Rex,
There are several Formula Atlantic cars in solo that are very close to GCR
spec and are competitive. Eric Petigrew's car is one of them. Bruce
Domeck's car uses the larger 2.0L engines, but otherwise is GCR legal with
exception to the minor safety items (mirrors, fire bottle, rain light,
current belts).
Granted, we are discussing FF2000 cars, which have become widely available
as SCCA Pro teams update to the FF2000 Zetec series or to the FSCCA class.
The glut of FF2000 cars available is due to SCCA governing body changes to
create new "entry level" pro classes at the expense of the current
investments of teams with the false hope that it will bring new, younger
members to the open wheel road racing community. All it has done is
redistribute the current open wheel drivers to other classes, and obsolete
hundreds of FF2000 cars in the process. It has also reduced the car counts
in all previously existing open wheeled road racing classes and the SRF
class. The reasons to create both of these classes are foreign to me and
most of the SCCA general membership and has cost many people a lot of money
to remain competitive and enjoy the sport that they love.
Furthermore, the asking price of most of these FF2000 cars is outside of the
budget of most Solo II competitors. Current competitive CM cars have a
resale value of $8K-$15K; The price of most of the available FF2000 cars is
in the $15K-$25K range. ( John Neighbor's car was an exception in the
class, where it is a currently road racing competitive car used for Solo II.
This car was just sold back to a road racer for $23K.) Tommy Saunders
cannot sell his multiple National Championship winning car for $18K, which
is an indication that racers with this type of budget are not interested in
solo.
While understanding that we would like to make orphaned FF2000 cars more
attractive to the solo community, and to give more people the opportunity to
bring their existing FF2000 cars to solo, just making up some numbers and
throwing them into a class is not the correct way to approach this. Two
things have not been demonstrated:
1). That the demand for FF2000 cars in solo actually exists. I
have seen exactly (2) FF2000 car at Nationals (and none at any Regional /
Divisional / Pro events) in the last five years. That tells me that there
is not much demand for this proposal. Please insert data to validate or
invalidate my reasoning if you have it. If there was much demand for FF2000
cars in solo, I think myself and most of the members of the CM class would
be more accepting of making a valid plan and testing it prior to making any
rules changes.
2). That a proper formula for the FF2000 cars to compete with the
FF1600 cars and the S2000 cars has been established. Arbitrarily creating
numbers with no real engineering basis is not the proper way to make rules
changes. The current weight proposed for the FF2000 cars would make it an
over-dog in the class. The initial performance equalizing weight should be
1400 lbs. Knowing that most of the FF2000 competitors that I know have to
ballast their cars to get up to the 1190 lb minimum road racing weight, how
would one properly attached 200+ lbs of ballast in a car that weights less
than 1000 lbs. Structural integrity of the frame and chassis is suspect, as
is safety, with this much ballast is considered. We need to have an
organized test to see what the correct numbers are and if it can we worked
out realistically. I am willing to help with that testing....I can even
find several FF2000 cars that are twins to my car to use for comparison, but
I do not feel that we should be discussing a rules change without proper
comparisons and testing.
I would like to see a place for FF2000 in solo as well, but the numbers do
not add up and sacrificing a good stable class is not the answer.
As for the current CM field, their value to the road racing community is
fairly well restricted. Of the top cars at Nationals, we had:
'83-'88 Reynards
'84 and '86 Swift DB-1
'85 Citation and a '90 Citation updated to '95 spec
'84-'88 Van Diemens
When was the last time you saw an '84-'88 Van Diemen win a National or
Divisional Club Race? How about a Reynard? The Swift DB-1 is slowly being
replaced in club racing by the '97+ Van Diemen as the dominant car to have.
The Swift DB-6 is holding its own. Only one Citation showed up for the
Runoffs. Tim Koch uses his '90 Citation for club racing and Solo II, as I
do with my Reynard, so I would like to discount his newer car from the
discussion. Otherwise, we have a majority of the cars that are not
competitive on a National level in club racing, which is why they are
available on an autocrosser's budget. As the Canadian FF1600 series is
evolving, many of their mid '90's Van Diemen cars are currently available at
prices lower than the orphaned FF2000 cars. I do not foresee any of these
cars making their way into SCCA Solo II this coming year.
I would agree that there are more orphaned FF2000 cars than there are
affordable FA cars or other ground affects cars. We cannot outlaw them as
that class is already structured. I do not have an answer at this time. I
wish I did and I sympathies with you in that regard.. I have raced and
tested both FF1600 and FF2000 cars in solo and club racing. I like the
FF2000 car and I wish we could use them competitively in solo. I just do
not think that this proposal is the proper way to implement them.
Gary Godula
'88 Reynard FF88
SCCA CM/FF #57
ggodula@ford.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Rex [mailto:burkheimer@earthlink.net]
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 9:04 AM
To: Godula, Gary (G.M.)
Cc: 'seb@scca.com'; 'autox-cm@autox.team.net'
Subject: Re: FF2000 proposal in Solo II CM class
Gary,
Good arguments on all, but I have to take exception here:
>This proposal would not improve vehicle value as older FF2000 cars can
complete successfully in a regional Club CF class in club racing.
>
Only a few divisions have a Club Continental class. SOWDIV does not.
You need to have a pushrod suspension car to run in the front half of
the field. Unless you are Dave W. you need a Van Diemen 1995 or later.
> Early to late 1980's FF1600 cars, which comprise 75%+ of the CM class,
are not competitive in FF road racing and are therefore available for Solo
II competition at a reasonable cost. There are far more 1980's FF1600 cars
in existence than FF2000 cars.
>
I wish we had some real numbers here. I'm not sure that's true. The last
time I actively sought a formula car, I was looking for a FF and kept
tripping over orphaned FCs. I finally gave in and bought an FC.
> Any rules addressing conservation of vehicle value should favor the
larger groupings of cars and the number of competitors affected. As very
few FF2000 cars compete in BM, one would assume that the demand for FF2000
cars to be competitive in SCCA Solo II is very small.
>
That 's not a valid assumption. How many FC owners/propective owners
have considered Solo, then read the rulebook and realized they'd be
running against Formula Atlantics? An actual FA showing up at a Solo
event is pretty rare, I expect, but it only takes one to ruin the day
for anything else that enters the event in BM. And Atlantics are
relatively rare compared to FCs, especially in the lower rungs of the
affordability ladder. The current BM rules favor a few cars over a
large pool of semi-orphaned FCs that are in the price range that most
Solo guys are looking at.
The whole poiint is to allow a larger pool of non-competitive road
racing cars to compete in Solo. If they can't work in CM without major
bastardization, then is there another alternative? A new class?
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