Quote
Morison

Quote
heymagic
upon reflection, this could allow some cars that presently not running to run.

Yup ...

Quote
heymagic
Further more what am I supposed to do about them? I can't have Canadian STi and Evos coming down here and running all over my regional PGT WRX cars and the like. Sure be easier if you guys adopted our SP class maybe....

I would expect you to look at the cars and how they are put together and class them accordingly. In other words, a Canadian PGT car that is still PGT legal in RA would run as PGT. A Canadian PGT car that has a brake change would run in SP. (and still kick your collective asses around the block ;-))

I'm fine with that in principal, have to work on some rule wording to establish a fair and consistant policy. Of course the Canuckdian cars would then likely have their 32mm restrictor versus our 34 in SP.

I'd be careful with the veiled threats and challenges, you guys could be next. There is one more Bush who hasn't been Prez yet...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2010 08:28PM by heymagic.

C'mon Gene, there are two, Jenna will probably be the stronger candidate, but Barbara still has a chance.

Quote
alkun
C'mon Gene, there are two, Jenna will probably be the stronger candidate, but Barbara still has a chance.

Hasn't the one already begun following in Daddy's footsteps and gotten arrested for DUI_

Give her a few years when she can get deep into coke like daddy did, then in 15-18 years she can discover "Baby Zombie Jeebus!" and be "born-ded agin"

And then she can say just like Daddy "AAAAhmma Uniter-er, not a divider-er"

I was thinking more along the lines of ol' Jeb, Isn't one of the Bushes with bushes married or due to be ? So she'd be a bush not a Bush.

Quote
heymagic
I was thinking more along the lines of ol' Jeb, Isn't one of the Bushes with bushes married or due to be ? So she'd be a bush not a Bush.

As long as Diebold makes the polling machines and retains the code and therefore elections are as questionable as any tin pot Central American dictatorships election, then there's hope for Jeb. But those Republigoons they think long term when it comes to grooming and cleaning up flexible candidates...so the Girlie-Bushes can party hardee, there's plenty of time to "clean up the image"
And remember---always OK if your one of them and beliebe im Gott im Himmel,

What's interesting to me is that when one points out that Production has little manufacturer support, and that maybe the rules of the Production classes should be opened up to make the cars a little more robust, a little cheaper to run, and a little more fun to drive, one instantly gets flamed. "That's not what Production is about!"

But then RA come up with Super Production and everyone thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

And now CARS makes their rules more liberal, for some of the exact same reasoning listed above, and, hey, it's gonna be the greatest thing ever.


I'm all for it, Keith. I just wish people would stop wearing blinders.

Quote
hoche
What's interesting to me is that when one points out that Production has little manufacturer support, and that maybe the rules of the Production classes should be opened up to make the cars a little more robust, a little cheaper to run, and a little more fun to drive, one instantly gets flamed. "That's not what Production is about!"

But then RA come up with Super Production and everyone thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

And now CARS makes their rules more liberal, for some of the exact same reasoning listed above, and, hey, it's gonna be the greatest thing ever.


I'm all for it, Keith. I just wish people would stop wearing blinders.

Mikey the obvious message is obvious: scrap the pretend classes.

Hurst said to me onetime "Why do guys even bother with these classes if they're just going to cheat and whine and cheat?" abnd siad further that virtually every single PGT car he looked at had NUMEROUS obvious attempts at cheating. Endless nonsense.

Scrap the pretense---its just a class so somebody can brag "I won!!!" (sotto voce-----against 1 other guy and 27th overall)

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
hoche
What's interesting to me is that when one points out that Production has little manufacturer support, and that maybe the rules of the Production classes should be opened up to make the cars a little more robust, a little cheaper to run, and a little more fun to drive, one instantly gets flamed. "That's not what Production is about!"

But then RA come up with Super Production and everyone thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

And now CARS makes their rules more liberal, for some of the exact same reasoning listed above, and, hey, it's gonna be the greatest thing ever.


I'm all for it, Keith. I just wish people would stop wearing blinders.

Mikey the obvious message is obvious: scrap the pretend classes.

Hurst said to me onetime "Why do guys even bother with these classes if they're just going to cheat and whine and cheat?" abnd siad further that virtually every single PGT car he looked at had NUMEROUS obvious attempts at cheating. Endless nonsense.

Scrap the pretense---its just a class so somebody can brag "I won!!!" (sotto voce-----against 1 other guy and 27th overall)

I think I've caught one car in PGT that was non-compliant in the last 3 or 4 years, and that wasn't (IMO) anything more than an unintentional oversight. I have caught several Open cars with non-allowable restrictors both local and national, but never a big name team.

Cheating is really a non-issue, Hurst is DaMan and everyone nowadays is pretty on their toes.


Class rules or car classes have to reflect both what is currently competeing and what the near future will bring. We don't really need to consider Hybrid/electric stuff today. We do need to consider what Hyundai, Kia, Honda, VW, Ford and the rest are selling to the general public. Many of todays cars have brakes so big they can't find gravel tires. The new Hyundai 2.0? is claiming 200hp from the showroom. many small V-6s now are at the 300hp mark. What is going to show up on stage in the next 2 or 3 years that has to be able to compete safely is a big concern.

Quote
Morison
To me, at least, calling a stock engine and transmission in a prepared shell 'production' is much less a charade than calling a completely stock vehicle with a roll cage and seats a 'rally car'.

I've done both! The completely stock car 08 reno rally , was actually still a damn lot of fun to drive. Lots of Fun! but the stock suspension left my stock exhaust destroyed, i never had an off and i was slow, but still did quite the number to the under side of my car. requiring me to spend money to replace my exhaust.

True we could argue all day geeze are those "stock" tires or special rally tires? special rally suspension? special skid plates? , etc, etc, none of that is Stock from the factory.

I think it may be better to try and come up with class rules that create classes based upon the expense of "maxing out your class"

The "cheap" class should not allow cars whose value is over 5K, should require a 100% stock motor, stock transmission. i'm not sure about diffs. upgraded suspension (maybe put a clause in there it may MSRP no more than 3K) , and full safety allowed. Each year as car values change, there will be a new "fastest car for 5k or less" but deal with it. time will always move forward, the best possible car for 2008 won't be the best for 2010. If a certain car would be a "class killer" just require a certain amount of ballast to be added to that car. (KISS Keep It Simple, Stupid!)

If the class takes off, then come up with a way of separating faster and slower cars out (displacement ? )

Now yes you can still have cheaters and whiners, you can still have fast and slow drivers. but you have now created a class for the low budget teams, with the stated goal of being low budget, versus a constantly moving target of what production is or should be. And its pretty easy to evaluate each modification in terms of how much is it going to cost to do on 4 different cars? is there an advantage to spending more money on this part (motor, suspension, skid plate, etc) how much is that mod going to cost compared to the average rally entry fee ?

I think CRS P-stock has elements of this "cheap class" in it already, but has a few minor flaws IMO. (car must cost less than 4k, but you can spend well over 4k on your suspension for example.)

would be great for class names too.

Open 4wd
Open 2wd
Budget 4wd
Budget 2wd

Easily for anyone who speaks English to understand.

Budget 2wd car must be worth less than 5k by KBB in excellent condition (regardless of the cars actual condition)
suspension must MSRP for 3K or less
wheels & tires are free, you may not show up to an event with more than 12 tires
skid plates and under panning free (I've seen stop signs, scrap metal and old signs used .. i use old lexan signs)
LSD may be used if MSRP is less than 1K
Safety is free.
Brakes : not sure what keeps this cheap. any single caliper brake, by the same manufacturer that is the same year or older may be used. ??

Budget 4wd Up the car price to 7k, maybe allow 2k total for LSD Budget , competitors must be able to provide proof of MSRP or be bumped to open.

Perfect ? Hell No
Easy to understand Goal? HELL YA
effect on budgets? positive !!
effects on entries ? Increase.

course if no one goes for this idea it won't help budgets or entries.. its sort of similar to a junk yard class michel was chatting about one day.

Quote
A1337STI
would be great for class names too.

4wd For guys who want to piss away obscene amounts of money on techno goodies and then claim they're "competitive " and are "Great drivers", but who aren't class.

Open 2wd for guys who look for a challenge and lots of fun.

Cheep-ass cherry picker 4wd for guys who haven't a clue how to drive or think

Cheep-ass slow cheery picker 2wd for guys who want to crawl along stages and then bullshit people who never see thenm that they're a "rally-racer"...

Easily for anyone who speaks English to understand.

Even easier to understand.

Quote
john vanlandingham
Open 2wd for guys who look for lots of fun and only care that they 'look fast' on the stages regardless of what the actual stage times show.

Even easierer to understand :-)

The original post was simply to let people know that the rule change has been made, not to open a debate about class structure.
The current classes are fucked and will only get more fucked in the future. That is why CARS has struck a committee to look at classing and come up with something that makes sense.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2010 05:58PM by Morison.

Now that is an interesting statement that can make some good discussion.

Ok, starting from the hypothesis "the current classes are f'd" (and let's discuss CARS only, because I want to learn something about Canada) my followup questions are:


1) In what way are they f'd?
2) What is(are) the guiding principal(s) of CARS? (pro/am, show/grassroots, etc)

If you can identify the problem, AND have an idea of what you are trying to accomplish, it would seem that possible solutions could be proposed. (Most internet discussion, sadly, does only part 1, and sometimes 3, without ever bothering with trying to understand part 2.)

I'm ready to hear some good stuff!

Anders

---

Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

Quote
Anders Green
Now that is an interesting statement that can make some good discussion.

Ok, starting from the hypothesis "the current classes are f'awked " (and let's discuss CARS only, because I want to learn something about Canada) my followup questions are:


1) In what way are they f'd?
2) What is(are) the guiding principal(s) of CARS? (pro/am, show/grassroots, etc)

If you can identify the problem, AND have an idea of what you are trying to accomplish, it would seem that possible solutions could be proposed. (Most internet discussion, sadly, does only part 1, and sometimes 3, without ever bothering with trying to understand part 2.)

I'm ready to hear some good stuff!

Anders

The amount of times and ways i suggested that all new rules proposals should have a "explanatory clause stating the problem being addressed--and theoretically "solved" is beyond counting.

The amount of times it was derided, ridiculed dismissed with the Party Line of "We need a benevolent _____________dictator......" is 10 times beyond counting.
(not so oddly most of those strongly expressing the folly of explaining problems/principles/discussion also show well developed Authoritarian character traits in their other opinions Zieg!)

That No2 is maybe why things always seem capacious, there's rarely any discussion of what the problem is---or honest discussion, so how is anybody but a few supposed to understand what this or that new rule, requirement or whatever is supposed to be accomplishing/mitigating/fixing?

Anders:

There is a committee working on this for CARS that comprises a good spectrum of stakeholders. (grassroots through top teams) I'm not about to start second guessing or duplicating their work, particularly not on an (this) internet forum.

That said, the displacement based class structure is in trouble because it doesn't fit the cars that are being produced today. A new VW Rabbit built to 'production' specs would wind up in PGT, lined up against WRXs and (now) STis and EVOS only because it has a 2.5l engine.

Another sign that the classing system doesn't work is that events are filled with open class entries that are mostly cars that simply don't hold a candle to the faster cars in the pack and are only in open class because of some poor decision making in the build (only lexan windows or the wrong year of bumper cover pushing the car into open class, as examples)

As for what classing should be... I think it is clear that classes should be a series of 'level playing fields.' Any system that puts a VW Rabbit up against a WRX or puts an OEM engined, synchro box Evo up against a VTCar built, sequential boxed monster^(TM) is fundamentally flawed.

I'm not a fan of a lot of classes at the best of times. I personally think that the top cars in North America should be similar to a 'local homologation' Group N without the need for 'unobtanium' parts (SP probably does that job well) and that the 'balls out' open class cars that need trust fund or sponsor support to be run probably do more harm to the sport than good.

One of the biggest problems of these discussions is that people generally have a tough time getting past what benefits THEM in class structures and seeing what would be good for everyone and good for the sport.