As donour mentioned ... No ... sorry only stock radiator allowed in this class.

In my personal opinion I don't think rolling fenders should be allowed as by doing so we are going into SP territory. I'm not sure I'm OK with giving 2WD car a 285 width tire (increase), what's wrong with keeping the tire rules as they are.

Let's just face the fact, there will never be enough grip ...

 

The tire rule change is an attempt to get something other than a boost buggy to win STU, which is essentially a 2-car class (Evo & STi). For local events this won't mean anything. Most people lose 2-3 seconds out of every 60 to bad driving. Giving the 2wd cars a 0.2 second advantage isn't enough to affect local results. When it comes to Nationals though, that 0.2 second advantage may mean the difference between an Evo vs an M3 winning the national championship.

Basically, the M3 guys have realized they can't win on the track, so they're trying to win in the rule book.

 

But would you agree that this is only a problem @ HPT where the surface is less than ideal for grip. Wouldn't this change affect the results at other venues where the surface provides more grip? I have to wonder how this allowance would affect the results at other venues ... As long as fender rolling isn't allowed I guess it couldn't hurt much but I'm not an expert ...

 

No. The Evo and STi are the cars to have for the class, no matter what the venue. Maybe if you got a 120 degree day where people were overheating tires in half a run, the M3 might be the car to have, but other than that, you should smoke the 2wd's.

Generally, if you're not at HPT (or the Tours, to a lesser extent) the best driver wins. At HPT, the best drivers are all getting 99.5% out of the car, so the best car wins. That's why they don't look at local event results when making rules decisions.

 

Eh they can have 285's. Hell most of the RX8's/M3's with A6's still run slower that us (except for a couple that can really drive). One car that has impressed me though if those Solstice's. One of them with A6's was running with with a new Viper on slicks (which was the fastest out of 208 cars btw). Think he ran 4sec faster than a couple of us Evo/STi's He happened to be one of the guys off the show Setup so I didn't feel too bad.

 

Really? Last time I checked only STi's have won Nationals.

Maybe the Evos should be allowed 255's and the Subies have to keep 245s.

My conspiracy theory is that for some odd reason STi's have an advantage at HPT. It was pretty amazing to see two guys who hadn't been to nationals take 1 & 2. I know they are both good drivers having talked to people from their region, but the 1-2 part raises some eye brows. Was their something with that car or did they both just pull off awesome performances? They're both really nice guys so I could be way off base, I was just disappointed to see Evos when every tour and then get beat (again) by an STi at Nats.

 

An Evo won the Pro finale...

 

I co-drove one of those last year (and will again this year). In the minimal amount of prep time we had with the Z0K package, I was consistently 2-3 seconds ahead of my A-stock Evo. I'm expecting to pick up another 1-2 seconds this year as we get the car really dialed in.

 

True, I guess I don't take the Pro into consideration since you have to make a certain number of events to get into the Finale and there really aren't any events close to my area so even though I would love to do the Finale I can't. But I'm not bitter, really.

 

I distinctly remember the M3 being less than a sec behind the leader (Burkhart in the STi) in 2006. As you said during warmer weather and a surface with slightly more grip wouldn't the cars be about equal?

 

That's debatable. Hopefully we'll find out when HPT kicks us out of there and we have to find a decent site for Nationals. Texas, here we come! (They have to have an awesome site somewhere in Texas. Everything's bigger in Texas...)

 

Excuse my lesser amount of knowledge of the Subbies but how is it they do so well? I know over here they do alright but both of us MR's that run over here have no problem keeping up. I was under the influence that the Evo always had the edge in the handling department. Then again I have never been to nationals or even keep tabs on it

 

To quote the guy who won the pro (talking about the guy who won Nats) "He made the rest of us look stupid on day 2." I think it was just great driving.

 

So its mostly just driver skill or is there a mechanical advantage or certain aftermarket support that gives them the "edge". To me everytime I have went to the track there is always atleast 10 STi's and only 2 or 3 of us evo's.

 

Odd how the STI can do well in STU, but can't really hang in BSP or SM . . . I know some of the reasons but it is very cool how when you take two very similar cars you can make one or the other more competitive by changing around a coulple rules. . .