The Board Rules Discussion Thread

[Grippy]

Have you ever seen a Showroom Stock car in SCCA trim? Mandatory cage, race rubber, etc.
We allow DOT tires so that you don't have to destroy your expensive street tires in 2 days on the track. But you don't have to run them if you don't want to. You were .7 sec off the winner's time on your first time with the club in a car that is not optimized for the class, but you think you didn't do well? What makes you think you should win given those circumstances? Sounds like you did pretty well to me. Maybe your car is misclassed.

[Özgür]

The cage is for safety (w-w racing), and it can be debated I guess. If SCCA allows for DOT competition tires, that's what they decided on. (By that logic, COM should also require cages in showroom stock cars?) I clearly don't agree with that position and am voicing my perspective here. There is plenty of street rubber that can cope with temperatures in 25 minute sessions and won't be destroyed such as the Dunlop Star Specs (if one is all that concerned about durability with full tread, one can shave them). That event was not my first COM event. My car was in SSU, so I don't see how it can be misclassed, but that is not really the point. I am not claiming I should be handed the win or anything. As far as I can tell, this thread is soliciting discussion about rule changes. In other words, what the circumstances should be in the future.

[CP]

The Toyo RA1 is a high performance street tire that does well at the track. We race on them in Spec Miata. They work great at full tread to 5/32nds for rain (perfect for driving to/from events) and shaved to 1-2/32nds for the fastest dry times. These are sticky street tires with a treadwear rating of 100 I think. They are an affordable option for track tires.

[chaos4NH]

Bob Brooks is SSU champ and ran street tires.
I ran street tires (RA1s with full tread) on my Speed 3 for a couple of events and guess what--like Gordy said they were destroyed. I could have had them shaved to remove the tread, but I guess I should have slowed down to make them last longer. Point there is that treaded tires just don't last very long under competition conditions (I consider COMs venue to be competition conditions, as most will agree), thus RAISING the cost to compete.
Anyway, I am all for DOT tires in SS in order to show the true capability of the car, allowing DOT race tires does that. Also note I support this from an unselfish stance since I haven't run SS for 4 years, and don't intend to in the future.

[Özgür]

When street tires that can cope with heat are shaved to 5-6/32", they last. Or one can use tires that are semi-worn on the street--that reduces traction, but that's fine with me. But not all street tires will fit that bill. Again, as an example, I have used star specs with good results, and so have many others on different cars. Even if you start with such shaved tires, one will get more days out of them on the track than dot competition tires, and the costs are not higher (especially if you factor in the cost of rims). There are too many factors associated with scoring for class championship. A more objective consideration is being able to win in a relatively competitive 6-8 person field. I actually don't know if the winner of the event I referenced was on competition tires or not. I know the person above me was. But the point stands either way. Anyway, thanks for hearing me out.

[WillM]

Hello Ozgur. Did I miss something, don't you have an E30 M3? You are running a Z4 now?

Anyway, your point does have merit. I do not think our current rules would improve if we were to ban r-compound tires from Showroom Stock. THAT SAID, there are obviously many members who arrive-and-drive in their daily drivers and run on their "street" tires. You can't get much more "grassroots" than that, and having done the arrive-and-drive thing myself for many years, I still think it is pretty cool. Yes, some drivers tow a small tire trailer behind their cars (as I did), but that is not a viable option for everyone.

Given our current rules, I think the only viable option would be to bump SS cars with r-compound tires up a class. For example, from SSC to SSB. I kind of like it, but don't think that it would be a great improvement to our current rules, and wouldn't support the change, at least now without a lot more discussion.

This is another one of those places where a points system works better than our current system.

[Özgür]

Hi Will.

Sure, I still have the E30 track car. I plan to use it extensively next year. The Z4M is my daily driver. I can't not bring it to the track every now and then to test it out. And if I do it again, I would like to think that the playing field is a bit more level. It got bumped down to SSGT together with the E46M3, and I suspect the field sizes might be larger and perhaps more competitive there.

As I said earlier, I think this issue has broader implications beyond my personal interests. I think it is really cool for a club to allow someone to be competitive with an as close to stock car as possible. That might be especially appealing to folks who started time trialing recently or who are not necessarily interested in investing in stuff (well other than the car) to be competitive. Plus, with two seaters, it is not even possible to haul rims around, and as you say, hooking up a trailer is a stretch for many people.

I do not expect this notion to be popular, but I did want to throw it out there. I understand it is extremely unlikely that any action would taken on this at this point.

The class bump within SS for r-compound rubber sounds interesting. It is somewhat similar to the NASA GTS categorization for DOT competition tires vs full on race slicks. (GTS categorization is based solely on whp/weight ratio, but race slicks can bump you up a class depending on your ratio).

See you at the track next year...