Keith, you know me. You know how I ran. What I mean is don't rely on the rules makers and officials. I never asked and I never knew what I ran against until the guy posted the For Sale Ad and I saw all the crap they bought and now wanted to get paid back for. But I ran Open and knew what I was getting into. Now, there's a great class based on that car but with no limits to what can be done. I think the "purists" (read, cheapskates) need to keep a lid on it for the future of cheap rallying. If not for themselves but for the ability to grow the class and thus grow rally. If cams, compression and slick transmissions become the norm, kiss it good-bye. No new person will feel they have a chance so they won't even try.

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randyzimmer
Keith, you know me. You know how I ran. What I mean is don't rely on the rules makers and officials. I never asked and I never knew what I ran against until the guy posted the For Sale Ad and I saw all the crap they bought and now wanted to get paid back for. But I ran Open and knew what I was getting into. Now, there's a great class based on that car but with no limits to what can be done. I think the "purists" (read, cheapskates) need to keep a lid on it for the future of cheap rallying. If not for themselves but for the ability to grow the class and thus grow rally. If cams, compression and slick transmissions become the norm, kiss it good-bye. No new person will feel they have a chance so they won't even try.

When I was racing enduro on dirt bikes, it was the norm to have raised compression, cams, titanium vales and valve springs and all the other go fast parts and the sport is still growing. If the norm becomes building a beast motor for every rally car it will just filter out the people that will run 1 rally and quit, thats all. But just because everyone is running built vehicles dosent mean the new guy dosent have a chance; in the end its all about skill unless you're in a gallape and hey have a built vehicle and they're suspension tuned in down to a T.

When you get into a competitive sport you shouldent think you're the next Ken Block running in your mom's nissan; thats just not practical. People should come into the sport with the mindset of learning their first 2 or 3 seasons and working on their car, not coming in with an all stock car and thinking they're hot shit.

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randyzimmer
Keith, you know me. You know how I ran.

Sure do.
Wasn't meant aggressively... sorry if you saw it that way.

---

First Rally: 2001
Driver (7), Co-Driver (44)
Drivers (16)
Clerk (10), Official (7), Volunteer (4)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Last Updated, January 4, 2015

Quote
john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

"When you get into a competitive sport you shouldent think you're the next Ken Block running in your mom's nissan; thats just not practical. "

Shouldn't, yes. But in reality, they do. I've seen shit-loads of Autocrossers cherry-pick a class so they can win.

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Morison

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randyzimmer
...if somebody talks about spending money, shun them. Tell them it isn't the fun way and if they do it, forget having beers and trading parts. Tell their crew to stop helping them. If you have to, (last resort) protest everything. If a trophy is worth not having friends and fun, that's up to them.

Shunning and protesting isn't really what I think rally is about.
Chances are, in open light no matter what somebody spends, good driving will beat it. So, if someone wants to spend money - let 'em, and beat them on the road.

(I've seen a tendency for people to spend money in an attempt to get speed when they aren't anywhere near maxing out their driving. Conversely, I've regularly seen good drivers take 'lesser' cars further up the standings than other, better prepared cars.)

Everyone's level of spending money is different. For my new OL car vs my old one, I spent an extra $700 on a better geared transmission. (1k minus-300 for the old one).

Is that spending too much money? I dont think so, my last car was a great starter car, but wasn't geared correctly once I started gaining speed, so I really wanted the best gearing I could for what I felt was a reasonable price.. Now having a S2000 car in the OL class that's crossing the line, but I feel like no one in OL is waay outspending one another.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2014 08:08AM by czwalga.

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Jeff
If the competition is deep and your in the mix chances are you will go the extra mile to get the funds to make the next event. As soon as you FEEL out funded you either step up, step out or just run the local event and enjoy rally. Points championships help but as soon as they become tow championships teams bow out. Rally has to be competative deep in the field with fast guys up front as bench marks to get middle class out more then once a year.

Well said.

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Grant Hughes

you can shun guys if you want. If that makes you feel like your helping rally then go ahead.

Or the series can make some rule changes and stop it before it starts. I would not of thought Morison would be the one to say it doesnt matter in OL. Look at it this way you have say Nick Roberts he is fast in SP. Lets say he wants to go OL. His car now makes 265hp and wieghs in at 3300lbs. He buys a GC car pays VSC to make it light and fast. So now he is 2700lbs seqential trans and 275hp guess what just happened to the good old OL class!

Or the powers above can say pump gas only and no seqential trans. Now that high compression engine is worthless and cant be kept in the power ban from the lack of gearing.

Ive also raced for years. Progression always takes place in every class. Some times a series needs to rewrite some rules to bring the spending under control and build car counts back up.

---

First rally 2013
Rally car type AWD subaru
Total rallies as driver 6
Total rally cars built 2
Total rally cars caged 3
Total rally cars repaired from offs 4
Total years racing exp other then rally 19 yrs
Like 31motorsports on FB!
Check out 31motor sales on ebay for used Subaru parts

I think you guys are forgetting OL is a regional-only class so there's no real motivation to build that super hot OL car. It doesn't get you the "fame and fortune" that comes with running RA national events and that seems to be what the spenders want for their money...

I'm sad we never got to run against Randy Z. when he was still rallying. I started running with OL guys around the time he was getting out (late '10).

I kind of like the SP car being the top class idea, but that just means a top-spec car now costs $125K instead of $250K+.

I love cost-control rules. It's exactly why I don't run a sequential transmission in NRS Open AWD Heavy. The rule is aimed squarely at me as I can *almost* justify the cost of it. Making a rule that prevents me from it just makes it easy to say "nope!" and I go on with my life.

I run pump gas cause I'm somewhat of a cheapskate. I COULD run race gas easily, I just don't feel the need to get 10-15% more out of my setup. As a halfway point, I run a water injection setup for insurance reasons (only when intake temps get too hot). In other words, it's not TUNED for the efficiency that the water injection could provide.

I run (mostly) stock Subaru stuff. Unfortunately, much of it not available on vehicles made in the US. I have a Frankenstein list of parts so I know how to reorder spares.

My car is expensive to operate. I can run it cheaper, but I risk a higher failure rate. (Currently, oil gets changed daily when running, for example). Could I stretch out the service intervals? Probably... but when I get oil samples back that indicated 9% of the oil by volume was fuel (there was a problem) I sure wouldn't want to see what it looked like on day 2... with bearing chunks in the oil.

An OL car would be awesome. And I could easily build one, and maybe I will in the future. But with the GD chassis weighing in 400lbs more than a GC or GF, that's a big difference when you're pedaling 165ish HP.

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EricW
An OL car would be awesome. And I could easily build one, and maybe I will in the future. But with the GD chassis weighing in 400lbs more than a GC or GF, that's a big difference when you're pedaling 165ish HP.

That's a dirty rumor and the weight difference is not really all that big when you take out all the stuff you are going to take out to prep for rally. Bugeye GD shells should be super cheap.

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Jard

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EricW
An OL car would be awesome. And I could easily build one, and maybe I will in the future. But with the GD chassis weighing in 400lbs more than a GC or GF, that's a big difference when you're pedaling 165ish HP.

That's a dirty rumor and the weight difference is not really all that big when you take out all the stuff you are going to take out to prep for rally. Bugeye GD shells should be super cheap.

Yeah, and when you also factor in my gut, I'm even more lacking

And I do have a spare shell sitting in the garage. Been meaning to build a jig so I can easily prep it and seamweld for the eventual day that I wad up my un-seamwelded car. (And yes, that was intentional when I built my car. I wanted to go racing and not do prep for 4+ years).

The whole "GD vs GC" is indeed just a rumor. That's people looking at the manufacture curb weights and saying "ohmergerddddd, FWD 1993 impreza GC weighs 2600 poundssszzzz, the GD bugeye weighs 3100 poundszzz, what a fattie!"

In the battle for car weights, factor in that an open class car is going to add 50 pounds just in turbo, exhaust, intercooler alone. I just weighed my spare stuff this weekend. My Legacy SS, has a published curb weight of 3200 pounds. Must be RETARDED to try and race something that STUPIDLY heavy right?! Especially when a GC has a weight of 2900 pounds! THREE HUNDRED POUNDS!

Oh wait. Once you remove the sunroof, the power seats, the airbags, the alloy wheels, etc. aka everything to properly prep a car for rally. They weigh exactly the same.

My Legacy rolled onto the scales at 100AW this year weighing 2903 pounds. That's with a modern cage (built in 06) and hardly any weight reduction. That's full rally ready, spare, jack, etc. I've been putting the car on a diet, so far just in simple weight reduction I've dropped a combined 100 pounds. I have another 40-50 that I am shooting for. So that's a published curb weight of 3200 pounds going down to roughly 2780-2800 RALLY READY. That's why it's stupid to look at actual curb weights.

For comparision, Carl Sieglers open class GC weighs 2900 pounds.

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Reamer
I would not of thought Morison would be the one to say it doesnt matter in OL.

I wasn't talking about just OL, I was speaking in general terms.
Better driving will move you further up the field than more car will. (That assumes the car works predictably)

---

First Rally: 2001
Driver (7), Co-Driver (44)
Drivers (16)
Clerk (10), Official (7), Volunteer (4)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Last Updated, January 4, 2015

Quote
john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

Quote
EricW
I love cost-control rules. It's exactly why I don't run a sequential transmission in NRS Open AWD Heavy. The rule is aimed squarely at me as I can *almost* justify the cost of it. Making a rule that prevents me from it just makes it easy to say "nope!" and I go on with my life.

I run pump gas cause I'm somewhat of a cheapskate. I COULD run race gas easily, I just don't feel the need to get 10-15% more out of my setup. As a halfway point, I run a water injection setup for insurance reasons (only when intake temps get too hot). In other words, it's not TUNED for the efficiency that the water injection could provide.

I run (mostly) stock Subaru stuff. Unfortunately, much of it not available on vehicles made in the US. I have a Frankenstein list of parts so I know how to reorder spares.

My car is expensive to operate. I can run it cheaper, but I risk a higher failure rate. (Currently, oil gets changed daily when running, for example). Could I stretch out the service intervals? Probably... but when I get oil samples back that indicated 9% of the oil by volume was fuel (there was a problem) I sure wouldn't want to see what it looked like on day 2... with bearing chunks in the oil.

An OL car would be awesome. And I could easily build one, and maybe I will in the future. But with the GD chassis weighing in 400lbs more than a GC or GF, that's a big difference when you're pedaling 165ish HP.

A GD won OL STPR the 2nd day, on stock sti rear suspension, against 15? cars which probably 13 were GC's.


Keep in mind we probably had the fatest car by far, me and my dad are both 200+, I also built my entire cage with 1.75" so there's an extra 45 pounds right there. 4.44 gears help out with our fatness though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2014 02:33PM by czwalga.