This isn't aimed at you Al (thanks for sticking up for me) - this is more for
the population at large.
F-body list guys, I'm not on your list. If you want me to see replies, you'll
have to CC me.
> In regards to the posts regarding the STU (or to be named "Street
> Modified") proposal, it still hasn't been finalized. There's still the
> opportunity to lobby for welded SFCs and other things.
While technically true, there are a couple of things that I think are pretty
well graven in stone:
1) No 2 seaters.
2) No welded structural re-enforcements
3) The displacement limits as written
4) There will be no emissions requirements (but there may be a street
registration requirement)
> Dennis Grant has championed the STU concept for the last year, and has
> done everything by himself, with input from others.
To be fair to everyone, the allowing of the big-inch non-turbo motors was a
relatively new development. NWOR has it in their version of STU for a year (and
it works there), and Howard and I have been discussing it irregularly for the
past couple of months. He made his final decision yesterday.
I'm ALREADY taking flak from the riceboy crowd about this, and now I have a very
difficult job to do - sell this as fair. Thank god for ESP, Fedja, and Brian -
now I have proof that the small-displacement-turbocharged cars can run with the
big-inch monsters - but this is a hard, hard sell. There is a lot of bad blood
between elements of the F-Body crowd and the riceboy crowd, and it falls to me
(it seems) to smooth this over.
For the V8 guys - this was supposed to be the riceboy class. It was decided to
allow you guys to come play with us, but this is OUR CLASS - and one of the
things we had all agreed on for our class was that we were going to be as
weenie-free as possible. That means if some guy with a turbo Civic has to cut a
3" hole in his rad support to fit his intercooler piping, that's OK. If that
Accord had to put a dent in his firewall to accomodate his Japanese-spec motor,
that's OK. Seam-weld the car, or strip out the sound-deadening, and we'll toss
you out.
We had also agreed that we wanted to be the "riceboy CP" at least as far as
off-track behaviour was concered - ie, we have a whole lot of fun, and we do it
together. That means there can't be any serious V8 vs riceboy hostillity going
on. We're all one big happy family, kapish?
I STRONGLY suggest that anyone considering running SM next year join the mailing
list - it's linked off our web page. And read the FAQ too.
> He knew that SFC was a desire for the pony car crowd, but since he doesn't >
have one,
Well, actually, I raced Trans Ams for a number of years before I discovered the
SCCA (I was even on the 2gen f-body list circa '96), so I know full well all
about SFCs and why the various subframed V8 cars want them. I also know that
weld-in SFCs are like a thousand times more effective. But at the same time, SM
(nee STU) is a bolt-in class - and SFC's are very specific to certain types of
cars. If we allow weld-in connectors, then we effectively allow (for cars that
don't have separate floating subframes connected by a unibody) a pair of welded
underbody stiffening ribs "disguised" as subframe connectors.
I don't want to go there. NO CHASSIS MODIFICATIONS is the cardinal rule in SM.
The factory gave you a chassis, and you make do with it.
Now as far as elongated bolt holes go, a bad design is a bad design, and it's
not up to rules makers to compensate for someone's bad design. I can think of a
way right off the top of my head to make bolt-in SFCs not elongate their bolt
holes - and probably work better too. I'll even give the F-body crowd a hint -
it's in "Engineer to Win"
> By the way, for anyone that's looked closely at the rules, it allows
> corporate engine swaps. So, you can put a LS1 in your third-gen.
Yup. We're super-restrictive on the chassis side, but wide open on the engine
side. Go nuts! Have fun!
And if you're thinking "but the chassis is what really counts" well, then you've
uncovered our dirty little secret.
> I don't know at first how many different classes there will be; I think
> that the original proposal had everyone running heads up.
As it stands right now, SM is heads up. I wanted 2 classes "SM1" and "SM2" but
Howard wants to get the most bang for his buck as quickly as possible.
SM is going to work a lot more like drag racing class rules than traditional
Solo rules. Drag racing rules tend to be iterative, wheres Solo rules tend to be
"define everything up front, and never change them".
IF SM gets the participation numbers (that's ULTRA important) and if there are
well-defined performance fault lines, then SM will be split up. As it sits
though, this class is so much like ESP on steroids, or like CP with street
chassis, that I think we'll be able to stay heads up. Or not.
We'll see - and that's the point.
DG
|