just sent my letter
I will try to encourage Tasha, Geoff and Gretchen to do so as well!

 

BOD Letter sent....

 

Wow, I don't even know what to say guys.

This stuff went out for comment months ago. When it did basically none of you guys wrote in against it. Now suddenly the sky is falling and I am apparently masterminding some great conspiracy. Pretty disheartening...

 

If you read the whole thread, I think the conspiracy stuff was never taken too seriously and pretty quickly put to bed. I think we mostly know y'all are volunteers that are working to make the sport better.

I have to disagree with the statement "This stuff went out for comment months ago".

It was originally proposed in the August Fastrack and went to "recommended to the BOD" in the October Fastrack. Assuming Fastracks come out pretty much the same time every month, that's 2 months, maximum. Except you subtract the fact that the boards have to meet in order to make the recommendations to put in the Fastracks. According to the October Fastrack, the SEB met on 8-26 to discuss a lot of those proposals (probably right after the September Fastrack came out). It's unclear whether that's when they recommended the C5/350Z, but if that IS the case, that means that the member feedback period was a lot closer to ONE month and that assumes that all the feedback was routed to the right people in time.

Furthermore, if it really was 8-26, it was shortly before Brian Peters won STR in a 350Z, which seems like a fairly relevant datapoint (though not all that surprising since he won the Lincoln tour, too).

As you can tell from the thread, there were some STUers who wrote in in September, not knowing that the ship had effectively already sailed. It's not like the Fastracks say "we would like feedback on this matter before X". When STX got wider tires, that was out there for five months, IIRC. I think having a deadline would be a nice bit of transparency to have.

So I don't see how you get "went out for comment months ago".

 

What? No one cares about any conspiracy, LOL… what about some feedback regarding the questions/concerns like:

-Is the STAC using some data to justify its decision?
-The 350Z just won STR, showing that it can get it done, what is the reasoning to move it to STU? The car already has a ST class to run in it.
- The Corvette C5; Power/Torque/ good chassis/ big tires…this car did not have a ST class and I think that it is a HUGE plus to allow these cars in ST classes, but with the current rules, I think that this car could be really dominant in this STU.

I believe and support 100% having a diverse field in any class; I just think that at the current state of the rules, these changes are not favorable; especially to the biggest supporters “AWD cars”

If that is the case give AWD cars more tire/ boost… I don’t know why so many people have the idea that Evos/ STIs and AWD cars in general are some kind of magical vehicles that drive themselves and should be penalized in Autocross.

 

The sky is not falling, nor is anyone seriously suggesting that our arguments rely on conspiracy theories. I apologize if my last post appeared that way, but I arrived late to the whole Corvette in STU discussion and spent a few hours trying to understand how the STAC is drawing their conclusions. The information available to us is very, very limited and somewhat cryptic:

I did some admittedly limiting searching, but the first and only bit of information I found regarding extensive analysis was the misleading chart that has already been discussed before. As we already said, we actually don't even know if that chart was used in the analysis or not, but we wanted to reach out to whoever made and/or used the chart to offer some corrections in the event that it was actually used to base some of these decisions on. The lack of transparency have left us to scrutinize every bit of information we could find. So I apologize if I offended you with my previous post, and please know that I did not intend to suggest a witch hunt.

Now that you're here, perhaps you could do us a favor and provide some more insight into the extensive analysis and thought process behind the proposal? I feel like that would go a long way toward making us all more comfortable with this decision.

However, as we discussed above, our arguments and grievances with the proposal do not rely on the chart or any particular members. We deliberately did not encourage a witch hunt here, because not only would it be unproductive, unfair, and uncalled for, but our arguments against the proposal are sufficiently strong on their own.



I'm all for providing more opportunities for various cars to compete in street tire classes and having a wider variety of cars to compete against. However, as others have already explained, the 350Z already has an excellent street tire class to compete in, where it does very well. It's hard to understand why it should be moved into STU.

As for the C5 Corvette, I would love to welcome the car to STU if the rule set was further adjusted to keep the playing field level. As it stands, the C5 appears to have a massive advantage due to its massive N/A torque curve, a proper suspension and chassis, and the huge tires it will be running. A C5 STU car would be impossible to beat on a course with a lot of steady-state elements where our 245 width tires, econobox chassis, and MacPherson strut suspensions put us at a serious disadvantage. No one wants to compete in a class where the winner is determined by the course layout.

 

Howdy everyone. Let me open by saying our intention is not to shake things up in STU. As discussed during the Town Hall, we are looking to add potential participants to the class that shouldn’t upset the apple cart. We have every intention of keeping the boost buggies at top level competitive cars in the future. We want to push STU towards more viable numbers before things get worse.

And to address a few of the comments that have been made:

The original proposal came out in July. (Based on a July 17th post by Butt Dyno, who as an “Evolved Member”, I assume is credible?) The STAC immediately began receiving letters in support for the proposal, despite being called idiots for excluding the FRC. (The FRC inclusion was an SEB addition.) Very few letters were in opposition. At the Town Hall meeting, very little opposition was presented to the STAC. In fact, several STU competitors said “bring it on”. In order to go to the BoD for inclusion in the 2014 rule set, the proposal had to be included in the October Fastrack. The STAC pushed this to the SEB after Nationals, around September 19th, based on all the feedback that had been received.

While the C5 produces a good torque curve, its gearing keeps it out of this power range at typical autocross speeds. The chart was produced by taking available torque graphs and mapping that with speed/gear ratios, vehicle weight distribution and tire sizes. The torque curve used for the C5 and Nissans was the best we could find on an engine that had a tune and headers. While there may be real world deviations from what it theoretically reports, these deviations should have a mostly uniform effect on all the vehicles included.

The FRC does not have a lower gear set than the base coupe.

Comparing STU participation to other class participation isn’t a great argument. The other classes noted with low participation at 2013 Nationals are being heavily scrutinized at this moment. And while this forum may consider STU participation levels “healthy”, we don’t.

We have not ruled out changing tire allowances in the future. We just felt this was not the correct time to do anything with them.

We really don’t think that putting headers, tune, racing seats and street tires on a C5 will result in faster than AS times. (For instance, one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned is decreased braking performance.) Lincoln concrete is more favorable to the Hoosiers than 140 and greater street tires, based on the internet chatter I’ve seen. I know it is more favorable to slicks, so this chatter seems reasonable to me.

I doubt Brian is going to pick up 4 seconds at Nationals with 1” more tire. Yes, if the courses are highly transitional/sweeperish, the EVO will be at a disadvantage – just like it was in 2012 against the M3. We don’t think this is a change in class dynamics.

 

Some of us tried (unsuccessfully) to argue that 2 seatsports cars should not be included in the class. The rebuttal was that there was never any intention to limit the class to 4 seat sedan type vehicles… ok sure, but the original intention of all of ST was to try and cater to the arrive-and-drive “tuner” types that were not willing/able to bring a set of Hoosiers along, and/or have a few bolt-on tuner-type mods…. a place for the arrive-and-drive types to have some fun (and bring up participation levels)… ok sure, that worked but are we now becoming victims of our own success?

If the car to have in STU (eventually) becomes a 2-seater sports-type car, we won’t be able to run there anymore (assuming no changes are made and we want to remain competitive)… I suppose I could leave the wife or dog at home, but that wouldn’t really pan out well for me YES, we drive our racecar to the track. YES, my wife comes to, YES, we often have to pack our luggage (Packwood is a long ways away), tent/cooler/food. NO, we can’t leave the dog at home for the weekend (or wife, lol) and NO our townhouse won’t accommodate a truck and trailer.. It’d be a shame if STU fell victim to the “sports-car.” That would leave only STF and STX (RX8/BRZ/FRS?) out of the 6 ST classes available where you could/would-want-to take the family out for an arrive-and-drive autocross weekend…

We need a class where large/heavy (family friendly) 4-seatand modestly modified cars on street tires can compete at the top level.. oh wait, we have one, STU (right Luster? IIRC you put a lot of miles on that carof your this year.. and so did we)

So yeah, if we’re to be victims of our own success, I guess us arrive-and-drive types will need to move on to the new street-tired stock classes (booo)…. oh well, such is progress. Does anyone want to buy a “slightly”broken EVO IX?… not sure we can justify the thousands of dollars it'll take to fix it (for STU) with all this crap up in the air

 

KJ,

Wow. Thanks for taking the time to post to our little corner of the internet.
I have friends on the both the SEB and both the SAC and STAC. I know that it's not easy.
I'll go ahead and speak for everyone here and say that no one thinks that you guys are idiots or conspirators or anything of the sort.

I do agree that something needs to be done to keep STU populated. I do think that adding the Pony cars makes a lot of sense.

Regarding the 'J-Rho' thrust plots -- when I put my car's numbers into the sheet the best I saw was a peak of 0.75g that came on late and disappeared quickly. I'm not sure how you guys achieved 0.88g. I'm guessing that you either underestimated the weight or maybe got dyno curves from a generous dyno. Excepting for traction - I'm pretty sure that we'll be at a thrust disadvantage to the c5 regardless of speed -- but especially exiting slower corners.
If you can share the spreadsheet with us that would be great!

The thrust plots don't address the more important point. The vette is going to be better in slaloms and steady state corners. Much better. The car has non-equal length a-arms that produce a great camber curve regardless of how low the car is. The vette can be put on the ground, have a great CG while still keeping the tire flat on the racing surface.

And even saying that, even if I concede the point, if you are correct about the c5, then there remains a perception issue. Everyone *thinks* that the c5 is going to crush. We do. The pony cars do: (http://www.vorshlag.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8215 )
If that's the perception then all of the cars that you've just added to the class will stay home. And the existing participants may do the same.

I would have liked to have more time for this decision to have gone from feedback to recommendation. The Fastrack with this proposal was available to the members in the August fastrack on July 25. (That document that Butt Dyno posted was not the same proposal (BRZ STi?) and was from some draft seb minutes that he found somewhere.) There was nothing in the August or Sept fastrack that indicated that this would be recommended to the BoD for inclusion in the 2014 ruleset.

In fact - both the August and Sept fastrack indicated that these proposals were for ruleset inclusion in 2015.
The red color was in the fastrack. Did I misunderstand what that meant? Needless to say, I was surprised to read, in the October fastrack, that these changes were going to be in the 2014 rules. I genuinely thought that I had the year to research, drive a c5 on streets, talk to my vette friends, talk to my evo friends, ..


And - as far as new allowances - the tires. AWD was put on tiny tires back in the HPT days. That made sense. The HPT surface was horrible and AWD was a real advantage. On the grippy concrete at Lincoln the AWD is more a hindrance than a help. We overheat the fronts about 3/4 way through the first run and the performance degrades from there. So we essentially get 1 run. 1 run unless we bring a few sets of tires..


Thanks again for posting here. I hope that everyone here appreciates this. It is very unusual for an AC member to post on marque forums to discuss the committee's reasoning.

-'chono'

 

Let me reiterate that it is not the intent of the current STAC (and I presume the SEB, but I can't speak for them) to move in that direction. I don't think such a result would create a class with desired participation figures. We aren't anti-boost buggy. We are pro-STU.

 

The thrust plots are theoretical for each car. I suspect you'll see lower real-world numbers from all the cars on the chart. And yes, we expect the C5, and the 350Z for that matter, to be better at slaloms and steady-state corners. And yes, there will be some course dependency, just as in prior years. We don't believe it is the end of the Evo's reign though. Keep in mind that the limitations of asking street tires to do two things at once still apply, so performance will be lacking when compared to Hoosier performance. I'm aware of one test (using that term loosely) of an SSP car struggling with STU times on street tires. And another, lets say "instance" of an AS car struggling on street tires. And if all that goes away as cars develop, we can alter the rules accordingly to maintain some sort of parity.

I'm hoping that the won't stay home. We have the ability to manage this better than the Civics in STX debacle. One thing I will say is that it is everyone's best interest to continue. Note that if every two competitors had convinced one more person to show up on average, STU numbers would be at a point where we probably wouldn't recommend anything.



If you revisit the August Fastrack, you'll see the STU proposal listed the classing effective 2014. (Note the preamble includes the clause "unless noted otherwise".)

We are absolutely willing to revisit this allowance if the necessary. I will note that National's results show that most fast runs were the 3rd run. But I understand what you are saying.


Your welcome. As a general rule, I (and most committee members) don't like to engage in debate on these things. However, we are trying to bridge the gap between that and silence.

 

Hi, I'm John, I run in the DC region. My life story is pretty well covered in my build thread I am not some sort of internet troll, near as I can tell. Just skimming, I've probably met half the people posting in this thread in person.

Anyway, I was just linking to something on the internet, so anyone could judge the credibility of the document for themselves. Since it was hosted on scca.com I figured it was a safe bet the document was real. That said, it did say DRAFT all over it, so I don't think the member feedback clock started until the actual, non-DRAFT Fastrack came out.

As for this move not increasing course dependency... given that the Z/C5 are much wider than the M3, I don't see that they would be successful on the same kinds of courses. Yes, there is some course dependency now, but by definition, adding two cars that are much wider (5-6" wider than an M3) and more powerful, are going to be successful on different kinds of courses. To use 2012 West as an example, I can't see anything an E36 M3 on 255s would do better than one of these cars on 285s... maybe the final slalom?

Obviously we disagree about a lot of the things related to the proposal, but thank you for taking the time to explain where the STAC is coming from. I really hope we (EvoM) are wrong...

Thanks
John

 

I don't have a whole lot of vested interested in this, and Id prefer to see the corvette stay out of the class because the suspension is far more capable than our awful mac-strut and the balance is leaps and bounds better.

At first I though Bull****, The corvette will out power it and that graph is skewed hard core so I put some effort into collecting my own numbers. I found a dyno sheet of a 290hp evo which seems reasonable for the class, and a 350hp C5 with long tube headers and a tune.

I also grabbed the gear ratio and tire diameter data to find actual thrust in lbs applied to the ground. Attached is what I came up with. The corvette makes nearly 100 ft-lbs more torque but with the gear ratios being longer, these are the results.

I didn't bother with theoretical acceleration numbers because there are traction differences and both cars are close to the same weight.

 

Howdy, John. Apparently I'm part of your fanclub, as I own and wear this shirt:


Some background on this DRAFT business. It is my understanding that the CRB (road racing side) has for some time released draft minutes to members prior to the actual Fastrack release. Someone noted that the SEB should as well, and I think this was the first time it was done. Obviously some things can change. For instance, the joke we put in there about the BRZ/Sti slipped through the draft and was removed from the final Fastrack.

But always feel welcome to comment on things in there. Hell, we are getting comments about an STP proposal that hasn't actually gone out....

 

LOL you guys crack me up. You really think a C5 is going to dominate the class? Come on. Have you ever driven any high HP RWD car on street tires in an autocross environment? Hello drift fest!

The reason heavier HP RWD cars (like the vette) do so well in Stock and SP has to do with one thing. R-compound tires. These cars will turn great with street tires. No doubt. But try to put the power down. Or put the power down AND turn. Good luck.

I can't imagine ANY course where I would choose a C5 over a boost buggy in STU. I would be more worried about the other cars like the genesis or 350z. Which I still think would be a worthy benefit to the class.