned" gearbox

The two rules should only effect the Factory cars. Every independant EVO and I suspect most Subaru's are much closer to 3000lbs than 2700lbs.

I know there are no Sequential EVO's out there.

I dunno, flame away.

Brian

 

[Flyboy]

Screw that, just limit tires. Everybody gets 8 new tires a race, and that's it. Got a flat, too bad. Got aggressive and wore them out right away, tough crap. That's how they do it at local circle tracks, and it works. BTW, you can run an open class car on one or two sets of tires a race, I do it all the time.

Don't worry about WRC cars, it isn't cost effective to bring one over. Anybody with enuf money to actually do it will probably suck at driving it anywayz.

Dennis Martin
[email protected]
920-432-4845

 

[mothra]

RE: relating more towards expanding the field/increasing competition

Has anyone ever proposed staged entry fees? Cheapest for P most expensive for O. Wouldn't slow any cars down but would discourage alot of newbies from going into Open. Might make alot of people not care about WRC cars and sequential boxes and such.

 

[Don Kennedy]

RE: relating more towards expanding the field/increasing competition

That wouldn't be fair to the guy that already has a car that can't sensibly/possibly be made legal for production or group N but is basicly a club type of guy that wants to run a couple national events also.

 

[Audi UrQ]

RE: relating more towards expanding the field/increasing competition

> That wouldn't be fair to the guy that already has a car that
> can't sensibly/possibly be made legal for production or group N
> but is basicly a club type of guy that wants to run a couple
> national events also.

I am an example of Don's reasoning above. I have a cheap (relatively speaking) old Open Class Audi that is well prepared and offers a very high bang-for-the-buck ratio; and don't feel I should be penalized by being charged high entry fees just because I chose a class that offers me a high fun factor, a car I can grow into over time, and good value for money.

 

[DaveHintz]

RE: relating more towards expanding the field/increasing competition

Brian's idea sounds pretty reasonable to me. Weight is a hinderance in braking, cornering, and acceleration. Weight is also very expensive to reduce. It's a good way to control things.
Dave
Car # 207

 

[patr]

RE: relating more towards expanding the field/increasing competition

No one wants to initiate a tech cap because everyone is taking advantage of it, to a certain extent, with their own setups (i.e. "Open is cheaper for me blah blah").

I'm going to raise it because i know I am going to get flamed for it. Oh well.

Well, evidence, not theoretical malingering, shows that we had a pretty good championship up in canada this year. in a lot of races any of 5 guys could win. the 34mm seems to be working. Even the mightly MMUSA team was in the thick of things. The other thing is that guys can go out and buy stuff without having to re-invent it themselves. Like call up some mitsubishi guy in belgium/australia/thailnad/anywhere and say "what is the spec on your 'clubman group A' motor ?" And a grp N car won a rally once over the 34mm cars. A bunch are just N+ i.e. grp N w/ 34mm.

the only diff I see is 34mm and "more sensitive" spending by manuf. teams. but nothing stops them from going whole hog except the need. The main diff is the sensitive spending though. The point being is, a very controversial change was made, and people went with it.

As far as your question, is it not odd to add weight while still refusing to cap the power (for the gearboxes sake)... keeping 40mm and adding weight is like weird but maybe I dont understand it.

but at any rate if you did want to do it, 2800 is very doable in any of those cases. Are cars being weighed at in-controls to service ?

In any case, even a WRC car is a cap on the current open class (which is essentially absolutely and completely unlimited except active front/rear diffs).

2800/34mm/no sequential (for all wheel drive turbo "open" only) would make things pretty damn interesting (again we're talking sharp edge here). That way, one could in theory still bring a ballasted H-box WRC car but the relatively small incremental speed advantage versus the large $$ spent (against say a decent N+ Evo 6) would make it pretty funny for whomever did it. Kind of like a big risk to get beaten by guys in crappier cars. The group Ns would not be far behind. A well driven maxi-N on min. weight might even be in it. Or even a 900kg <2L non turbo 2wd car with a sequential. Imagine that ?

 

[FMF]

RE: relating more towards expanding the field/increasing competition

I was thinking this would be a good idea take homologation weight add 1-3 hundred pounds (whatever seems like it will get the job done) let em run 34mm H box and then they can do whatever they want and not be very far ahead. However, there is a lot of wiggle room with the weight thing, look what Ford did with the WRC03. Additionally it promotes sketchy cage building to get the weight low in the car, which is already a problem. It still relies on ?manufacturer intelligence? which in Canada is high in the states well? there is competition and that leads to ?well I think I?ll do the intelligent thing and spend everything I can to win? and if you don?t the other guy will. As Rich said there is a lot to be gained in the Canadian cars by Group A motors (WRC technology has had Millions lavished on it over the years) but would cost big $. SRTUSA, AFR, and a few privateers have no such inhibitions thus they need rules to inhibit them. The worst part is that the areas between are very hard to regulate i.e. the difference between Group A Group N with 34 mm restrictor is internals that can?t be identified without a tear down and someone who knows what they are looking at. Not flaming just explaining. It could work reasonably and certainly would be better than nothing.

 

[wvonkessler]

Or, we could just take a clue from the European Championship, and get rid of WRC and A8 cars (Open AWD), leaving PGT/Group N as the big dogs in AWD, and lots of other fun 2wd drive cars in "Open" (G2/5). This could also (and I know I am opening a can of worms here) make it more affordable for the privateer (Super 1600s excluded).

Wilson

 

[randyzimmer]

RE: weight

my subaru 2.5 N/A 160hp Open car = 2660 minus spare tires (2).
old chassis, 5-speed, OE glass, no extra plumbing.
---
bug eyes have big subframes, more chassis structure, turbos and all the extras they need weigh more, so do 6 speeds.
rz

 

[DaveHintz]

RE: weight

Randy,

Okay how about this:

The weight minimum shouldn't apply to non-turbo open class cars.

 

[randyzimmer]

RE: weight

I was just responding to the statement/suggestion:
"The two rules should only effect the Factory cars. Every independant EVO and I suspect most Subaru's are much closer to 3000lbs than 2700lbs."
---
Rules have an effect on more than just who you target. In this case, One of the slowest cars gets its only advantage taken away. History shows it isn't easy to write rules that always have the desired effect.
rz