I agree with Jack here.

Also, PAX is an equalizer, but it only decides who buys dinner at the end of the day; beyond that it does not and should not come into making decisions on you prep your car. So, AS-->ESP, to me does not mean anything, and may be I am missing something.

Also, please note that I am not against or for Evo/STi being in ESP or BSP. I am not going to Topeka

 

The issue of AS -> ESP is that it suggests the cars will get slower when they're modified to SP rules. From class-leader perspective, PAX is usually pretty accurate. Also, many clubs run PAX classes, thus PAX becomes important if you run at the front of your club.

I tend to agree, unless you plan on challenging for a National Trophy, it's not that important.

The Winchell rants that we've all read are about trophying at the Nationals, and it does matter to those guys - the Schotz(sp?) and Stranos of the world. They, not unreasonably, want a level playing field and some believe, rightly or wrongly that the STi/EVO in ESP has upset the apple cart. Whether or not ESP should be PonyCar SP is a different discussion that's getting dragged into the "EVO in ESP" argument.

But again, at the local/regional level almost everyone on this BB is going to get spanked repeatedly regardless of the class the EVO ends up in - we're simply not that good. Class the EVO in HorriblySlow and if you run in my region you'll still get spanked :-) Most of us here can only win their class if their competition can barely drive the course faster than they can run it on foot. There's nobody posting to this forum who could give a trophied National driver a run for their money, so why are we worried ? Last time out neither Chang Ho Kim nor Fedja Jeleskovic even trophied at the Nationals, and the only way any of us could catch those guys is if they ran on flat tyres.

I think we're all getting our knickers in a knot over something that is ultimately irrelevevant at our level. You could give everyone on this list an ASP Z06 and we'd still get spanked by a half-decent driver in a Miata.

 

Jack is right on. I DID prep the car for ESP. If it had been classed in BSP I would have concentrated on making it a competitive A stock or SM car.

FYI -- I do quite well regionally (6th for the year overall in the Philly Region and 1st in A Stock) and even trophied at the DC National event last year. I also planned on competing in at least 2 National evnts and my first ProSolo this year.

I take autocrossing pretty seriously, and it is not the first time a classing change has f'ed me over. I drove fully prepped Prelude SH in STS, then they bumped it to STX a year later.

I am just getting a little fed up with the BS. At least give the car a full year in ESP to prove where it belongs.

 

That's a bit of a sweeping statement.

At the risk of appearing immodest... At an event in October, I came within a cone tap of outPAXing three trophy winners from 2003 Nats -- Norman Beaver (3rd place in DM), Brian Garfield (6th place in STX) and James Sheridan (11th place in DSP). Brian and James had previously driven my car -- same day, same course as me -- so I have a really clear idea of the gap between me and National trophy drivers. While I will admit they were better drivers than me, it wasn't as if they were driving circles around me. And I was a relative newbie at the time, having only started competing in June. Ask either of them if they think that I could give them a run for their money in 2004... Brian in particular practically insisted that I run some ProSolos and plan on going to Nats in 2004.

 

I was not disputing that PAX cannot be used to help compare classes for a car, but since the PAX changes yearly, the number assigned to a class will differ depending on who shows up in what car at the National level to alter it. ESP actually softened on the PAX for 2004 compared to 2003.

You shouldn't get slower when you prepare to SP from stock. That is the biggest arguement I see for EVOs somewhere else than ESP. But given how far the PAX jumps for FS to ESP, the gains must be much more for the ponycarts when going to SP.


Jason

 

ACM,

I think you owe SS RX7 r2 an apology (for starters):

http://www.scca.com/amateur/solo2/na...tml#StreetPrep (Results from this weekends first National Tour event in Phoenix)

Congrats, Rick. Some really nice driving.

Should have a writeup and some pics on my website in a few days.

Joe
www.joe250.com

 

exactly..

that is what irritates me the most about the arguments made by winchill and the rest of the pony car crowd.

If the EVO/STI are truely overdogs in ESP, then it will be fixed next season.

If the EVO get's bump'ed to BSP, then just like most of the M3's I'll just go SM and be uncompetitive for a long while until I can catch up to the $$$ that the current national champ put into his M3 (and runs in my region)

 

The march fasttrackk is out, and it looks like the placement of the EVO/STI in SP is "under review"

Keep those Emails going!!!

http://www.scca.org/news/tech/fastra...3-fastrack.pdf

 

Yes it looks like only 6 letters have been sent in(2 listed are mine). In the dry H. Botkin's well prepped and driven Camaro won ESP by over 2 Sec at the AZ tour. In the dry BSP would have smoked ESP.

Rick

 

The rain... that's why it's a hard to compare here. Last year's nationals and the first national tour event this year both had rain. The only events last year Evos were at on the national tour were DC and Toledo running in AS (unless I missed something in the results).

I just don't think there is nearly enough data, especially for ESP, to warrant moving the Evo or STi out just yet.

 

Emailed them with my concerns. Hope it helps the cause!!

 

That is going to anger me if they change it, becaue I just prepped my EVO from AS to ESP for this season. I havent been able to follow the EVO nationally, but I know in our region our AS EVOs are winning over all fastest times. Is this happening anywhere else?

The only reason I decided to jump class is because we have a lack of cars in the AS class here in the CFR region. It is usually only me and my team mate in another EVO. Every once in a while we get a boxter or NSX... But still it isn't as competitive as we would like to see it. I decided to jump class to get a little more over all advantage since we are already winning over all in our region.

Tom

www.radicalride.com

 

I think the Evo is an extremely strong car for autoX at the local level. This is because it's a great car for novices, for people who don't live and breathe autoX, or for people who don't prep the car to the limits of the rules.

A National trophy winner drove my car this year and said basically that it was the easiest car he's ever jumped into and driven fast. His first run in the car was good enough for FSTD, even though it was the slowest of his four runs.

I think that's part of the "problem" with the Evo -- if you can call it a problem. The driver is fast right away, but is also pushing the limits of the car much sooner. I suspect a top driver would "hit the ceiling" in an Evo very quickly -- getting to the point where they're getting everything they can out of the car. If you hit that ceiling and you're still behind the Vettes, all you can do is pray for rain.

 

RIDE1: I'm actually staying in AS for similar reasons to yours. There were basically no competitors in AS or ESP this past season. But this coming season a few STi drivers are planning to run AS, so I decided to go for AS. It also keeps me under control with the limited mods allowed.

It will be a good challenge. One of the STi guys won our SM class this year and always has good times. So my goal is to give him a good challenge.

 

hey guys does anybody have a clue what class a bone stock, except for wheels and tires, 1979 alpha romeo gtv-4 sprint veloce mille miglia edition would run in, it has a 20 liter I-4 5spd, im just curious cause we wanna run this year, even a guess would help us
thnx