207 replies to this topic

[Tom Hampton]

Ya know kids, it is possible to enjoy something and still have a critical eye towards it. I'm not one who readily swallows an ideology hook, line and sinker.

 

In other words, I still drink the Cool Aid - I just notice it has a weird aftertaste.

 

It is impossible to tell from your forum posts that you "enjoy" this, at all.  It wouldn't be so frustrating to read your criticisms if you had more balance in your posts. 

[Johnny D]

http://netforbeginne...ernet-troll.htm

 

JK,

J~

[mhiggins10]

There is nothing wrong with that. Are you have fun? can you have just as much fun racing in the middle as the front? I think so. Everyone cannot be a the front how would that work. I think there is to much focus by some about this point and the cost of being at the front. There are several layers to SM racing Pick what your comfortable with and go have fun.

 

It's certainly fun, but so are HPDEs.  More broadly, any day I'm not sitting at the office in front of a computer is generally fun.

 

To the meat of your question though- yes there is great camaraderie and we all enjoy hanging out at the track but ultimately we run to compete and win, no?  To KNOW, without doubt, that Allan McNish couldn't win with my gear is a bit disheartening.  If you disagree, you're deluding yourself or you're spending 5 figures to do this (more power to you if so).

 

What I wonder is: could I have more fun fighting for a win with 6 or 8 SE30 drivers at a more reasonable cost without the man drama?  I can't say yes definitively, so there's still a Mazda in my garage.  For now- I still poke around bimmerforums and glance at every one of these that I come across: http://showroom.wind.../product/2107/ 

[Tom Sager]

Ya know kids, it is possible to enjoy something and still have a critical eye towards it. I'm not one who readily swallows an ideology hook, line and sinker.

 

In other words, I still drink the Cool Aid - I just notice it has a weird aftertaste.

I'm going to take WV's back for the moment.  Sounds like the basis of his argument is that spending a lot more makes one more competitive.  Of course it does.  We'll never level the playing field on spending or eliminate the gap it may cause but I think many of us who run this class have been surprised by what it really costs to compete at the pointy end and that that price has risen over the years. A $40K car when I started in this class in '07 would have been seen as outrageous. Now $40K and up are much more common.  

[MPR22]

I'm going to take WV's back for the moment.  Sounds like the basis of his argument is that spending a lot more makes one more competitive.  Of course it does.  We'll never level the playing field on spending or eliminate the gap it may cause but I think many of us who run this class have been surprised by what it really costs to compete at the pointy end and that that price has risen over the years. A $40K car when I started in this class in '07 would have been seen as outrageous. Now $40K and up are much more common.  

It doesn't cost any where near 40k to have a competitive car.  Let's stop this ridiculous rumor now before anymore of the 10k people actually believe it.  If you pay someone to build you one from scratch with all the bells, whistles, high end data, stripped to the tub powder coated everything....... yep you are going to spend a lot of money.  If you go get a donor, pay someone to put in a miatacage kit and then work on the car your self.  You are looking at closer to 17k.      6 k for the donor and cage, 4k for engine, 7-9k in parts depending on how fancy you want to be.  Macco paint job and off you go.  This is all assuming you are handy with a car and have the time to do all the little things that make the car go fast.  Most are free, except for the time it takes to truly prepare the car.  

 

The class is so popular that is attracting people with more and more money that want fancier and fancier cars.  Not necessarily faster cars, just prettier.  Ask Danny what he pays a year to keep the 39 in pristine condition every race weekend....never mind that might scare more people off.

[Jamz14]

I agree with MPR. It should be apparent that a race winning , runoffs winning car is doable for way less than 40K.

 

What would a top shop charge you for a race winning, top prep car.......40K

 

How much time does it take to build a runoffs winning car? Per Dave Wheeler, I think it is just over 200 hours.

 

At a moderate labor rate of $60.00 an hour, that is 12K.

 

So....... at the very least you should be able to build a top shelf car (assuming you have their talent) for absolutely no more than 28K.

[mhiggins10]

I'm going to take WV's back for the moment.  Sounds like the basis of his argument is that spending a lot more makes one more competitive.  Of course it does.  We'll never level the playing field on spending or eliminate the gap it may cause but I think many of us who run this class have been surprised by what it really costs to compete at the pointy end and that that price has risen over the years. A $40K car when I started in this class in '07 would have been seen as outrageous. Now $40K and up are much more common.  

 

I smell a claimer rule as the only real solution here...

 

And I agree with MPR- all the carbon fiber wraps, powdercoated cages, custom vinyl decals, nice paint, airbag covers, full LCD color digital dashes with predictive timing, etc. are what drives the cost up.  I have no doubt $18-20k would get you a front-runner, though it likely won't win any beauty contests.

[svvs]

Just realized I never saw a response to my letter (16487) in Fasttrack?  It actually talks about cost and other things somewhere in the rambling diatribe.

[Jim Drago]

You really spec e30 would be better? You can drive a truck through the holes in those rules ...

For the record... Our cars seem to do pretty well and they are Not 40k! My car that did win two runoffs can be bought today for 40k

[Johnny D]

^^ true
http://mazdaracers.c...t-street-build/

J~

[wheel]

The response was to thank you for your letter and refer you to letter 15838, which was in the Tech Bulletin that changed the weight on the 90-93 in the April Fastrack that went up on March 20th.

[Tom Sager]

It doesn't cost any where near 40k to have a competitive car.  Let's stop this ridiculous rumor now before anymore of the 10k people actually believe it.  If you pay someone to build you one from scratch with all the bells, whistles, high end data, stripped to the tub powder coated everything....... yep you are going to spend a lot of money.  If you go get a donor, pay someone to put in a miatacage kit and then work on the car your self.  You are looking at closer to 17k.      6 k for the donor and cage, 4k for engine, 7-9k in parts depending on how fancy you want to be.  Macco paint job and off you go.  This is all assuming you are handy with a car and have the time to do all the little things that make the car go fast.  Most are free, except for the time it takes to truly prepare the car.  

 

The class is so popular that is attracting people with more and more money that want fancier and fancier cars.  Not necessarily faster cars, just prettier.  Ask Danny what he pays a year to keep the 39 in pristine condition every race weekend....never mind that might scare more people off.

Point to me where I said it takes a $40K car to be competitive? I said they are more common.  If we continue in the direction we're headed though, we'll be talking about $50K plus cars being more common. Point is that some time and energy should be invested in reducing costs.  Not just car costs but operating costs as well.  I don't think there are any areas to make big reductions but maybe we can at least find some things that flatten it out.

[Tom Sager]

I smell a claimer rule as the only real solution here...

 

And I agree with MPR- all the carbon fiber wraps, powdercoated cages, custom vinyl decals, nice paint, airbag covers, full LCD color digital dashes with predictive timing, etc. are what drives the cost up.  I have no doubt $18-20k would get you a front-runner, though it likely won't win any beauty contests.

There was a claiming rule in Showroom Stock for a couple years in the late 70's.  Didn't work out well as some did all the work to develop a car, had success and then had someone buy it just before the Runoffs.  Those people got pissed and left the class.  

[Ron Alan]

Ya know kids, it is possible to enjoy something and still have a critical eye towards it. I'm not one who readily swallows an ideology hook, line and sinker.

 

In other words, I still drink the Cool Aid - I just notice it has a weird aftertaste.

This my friends is a healthy attitude and frankly refreshing. Critical thinking is such a thing of the past for the majority of our youth and quite frankly a lot of young adults. Its more important to find out why someone they barely know just changed their status to single.

 

I'm glad Michael came back with a great post about costs after his obvious frustrating rant at Denny's pessimism. The last $10-15K of a top notch build is for the cool stuff and maybe added safety goodies...not so much the go fast parts. I have a $10k car that is a podium car...granted this all depends on the driver at a well suscribed event. But even if there arent deep fields at the events it attends, it hangs with the top guys who routinely win those bigger events when we are just running the smaller ones. Sorry Walt...I agree with you that it takes more than an average car to win, along with a great driver, but I dont think the costs are as far apart as has been illustrated. It is still 90% driver! But thanks for keeping some from occasionally choking on the Kool-aid

[tra68]

When should we expect the final version of Fastrack, including the diagram, to be published?

 

 

[wheel]

Hopefully today.  They are working on it right now.  It is up here:

 

http://scca.cdn.race...roval.20151.pdf

[Danny Steyn]

Here is my outlook on this issue, and I am sure that there will be many that disagree with my perspective.

 

IMHO what we all want is Spec Miata to be a great competitive class where we can all race heads up on an equal playing field.

 

Back when SM started, long before I as involved, the class was “fast and loose” and over the years the CRB and SMAC have worked to tighten up the specs, and as a result our racing is closer than ever before. We have an amazing class, filled with talent and drivers that can and do succeed in the pro ranks. The fact that this class, more than any other class, attracts so many pro drivers to keep their skills sharp is something that we should all be proud of.

 

So far this year, as far as I know, there have only been two compliance issues and I am embarrassed to say that I was one of them. There also have been no protests. But if one thing that STR and Compression Gate have taught us recently is that there will always be areas that people are playing in to gain an advantage, and there will be those that keep us straight by protesting non-compliant vehicles.

 

To many, the practice of radiusing the Valve Unshroud cut appears to be an area of competitive advantage. So lets take a look at this area of contention….

 

As I said the SMAC and CRB have worked hard over the past few years to tighten up the specs for the Spec Miata heads since the stock heads, as delivered from the factory, had significant variation in compression, plunge cuts, valve unshroud cuts etc. So specs were drawn up, close to the upper limits of what had been found on stock heads, and these specs allowed heads that were under these tolerances to be machined so that they could be “equalized” to those at the upper end of the limit.

 

It was well known and understood by the SMAC and CRB that there might still be some outlier stock heads that exceeded some of these dimensions, and those heads would have to be relegated to another class, but they would not be compliant in Spec Miata

 

Current and past members of the SMAC that were involved with drawing up the valve unshroud rule 9.1.7.C.1.a.1.f.5,  knew the intent of the word “SHARP” and the words  "That edge must be present and unmodified.  This area is not to be blended by hand, machined, or chemically processed to create a smooth transition”.  Stock heads have ZERO Radius in the valve unshroud cut.

 

But just as some builders chose to ignore the STR spec, some builders chose to ignore the UNSHROUD spec and produced heads with a radiused / blended transition.

 

For many this is not considered a gray area or a creative interpretation! For them cutting valve unshrouds with a radius, is an outright contravention of the spec.

 

So looking forward, what do we do? Do we, in the interest of the class, just rollover and move the spec to accommodate the radiused valve unshroud cut? Or do we stick to the spec as intentioned, define sharp as 90 degrees with a small allowance for tool wear. In the short term moving the spec to accommodate this seems like a sensible thing to do, but if we keep on pushing out the spec to accommodate the manipulation of the spec, we will chase away even more drivers from this class.

 

At which point do we send a message that says this continual pushing of the rules has to stop???

 

Each of you will have your own opinion on this matter, so I urge you to write your letter and get the CRB to implement the clarification that you want. Go to http://www.crbscca.com/ and write your letters.

[john mueller]

http://scca.cdn.race...roval.20151.pdf

 

Being in favor of this or not is fine... just write a letter.   If you are okay with the time frame say so, if not then say to too.  No matter what you position is JUST WRITE !

 

Go to http://www.crbscca.com/ and write your letters.

[Brocodile]

Danny's post sums it all up perfectly. I would add only a point of emphasis. With a little creativity it is possible to find ambiguity in any rule. Every word on the English language has multiple meanings. The word "sharp" is no exception. Razor or butter knife sharp? So perhaps a clarification is in order. As I said during the plunge cut debate, it helps to have a measurable specification; however, once rule is in place and ambiguities are being exploited, changing the rule causes even more mischief for reasons thoroughly discussed elsewhere in this thread. The appropriate response is a clarification. In this case, that would be, in effect, a quantification of "sharp", which will allow for objective measurement. Just as important, the allowance should not extend beyond the bounds of a common-sense concept of "sharpness". Otherwise, exploiters rather than interpreters are rewarded. Any performance gain over stock must be minimal.

Ademir's proposal of .010 meets these criteria, assuming it is not too small to measure. .040 is measurable but pushes the limits of any concept of sharpness. Anything more is beyond the pale.

[tra68]

Hopefully today.  They are working on it right now.  It is up here:

 

http://scca.cdn.race...roval.20151.pdf

 

Wheel, thank you for your reply and the posting of the final letter complete with drawing.

 

As I am unfamiliar with the rule setting process, when can we expect this proposed rule change to be voted on?