THSCC Forums

My wife and I are seriously looking into getting a new Mazda 5. Is the CG low enough on that chassis to take on course? She cannot drive a stick, and I want her to at least experience once what the sport is like. I am pretty dead sure that we will have the car soon.

I would not worry. Bob Kendrick auto-X'd a Suburban once at the Rocky Mt. airport. I took an E-350 cube van on a fun run at Belk's in Morrisville.

We would not allow an E-350 or a suburban if one showed up an event today.

I can say that if you show up to an event I am GMing, I would let a Mazda5 run as long as its on street tires.

really? OK then, I would let one run on race tires. In the lack of official confirmation that its not on the exclusion list, I would use my best judgement, which tells me pretty much anything is ok on street tires, and very few people are going to show up and run a truck/SUV/Van on race tires. Although I HAVE seen a trailblazer and a Tacoma truck run on race tires before (Trailblazer SS has a classification as ESP and the X-runner is allowed in H-stock). Those cars scared me to watch.

The SSC has reviewed the allowance of competing cars with higher roll centers and has prepared the following chart to be used as a
guideline for assisting Regional members in determining whether a vehicle has a higher than average potential to roll over in Solo®
competition. Vehicles falling into the acceptance range still have the probability to roll over but they are less likely to roll over than those
that are not in the acceptable range are. One method of assessing rollover resistance, and one level more
sophisticated than the Static Stability Factor (SSF), is using “stability margin”. This idea is that the vehicle’s steady cornering g-level at
which incipient rollover would occur (two wheel lift or 2WL) should exceed the steady cornering g-level provided by the tires (maximum
lateral acceleration or MaxLat) by some margin. This should only be applied to categories for which the Center of Gravity (CG)
height estimation based on roof height could be presumed to be reasonably valid. This chart is for Stock, Street Touring, and Street
Prepared categories vehicles.]An approach of this type is required to help event officials assess the rollover risk potential of vehicles which fall in a gray area between traditional Solo® cars and those which clearly have a “high center of gravity”. While it is imperfect, it should strike a balance between risk reduction and admission of the most vehicles to Solo®
while introducing a consistent procedure for doing so. The chart is for Regional Officials and Technical Inspectors to determine
the acceptance level of high roll center vehicles referred to in Section 3.1. The measurements are to be taken from the ground to
the tallest point of the vehicle for the Overall Vehicle Height and the normal track measurement as stated in the GCR for the Average
Track Width. Vehicles with a SSF less than 1.30 should not be permitted to compete in our Solo® events due to their higher risk of roll over.

BTW- I didn't know any of this existed until earlier this year

The Mazda5 is 1.30 on the money

BTW- I didn't know any of this existed until earlier this year