At 12:09 PM 6/30/99 , dg50@daimlerchrysler.com wrote:
>1. There exists a popular and growing demographic of motorsports
>participants:
>the "Import Drag" or "Sport Compact Car" population.
I think there is a lot of sense in appealing to that crowd.
>Vehicle Eligibility - any front engine, four (or more) seat sedan (meaning
2 or
>4 doors and a hard top) with a displacement not exceeding 2.5l
>turbocharged/supercharged or 4.0l naturally aspirated.*
>*these displacements are not graven in stone - comments welcome
Why bother with such a limitation? If you want to appeal to a crowd
that targets 10s Civics, I think you have a class where most cars have
excess horsepower anyway -- so why limit displacement?
Consider turbo-charged M3's. I see a lot at the track and BMW or
Porsche autox's. They love handling events and autox's. But they
hate the SCCA since it relegates their cars to E-Mod. Why not allow
that crowd? Especially since I doubt they would even be competitive...
>One way of enforcing class parity I've been kicking around is to make this a
>minimum weight class, with penalties for AWD, and breaks for sub-2.5l
>non-turbo.
I think a minimum weight is critical, given you have just one class
to work with. Otherwise, the class will be dominated by the really
light cars... many of the cars you'd like to appeal to, really won't
be too competitive. Why? All the cars will be high HP to weight and
will accelerate well; but the really light cars will handle better and
be able to carry much more speed, and also out-brake the heavier cars.
So, if the car weighs more than 2700#, I doubt it would be competitive
against the many 2200-2400# cars that you'd see with turbo-charged
or transplanted engines.
UNLESS, you apply minimum weights. And then, perhaps you could have
a sliding scale based on displacement and turbo/non-turbo.
Well, hope that helps,
Brian
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