603 replies to this topic

[john mueller]

We can all sit around and mentally masturbate about how much cheating is going on, but until you have real tech at all races, regional and national, no one knows the answer to this question. Perhaps the rules are pretty good already and they are just not being enforced and that is the main reason for disparity. Bottom line, no sense making more rules until the ones in place are complied with, then you have some data to work with. Start with enforcing the rules and see where that takes you.

Agreed. However, someone said it back somewhere between pages 4 & 10 of this thread it's a manpower & knowledge issue... Example: The NASA Nationals is the biggest and most prestigious event on NASA's schedule... I was given a form to fill out a few weeks prior to this years event to outline what I wanted scrutinized after each and every sessions. It was really a great tool and it was very helpful, but the instructions was very clear, "NO MORE THAN 4 CARS AT ONE TIME. For SM?? Yeah, right!!! I informed them that we'd have at least 10 after every session (and we did), one time the entire 37 car field was pulled in (all had hoods-up, pulled wheels off for brake/hub/suspension inspection then all were weighed - some went to the dyno from there).

My point is, regardless what the event it's management team will never have enough staff to do the work and if they did they don't know what we need done... Remember, even at NASA's biggest event 'they' felt that looking at only a few cars was enough... We know the class and we know what it will take to enforce the rules we have.

Are we organized well enough to collectively to create a document of what to look for and how (procedures)? I'm sure some of this already exists... I know we could at least come-up with one longass list of stuff to check.

[JRHille]

No need to split the class. Seems like the 1.6 takes a lot more to be as competitive as some of the top cars race after race, but when all is right they are damn close. I seem to lose 4 or 5 horsepower between every dyno tune. My car isn't at the very top of the shelf and I've had great racing with all years.

[Danny Steyn]

John Mueller

thanks for giving us NASA's perspective. Heard great things about your tech at the Nationals.

Earlier in this thread I asked if Mike Collins or Glenn Murphy could weigh in about what the dyno was used for at the NASA Nationals and what it revealed if anything. No response so far - possibly you could answer this for me and others that want to know

[Colin MacLean]

It's not just a question of parity guys, it's one of perception. Again, please think back to what got SM popular to begin with. Grassroots racing. You show up at the track as a prospective grassroots racer with your eye set on a 1.6 on Ebay, ready to pull the trigger, and you see SM means a fleet of fully-prepped '99's under giant tents beside huge 6 car enclosed trailers and you just turn around and walk away. That's not grassroots racing you say as your eye turns to Spec E30....

You show up at the track and see a bunch of regional 1.6/1.8's's that same grassroots guy feels like he has a chance regardless of whether that is true or not. He can't "see" the 40K in that car all he sees is your car is the same as his. The national guys are off racing somewhere else, all the huge enclosed trailers are gone and what's left are the weekend warriors and 100 of their closest friends who now think SM is the greatest thing on the planet. When I started in SM, not that long ago, there was ONE semi trailer in the paddock running SM's and I didn't even know National racing existed (nor did I care). Now you wouldn't even know there were hundreds of regional-only cars out there, the focus is 1000% on the National aspect of this class. As Spock said "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". The National guys need their own sandbox, the regional guys theirs. Whether that sandbox is 99 v's earlier, MX-5 v's Miata or sealed v's open, there needs to be a differentiating factor because you have two completely different groups who want different things and you will NEVER make the two groups happy with one philosophy or ruleset.

Runoffs parity (parity between the top 5% of the top-prep cars) is not the problem. 95% of SM does not care about the runoffs.

[Glenn]

John Mueller

thanks for giving us NASA's perspective. Heard great things about your tech at the Nationals.

Earlier in this thread I asked if Mike Collins or Glenn Murphy could weigh in about what the dyno was used for at the NASA Nationals and what it revealed if anything. No response so far - possibly you could answer this for me and others that want to know

Danny, the Dyno was used to produce the power numbers allude to before. Also we were able to verify final drive by running all the cars at set RPM in 3rd gear. The intent was to sample the winners immediatly after the race and note any variences in dyno numbers from previous runs. We did NOT dyno post race as the wet conditions did not make big mota any benifit. NASA has the ONLY copy of the DYNO results as all of our data was "hand written" so not to get out into the public domain.

FYI By the "numbers" the 1.8 was the car to have at the NASA Championships!

[pat slattery]

Without divulging names does anyone have some real world HP and tq numbers for some of the top cars that ran at the runoffs and dynoed there?

[john mueller]

John Mueller

thanks for giving us NASA's perspective. Heard great things about your tech at the Nationals.

Earlier in this thread I asked if Mike Collins or Glenn Murphy could weigh in about what the dyno was used for at the NASA Nationals and what it revealed if anything. No response so far - possibly you could answer this for me and others that want to know

I was not privy to the dyno data at the event. Despite being way back in the pack I was one of the competitors and thought knowing the actual numbers would not be fair. However I was kept in the loop if anything appeared to be out of the norm, which never happened.

[Glenn]

Without divulging names does anyone have some real world HP and tq numbers for some of the top cars that ran at the runoffs and dynoed there?

On one DYNO session at the Runoffs 5 or six cars were run back to back. The spread was less than 8HP from low to high.

[Danny Steyn]

Thanks Glenn and John

[Danny Steyn]

Without divulging names does anyone have some real world HP and tq numbers for some of the top cars that ran at the runoffs and dynoed there?

Pat, from what I remember, depending on the day (and there was a lot of weather change day to day at the SCCA Runoffs) the better cars were in the range of 122 to 126HP and around 117TQ (alothough my recollection of the torque number is questionable - its an age thing!)

I remember a prominent member coming off the dyno with 123HP and being very happy as it was the highest number tested that day. Yet two days later I heard numbers of 125/126 but as I said, very different weather.

[Brian Ghidinelli]

How would your race at Homestead been any different if they had split the class, run both classes together and awarded 2 sets of trophies. Your racing would have been just as close, you would have had the same number of drivers to compete against, but the 1.6 drivers who have long felt that they are not competing on a

Please consider (putting my board member hat on), that the regions must pay for trophies and we like everyone else are looking for ways to cut costs and hold entry fees level. Trophies are one of our larger expenses each weekend. Yes, it's "just one more class", but we already have that issue x ~40.

[Brian Ghidinelli]

It's not just a question of parity guys, it's one of perception. Again, please think back to what got SM popular to begin with. Grassroots racing. You show up at the track as a prospective grassroots racer with your eye set on a 1.6 on Ebay, ready to pull the trigger, and you see SM means a fleet of fully-prepped '99's under giant tents beside huge 6 car enclosed trailers and you just turn around and walk away. That's not grassroots racing you say as your eye turns to Spec E30....

You show up at the track and see a bunch of regional 1.6/1.8's's that same grassroots guy feels like he has a chance regardless of whether that is true or not. He can't "see" the 40K in that car all he sees is your car is the same as his. The national guys are off racing somewhere else, all the huge enclosed trailers are gone and what's left are the weekend warriors and 100 of their closest friends who now think SM is the greatest thing on the planet.

Funny, the big arrove-n-drove teams with fancy trailers in SFR were all 1.6 car teams!

You're not describing an SM-specific problem, you are talking about the maturation of a group of competitive people who advance from novice to expert. Spec E30 is simply behind SM on the curve but it will follow the same path. Care for an example? A shop here built a convertible E30 for the NASA Nationals because they believed it had an advantage over the hardtop cars. There is no evidence to suggest it will follow a dissimilar path.

So, on topic here, is how to continue improving our class, Spec Miata? The idea that we should forget everything we've learned and go back to being good ole boys and girls, is not realistic. Isn't that the problem with SCCA to some extent? People get fed up, give up, and create new classes? We have something really, really good here and we're really close already. We just need a few more tweaks (thanks Danny for organizing the thread).

[steveracer]

As a 1.6 owner, I would really hate to see the class get split!

I would however be agreeable to ALLOW updating the suspension to the later model, and swap a 1.8 motor. I'd much rather make a few relatively small changes to my current car instaed of having to spend BIG money building/buying a newer car.

The only way we're ever going to have true "parity" is if we're all on the same suspension running the same motors and weights. Our little cars don't make enough mph for the nose to make a large difference. This is how we keep SM alive, IMO. Not as a one-car class, no matter which car it is.

[Connie 62]

Good luck with that.....
So far this topic is important enough for 65 people to comment on, and half or less seem to support your ideas.

There was probably 65 entrants in SM in one of this years SCCA Florida Nationals. 95% or more of all racers will show up to race in SM no matter where this conversation goes and no matter what the rule set is.

The bottom line is there are people who are on some committees that have hard decisions all the time, and they know that they are never gonna make a decision thats popular.

To me its just comical that you suggest overthrowing the ones that sit in those chairs and make those decisions but nowhere do you ever suggest that you are willing or able to sit on that same hot seat.

As for protecting their turf through decisions, you should note that we cant even get 50% of the 65 brave posters here to agree on jack sh*t. So these pore sloggs that have been made out to be self serving deamons, risk allienating the very customers they do serve when make any of these so called selfish decisions.

It is conversations like this that make very qualified people stay away from decision making possitons within our organizations. I for one don't envy any of those that sit on SMAC, GCR, or NASA's heirarchy.

It is nice that 65 guys have alot of passion for SM and racing though. Now back to the Crucification!

Guess you missed the post where I stated that I spent 7 years in WDC building the most successful "regional" spec sealed engine class in the Nation. Guess who gave me the most grief? SCCA! That's right, stewards, tech, and all the other empire builders who hate change. Most of the drivers loved me, and those who didn't left for SM. But now, WDC SSM is losing its grip on parity. SCCA won't let us self-police and thus no policing is done. Make weight and your golden. It doesn't have to be that way.

Why do drivers enter a spec class and then spend unspeakable money gaining an advantage in HP? We have a class for that, it's called Production. Aren't we there to match our skills with others? Each year it gets more expensive to have that 2 HP advantage. Kill off that advantage and you kill off the R&D chase.

Each region could set it's own number based on the home field dyno. When the runoffs come along, the dyno at RA would determine the number. The actual number might vary by region, but top cars would likely fit nicely into the range set by each region. If a region didn't have a dyno available, then they're back to tech and protests. Interesting thought...I'll bet you would see drivers making their entire year's schedule around events that didn't have a dyno. What would that tell you?

I've seen this work. It's not that difficult if we can cut through a hundred years of red tape and tradition.

Jim Thill

[Mike Collins]

I dyno's my car twice at the runoffs. 122 on Tuesday , 124 on Friday

[pat slattery]

On one DYNO session at the Runoffs 5 or six cars were run back to back. The spread was less than 8HP from low to high.

I would say 7-8 HP is a bit of a large spread if we are talking about the same model year.

[Glenn]

I would say 7-8 HP is a bit of a large spread if we are talking about the same model year.

I guess which end of the scale you were on The Low number was a FRESH motor without much tune, tire pressures NOT set and in need of new plugs and the high was 2/3 points better than the average of the other 3/4. The Low number car finished mid pack and the upper number car was top 5. Did I say they were all the same model year? This info was a 1 time only opportunity that NEVER was repeated, so what was done after that test is purely speculation. Mike posted his numbers and he ran P-7 so what do the numbers mean?

[Speedycrw]

I admire the decision that guy made, it was the "right" one. Unfortunately for us, that is never going to happen here, We can't afford to lose all those cars. SM is a victim of it's own success, the popularity, the competition and low costs(despite opinions) is what drew most of us here. If there were another class where the competition was as good, fields as large and slightly faster, many of us would "move up" but those options are not there IMO. I have often been asked if I would run MX5 cup etc, grand am etc. I think about it and always come back to why?? SM has better competition, lower costs, more fun etc. I don't see what any of those classes offer over SM other than slightly faster straight line speed. I have no aspirations of becoming a "professional" race car driver.

Not sure if that story helps or hurts, but 100% true and seems relevant even though it offers little help.

Jim

Coming out of the lurking department to say this really, really sums it up for me. I don't see anywhere else, classwise, in SCCA or NASA to race that offers what SM offers at every event, National or Regional SCCA, or NASA. I definitely vote NO for splitting the years, definitely vote yes for rules stability from year to year. Vote to have rules as similar as possible between SCCA and NASA. Would like to see some decent tech at events, don't really have good suggestions for improving this issue.

The only other type of racing I would consider (because of competitiveness and turnout) would be local oval, and if you think cheating, man drama, and body contact are rampant in Spec Miata.... well, just go pay your ten dollars and watch a Saturday night at a local short track.

I love racing SM in both SCCA and NASA, we have one of the best formats for relatively "inexpensive", extremely competitive, and large turnout racing going. The cars are very close in parity, let's make a few minor tweaks and go GREEN, GREEN, GREEN........

[Jim Boemler]

On the subject of NASA/SCCA compatibility, maybe it's time for "SM" to be owned by an independent entity? Treat SM racing as somewhat of a franchise, where the independent entity created a nationwide (worldwide?) set of rules, and licensed various clubs to put on events for cars using those rules. In my area NASA isn't available, but another outfit puts on races with SM as a class -- there are probably other similar operations around the country. They generally just copy the SCCA rules, for best compatibility, but I suspect being able to just refer to an external rule set would be attractive. That would relieve individual clubs of a lot of rules haggling, and assure there was always crossover among them.

To refine the thought, maybe we should let SCCA and the others keep managing the National SM program however they want, and create a new "Grass Roots Miata" class (the coincidental class designation might have benefits...) that would try to go back to SM's heyday. Probably 1.6-only, aimed at cheap friendly racing. Defined at the outset to be an entry-level class, not a mountain to climb.

This thought probably isn't new to the class founders, but maybe it's time to resurrect it?

[screaming monkey]

Would it be too much to ask of the big tracks (ie: RA, Mid-o, etc) to provide a dyno as part of their tech center? That leaves it up to SCCA to find a way to get portables to the smaller venues. Rental and compliance fees could cover part or all of the cost eventually. Instead of looking at a hp # for the nation, maybe a hp range based on the honest experience of the builders in the area where races are held and use the dyno to find anomalies since hp changes at different altitudes, temps, humidity etc...
Go after the red flags or file a protest if you don't believe the numbers to be legal.

The SCCA won't pick up their ball and go to another track for the runoffs just because we don't like being run over by 99's. We are one class out of 20what? It will move eventually.
On the subject of parity, how about one of the SE shops taking 3 equally prepared cars, a 1.6, a 1.8 and a 99 and testing with one driver at one track with a mix of straights and technical aspects and run laps, making adjustments to weight and power until all three cars are running within a tenth and call it a day. PARITY, AT LAST!
Just more pennies from the new guy. Moondog, out!