THSCC Forums

The 2005 season is just around the corner, so if there are going to be any class changes now is the time to actually figure it out.

Traditionally we have just followed the SCCA rules and classes, adding in a few "PAX" classes. However, nothing says we have to do that (it just makes life "easy").

If you really want to see changes, we need some proposals. If it adds work to T&S, then make sure that is covered as well.

Here is a minimalistic example:

No classes, we run "bracket" cross at every event. Walk the course, pick your dial-in and that's it. This is driver skill right? Well, figure it out then drive the time you predict. The person who runs the closest without breaking out wins. A break-out is scored a DNF, cones are scored a DNF.

There is added work, primarily the data entry for the dial-in times. A laptop would be run concurrently with registration and it's up to the driver to add their Car class and number to the excel spreadsheet. If you don't put your info in (or its wrong) then you lose (all DNFs).

That might not be realistic, but maybe we will find a better mouse trap.

There are other clubs (many NASA regions) that are running a rule set with a "points" system assigned to modifications, the more mods, the more points. A typical STS car would still be running their "stock" class. While this is a good system for people that like to modify their cars, it's not real good if you have an H or GS car and actually want to keep it stock.

This is also the time to propose the elimination/addition/consolodation of classes.

Example:

1) Eliminate Pro
2) Consolidate Novice and Tire (or eliminate one or the other or both)
3) Consolidate stock, SP and Mod classes:

a) SS, AS and FS
b) BS, CS and ES
c) DS, GS and HS

d) ASP, BSP, CSP
e) ESP, DSP, FSP, STU

f) All mod and prepared

g) SM and SM2

h) STS, STX
i) ST2, STU

There dilution solved.

Scott

Extra note. This isn't the place to discuss the merits of Tire and Novice classes in detail (do a search for that answer). Your proposal should simply be because you think it would be more fun for you and/or everyone else.

To some degree the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few, however there often have to be sacrifices in the short term for long term gains.

Scott

- Keep PRO class as an option for those people that choose to run it, and strongly encourage PRO level drivers to run in that class.

- Keep Novice as is.

- Eliminate TIR; there are four street tire classes available either formally sanctioned by the SCCA or are being used to test the waters by that club whose rules we use.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

1. Eliminate Pro class. Why separate the best drivers in the club from the people who could stand to learn the most from them? We have the top-10 pax list already that is usually a mirror of pro class.

2. Put novices in class (no separate NOV class) but add a top-10 Novice Driver pax list in the results. Justification - see #1.

3. Put all street tire cars in class (no separate TIR class) and add a top-10 "Street Tire Car" PAX list in the results.

Justification for all of the above is to reduce class dilution and the fact that PAX doesn't work well at all for competition.

4. Add an "X" class. No pax (1.0), no rules, run what ya brung. Real PRO drivers who are saving you from themselves can go here. People who don't care about times can run here. Cap X class entry at 15 drivers to avoid dilution problems.

Any major issues with these proposals? IM me, I'd love to hear them. (There will be some T&S/Reg changes to be able to record that a driver is nov or on streets)

_________________
Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Spec Dirtmaster 1600?

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

Mike,

You might want to exclude the race tire Mod class type cars from "X". It would take a real serious "run what you brung" to be as fast as a fully preped Mod car . . . even CMod. San Francisco Region has some sort of class, I forget what they call it . . . that must have some limits to keep the real Mod cars out. SF Region has a website.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Mike,

Here are the SF Region "Open Street Prepared" rules:

Rules for "Open Street Prepared " class.
This is a SFR-only class.
The vehicle must have originally been produced for and registered for street use. A license plate on the car and a registration document showing the plate belonging to the vehicle will be accepted as proof of original registration for the street. A current registration sticker need not be evident on the plate as the vehicle registration does not need to be current.
The vehicles must compete on D. O. T. (Department of Transportation) approved tires.
The SFR value for this class for indexing purposes will be established each season by the Steering Committee.

The D.O.T. tire rule and the registered once rules take care of my "concern".

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

I think the elimination of TIR and NOV is a great idea. As for the elimination of PRO is not such a good idea for this reason. Let's say I was planning on going to National. I personally would love to see how I would do against drivers that have been there done that. Also Pro is a class I personally aspire to. Will I ever get there, not in my current car with my current skill set, but I do hope to be there. It is the cream of the crop. Plus it gives those of us that are as talented, yet, a chance to win class. Just my 2 cents.

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Steven Bremer Jr.
1999 VW Beetle
H Stock 8

NOV, PRO, X
===========
I really, really, really like Whitney's proposal. I especially agree that eliminating NOV and PRO is a good idea. PRO class people can still compete against each other because we publish a top ten pax list. We don't need a designated class for that. Novices improve much quicker when they have a PRO in their class to teach them and to shoot for.

Eliminating Novices will help them for the same reasons. Novices will learn more quickly from experienced drivers than by hanging around other novices. I think we do need a method for identifying novice drivers and maybe novice cars though for safety reasons.

The X class idea has some merit. I like Dick's idea of not including the MOD cars. No street car is going to catch a mod car unless something is really wrong.

LADIES CLASS:
=========

I'd like to see us have ONE ladies class. It could be a paxed class, but there may be some merit to having it be a straight up competition. I would primarily see this as a place for wives, girlfriends, etc. to come and play and get comfortable with the sport. Ladies of course would not have to run in this class. I think it should be fine for any lady that competes here to compete in the class for at least one full season. We may want the top three finishers to move into open next year to keep it from becoming too competitive for new autocrossers. I don't know if it works to survey the members about this because it is primarily intended for people that aren't competing yet! We've talked about this for at least two to three years, and I still think it has merit. If it grew too large and divers, we could have an L1 and L2 class, with L2 being for more experienced ladies who wanted to compete a little more seriously, but stay away from the smelly guys.


THSCC PAX:
=========

I would also agree that the pax system is fairly non applicable to our club, but we've always said it just the best we could do. I'm not so sure. Now here is the challenge that could be very, very interesting with regards to PAX.

Let's use the same basic techniques that are used to develop the PAX/RTP numbers, and apply them only to THSCC events. Depending on how precise and silly you wanted to take this, we could have a different pax for Laurinburg (concrete) than for sites like Sanford and Danville. I don't know, but sites like VMP and Rockingham may be somewhere in between.

Somebody that really enjoys numbers, spreadsheets and cars could have a lot of fun with that.


"THSCC PAX Championship" or "Top Dog Competition"
====================================

Here's some examples of how to create a "level playing field" and some close competition. The pax adjustments that follow are just examples.. we'd have to think about how to do this and assign one person to do nothing but keep up with the points for the pax class for the year. But.. go have fun thinking about this one.

We keep points for the top pax finishers for a season long "Club Champion". (based on the local THSCC pax or the 2005 RTP/PAX, I'm not sure yet).

But.. we could borrow a page from the SCCA World Challenge series and handicap the winners by a small amount. If you come in the top 5, we harden your pax by .002. If you finished in 6th thu 10th, we harden it by .001 or so. If it didn't drive us too crazy, we could also have a graduated system.

1st place: + .005
2nd place: + .004
3rd place: +.003
4th place: +.002
5th place: +.001

Only the top 25 drivers from the previous year would be eligible for the PAX championship series the next year. (this keeps scoring a little easier because there are only 25 competitors.) If you don't like that idea, we could just score the top 25 finishers in each event. It requires a little more thought as to who participates and eligibility requirements.


Anyway, If you finish in the bottom five positions (20-25th place) we soften your pax by .002. If you were in the 15-20th positions, we soften it by .001. If you finish in the middle, you stay the same. The participants in the class still register and compete in their regular open classes. The PAX championship is simply a paper exercise, but has year end trophies and published results for its entrants after each event. The number one driver gets the club title of "TOP DOG" or "Club Champion" or whatever we want to call it. We don't have to award any trophies or make any announcements on event day about this class. The PAX Class scoring guru (a dedicated person for this) can figure it out at home and post it on the web.

So, instead of adding weight, we just give you a handicap if you clean our clocks too badly. If implemented correctly, more people would have a chance of winning or finishing in the top five, but it is unlikely that anyone would dominate the entire season. It would also push the best drivers to keep improving to maintain their lead. We'd probably have to play with this for several seasons to get it "right" but I think it would be fun to play with!


Miles

I second Mike Whitney's proposal.

I'd like to see a combination of Mike's idea, but do like Miles' PAX "ballast" in the X class. With a little thought we could implement it pretty well.

I can envision a little sandbagging with the floating index, but that would actually add to the fun (and trash talk).

I also agree with a combined ladies class, PAX or not, it would at least be a decent sized class. Let the ladies who will be in it decide on PAX vs heads up competition, or run it like the "X" class with a floating PAX. More book keeping, but it would equalize car prep (and skill level). If you are the fastest driver, then you still need to improve to keep winning, seems like a good motivator!

Scott

What is this fixation with a PAX?

If you want a PRO class make it a non-points class. The general concept behind PRO was for hot foots to run at a local event without messing up that club's year-end points. It holds no value right now.

I think the ladies are doing quite well in the open classes. Why add another indexed class?

I favor keeping the NOV class as the only indexed class. It has been around the longest of all the indexed classes. It is probabaly the most fair index class we have. Plus it helps to celebrate the novices.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

I third Whitney's proposal.

Although rather than eliminating Novice I think it would be cool to have a Novice season championship where Novices run in class and get points according to the same point scale as the rest of their competitors in each class. The novice with the most points at the end of the season wins. This could be subject to a bit of manipulation if someone decided to run DM Nov in their otherwise stock Miata (and no one else ran DM) but at least class dilution is gone and the cameraderie of running within class is strengthened while the novices get real recognition.

I think going too far away from SCCA classing and rules would be a bad thing as at least some of our members compete in other clubs events.

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)

I think that what Mike has is a tweak on a suggestion I made a number of month back. Hopefully the idea will evolve into something that gets support. Obviously I like the idea as it boosts open class attendance but still allows for PAXed result for those who car about PAX (such as myself). But I would like to tweak his tweaks…

My only changes would be….

(A) As Mike says, publish in H&T top 10 PAX, but go ahead and provide full PAX in the official results. Those that don’t make top 10 may want to know where they fall in the big picture. So we would have full PAX results for…
1. Open Tire
2. Street Tire
3. Novice.

There would not be an all-inclusive PAX result list for the entire event like we do now. Currently it is not fair to try to mix the TIR (or maybe even NOV) results in with the rest. Everyone will show up in one of the three lists, but not in more than one. When you register you will somehow say which of the three PAX groups you want to be in. By default you go into “Open Tire”. Other than the PAX part of this, everyone runs in Open Class.

Those that choose “Street Tire” PAX would follow special tire rules much like the existing “TIR” class. Exclusion list would be based upon existing ST* tire rules plus a THSCC tire exclusion list. Exclusion of something like the Falken Azenis, Kumho MX, etc. would be open for debate.

Novice would not be “TIR for newbies”. You want to co-drive in your friends fully prepped Hoosier shod Sti, then go for it. Same thing goes for ST* class cars as they would run as classed. You have a car that is not prepped for it’s class and you are up against prepped cars? Welcome to the real world.

(B) Create a “Street Tire” PAX adjuster so that ST* cars can be figured into the “Street Tire” PAX result list. This is so that ST* cars don’t have to be put into SP* classes if they are not at SP* prep level. I believe there is already some clubs/regions around the US that do this. We could probably start out by using their PAX adjuster if it looks like it makes sense.

(C) Go ahead and award event level awards and points for top PAX results. This allows for some level of continuation of NOV and TIR trophies. If you are a great driver and run Azenis, you could technically win both the “Street” PAX trophy AND your Open class trophy.

(D) Like Miles says, have a PAX end of year trophy for “Open” and “Tire”. If you don’t like PAX and you think it is a load of crap, then you don’t have to be upset if you don’t do well in end of year PAX trophies.

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

I like Mike's ideas. Basically - it's back to open classes and publishing a Novice and TIR PAX list. I think the current Top Raw Time list serves the run-what-you-brung X class need, but if you do have an X class, I'd do it like Mike says and make it a no rules class.

I'd even eliminate the 15 person limit and open it to anyone. I think it'll self-adjust pretty quickly.

Miles, I don't agree that we should exclude those evil MOD cars from X class. Dick didn't say no MOD cars, just those cars with racing slicks. But why draw the line there or anywhere? Where would you draw it and still have the class really represent a no-holds-barred class?

If you exclude the MODs, what would it look like?

- I think there are only 2 cars that regularly run slicks (Kurt Bishop's Manta and James Jack's FSAE). They'd be gone. So why exclude a couple of people?

- Then Travis' EM and my DM (neither one prepared within 100 miles of class limits or on slicks) would be next.

- Then would you go on to the SM's? They compete for FTM trophies today. Patrice would be gone. Keith would be gone. Others?

Keep excluding the fastest in the club and yes, you may make a few more people competitive, but what purpose does the X class then serve? So maybe you just continue to publish the top Raw times and keep everyone in open.

Just food for thought....