THSCC Forums

Colorado Rally has proposed some rules for rallyX that they have been following for the past while, and posted them on their web site:

http://www.coloradorallycross.org/rules-2006.htm

I, for one, am fairly excited about the rule set. This would allow the lower displacement AWD cars a place to play on their own, and a place for the FWD open diff, FWD LSD, and RWD LSD people a place to play in their own sandbox.

Mostly, I think the inclusion of rally tires of as a mod to be a GREAT thing. We are already rutting up the field with 42 driver events, and I think that Kevin Allen has proven how well rally tires work in torn up sand. It allows you to get traction, and hasn't proven to add TOO much more wear to the site. That, and it allows EVERYONE to have traction once the corners start going away.

Overall, the addition of the new classes (not too many... I think it is just right) allows EVERYONE a place to play. I think it makes lower HP AWD cars (like the Legacy) a place to play and be competitve and have a chance to have competition. Furthermore, for people looking to get into the events, it gives them an opportunity to choose a car for a class they would think is interesting, do some 'fun' mods, and have a shot out there.

The way our Legacy is, we can add rally tires, and we are done (plus free mods like a roll cage!!!). The inclusion of mods is nice instead of the OPEN class we have right now to keep it all even.

Thoughts? Comments?

They only BAD thing I see is that some of the 'rally cars' that have been around for a while have passed 3 mods in removal of items from the car. This would exclude them from the Rally Tires, as that is a GIVEN mod everyone should do.

Vote on it!!

Ps. Now, all we need is a rallyX PAX... muwhahahah

We were discussing using these rules for next year Friday night at dinner. Kevin was suggesting if we use them that they be altered slightly to not allow rally tires in the production class but to allow poly bushings to replace factory bushings. I am all for the use of new rules.

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2010 Honda Fit Sport
Couple of bicycles

I will accept poly bushings as long as interior panels are a freebie (not rear seat)

- dow

I say if SCCA doesn't propose any significant changes to these rules for '07, then let's adopt them then. As it stands, if we'd adopted their rules this year, everyone would be looking for new magnetics right now. I'd like to feel that the SCCA has some kind of handle on things before changing things all around. Not that I don't like ordering magnetics, of course...

It seems to me that our current rules cover the proposed new classes easily. There is no one who could prepare a car for '06 that would be at any disadvantage at one of our events (assuming we allow rally tires next year, which is the intention at this point), so I just don't see a compelling reason to change things right now.

Just my $0.02.

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Carl Fisher

Be Cool to the Pizza Dude:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4651531

First, I will preface all I say from being of the point of view that you want to have a competitive car, or at least a car with a chance in its class.

My personal compelling reason would be the ability to field a competitive car that is AWD and NOT have to have a 'class killer' or 'Spec Subaru' car (in case you haven't noticed, I never take the 'easy way' ). We do curently have 3 classes, which isnt bad, but if you want to step to an AWD car (which I was talking to Tracy about yesterday [verbal.t] ), you currently have to field a turbo 2.0/2.5 or a 2.5L NA AWD car. This is NOT cost prohibitive as used RSes are still going for 9K.

I understand that I have a vested interest in this point, so it is sort of a "me me me" point. However, I think the 4B class is a GREAT viable place for 3 drivers of 2 cars we currently see go out there (Suzuki Aero, Legacy 2.2 AWD == 10% of the field ), and you can find AWD 1.8Ls, 2.2, na quattros (?), AWD Civics for quite cheap (< 2k). Rushing out to buy new magnets so you can include one more class isnt the biggest motovating factor, but it does give a delination between classes, and allowable mods so a preped Group N rally car doesnt show up (on street tires), and just own all with no competition (RM2/RM4).

Anyway, that is just my input. The freedom of the current rules is nice, but incoming people (which we are experiencing) who would just do some 'cool' mods that are unrestricted would find themselves 5 mods deep into the 'new' proposed ruleset very quickly. The new ruleset CLEARLY defines which and what you can and cannot do, so I am all about that clarity. I think that the new ruleset lays a firm foundation for new people saying "get the junker, and choose your upgrades wisely", which is still OPEN compared to autoX, but does make you think about what you do before you rip everything out of the car, and I like that.

In any case, I will always bow out to someone with MUCH more experience in the matter as I enjoy driving the rally car to have fun. However, with my 10/10ths last run, I (5th fastest afternoon time?) was still 3 seconds off Kevin Allen's AWD 2.5L NA car on RE92s(FTD2) . There is NO way for a lower displacement AWD car to make up that much of a difference (maybe another second, but not 3), IMHO.

Kevin and Carl: I will totally go with and respect your informed decisions on this matter. That is my admittedly biased point of view on the matter, but I think that my argument does have some merit.

Besides, we need to support our local magnet sponsor (I know I have -- 400 dollars worth of magnets this year!)...

- dow

Thats quite a silly statement. I bet you could take half the entrants in the SU2 class, add up their purchase cost and not get to 9K.

Honestly, what is broke now? Those rules are ok, but honestly, I would not be infavor of them as they are wrote. Right now, I know several SU2 cars that would go straight to modified that really dont have a chance in hell there.

That classing structure would have some sparsely subscribed classes. Hell SO4 is usually just a couple of cars, do we want all classes to just have a handfull of cars. That is the one thing I like about SU2, if you win, you have been a WHOLE bunch of people to get there.

Honestly, if I were rally king (Im not and dont wanna be), and were to propose a change. Get rid of SO2 and SU2. Just have 2 classes, 2WD and 4WD. Easy, simple and fun.

Of course, dont mind me, hell I only made it to 3 rallyx's this year

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

Just for facts sake:

This past rally X had 42 drivers, and 12 of them were in the SO4 class. That is a healthy growing margin as SO4/SO2 took just as long as SU2 (even time out on course).

Good points. Thanks for the very valid input

I guess you can just keep it fun. That is cool, and I like the 'feel' of the rallyXes currently. The 'it's not broken - don't fix it' philosophy has a lot of merit to it. However, since THSCC generally adopts SCCA rules, and this is something that SCCA is looking at as well, it is worth our time to think about these rule sets as a valid change in 07. While a lot of cars might be 'screwed' in RM, they WILL end up there anyway with the 'current' proposed changes. Besides, if it is just 'for fun' for them anyway, it shouldn't bother them, and if all the cars are so cheap, it would be easy for them to get a car that conforms without too much effort as well

THSCC rental cars, anyone

Honestly, I am just interested in opinions from all. If it is seen as 'no changes needed', I am cool. If it is seen as 'Hey, rallyX IS growing, and let's get the rising membership starting to coform to the possible new rules NOW so we dont have to keep our own ruleset', I am down as well.

Just trying to get an even and overall view of the subject. I have my own biased views, so input is always welcomed.
- dow

Here's my take on the thing. As Keith mentioned, we talked about this over dinner on Friday and the new rules are quite a change from the previous (multiple classes similar to AutoX dropped down to 6 classes). Now the new rules have me a little skeptical, but I felt that the way we have them know could allow for some highly unfair advantages. The event yesterday almost proved that with Brian driving VERY well and was unable to catch the top spots. In the Legacy, pretty much the only way they could have a chance (this is just an opinion and not much fact) is if the top spots made numerous errors to eat up their time. The same could be said for the SU2 class. There is so much room for an unfair advantage with our current setup. Now to completely adopt the new rules could cause a good bit of problems as well like Ryan mentioned. But if we go with the slightly altered version, then we could have some more "free" mods that wouldn't hurt the classes too much. Also, if we end up combining the SO2 and SU2 classes, then if the numbers stay close to what they were yesterday, there will be no way that the SO4 class will stay it's current size because of the length of time it would take for you to go through the course. Sad you missed that fun Ryan, it was a beautiful sight to behold, 12 SO4's, 11 SO2's, and 21 SU2's.

That's my take on the new rules, either way I'm still here to have fun. Beating someone is just a happy byproduct.

Make no mistake- my reaction when I saw the rules was, "well finally something that is simple, yet makes sense." But, even with the current proposal, it was easy to pick out 1 or 2 things that we would want to change. And of course, as I pointed out, these '06 rules are completely different from the '05 rules, which were completely different from what was done in '04. Obviously things are changing fast, and that's not bad. I just don't see the need to get caught up in the rushing water right now, but I'm happy to wade in when things calm down a bit.

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Carl Fisher

Be Cool to the Pizza Dude:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4651531

Quite -- the new SCCA rules proposal is a big step towards sanity from the rulesets that went out in the past two years. I personally think only two things are broken in the THSCC scheme at the moment: rally tires being disallowed and too _many_ classes if rally tires were allowed.

With next season almost certainly allowing rally tires I think we should do something like 2R and 2S and 4R and 4S (ie open run what you brung rally tires or street tires in 2wd and 4wd divisions). I think splitting our current class structure into 6 classes next year would be too much dilution.

The current SCCA proposal opens too many autox-like arguments about how to count mods and what kind of mod counts by increasing performance and what kind of mod doesn't count because it doesn't make a "noticable" performance improvement.

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)

Kevin Hoff for RallyX VP!!

:sends in vote:

- dow

Now there is a proposal that works for US! Why copy the lame SCCA?

Less classes = MORE COMPETITION!!!!

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

I'm good with that!!

ummm i knew we got too happy with the spray paint!

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traded the ultimate driving machine for a hatchback.....

Well, I'm probably going to be in whatever the highest class is regardless of the rules, so I guess it doesn't really matter what the rules are for me. But I do agree now that some cars aren't competitive for the top spots unless the guys with the fast cars make a lot of mistakes and the slow cars are driven perfectly (shut up, Vincent ). If we don't adopt the SCCA rules, I think we should at least make some changes or additions to the classes we currently have.

As far as the buying new magnets thing, I'll be making new magnets for next year anyway, because I plan to continue travelling to other clubs' events. And the dcrally guys (SCCA) are using different class letters than ours already for 2005, so I already have 2 sets - and so do they, if they're using magnets and coming to our events. But most people are using tape - not magnets - at our events (and theirs, too).

The changing ruleset thing is a good point, but autocross rules are constantly changing, too - I know some people who used to be in ESP who now need to replace one of those letters. So I don't think that should be much of an influence on the decision.

I've seen a few close-by clubs start rallycrossing this year & last, and know of at least one more after Saturday that may soon start. Now, if they're all SCCA-affiliated clubs (and they are), then they'll be following the SCCA rules. Which means that we'll be the "odd" group. Just something to keep in mind...

Hopefully most people have guessed my opinion already , but I just want to say that whatever the poll results are, I'm fine with it.