Having been one to drive every car to Nationals, I'm now trailering. Let me
tell you why.
First, as others have pointed out, it's become harder and harder to get all
of the equipment needed to an event. For the past few years, I've towed a
utility trailer behind whatever vehicle I was racing. These have included
a Miata, Audi A4, and a Type R.
Last year, as many people are aware, on our trip to Nationals, I ran over a
fresh deer carcus on the way through Wyoming. Not only was this scary to
have happen, but it also could have potentially cost me a national
championship.
Lastly, Annie and I are now driving an S2000. AFAIK, there isn't a trailer
hitch available for this car (and the owner's manual specifically says that
towing with the car will void the warranty.)
All said, towing the car to events is much easier and has less liklihood to
get the car to the event in substandard conditions.
The obvious benefits are that it's much easier to get the car ready to go at
the event, more items can be brought to the event, and you have a vehicle
you can drive around at the event without worrying about ruining race tires.
Annie and I still drive the car on the street regularly and LOVE to drive
it.
As far as Stock Class cars being uncomfortable to drive on the street,
that's just a bunch of hogwash. The S2000 (even though most write-ups of
the car have said it's too stiff.....) is much more comfortable to drive on
the street than my old DSP Rabbit, and it far outhandles the Rabbit!
Ron Bauer
Y2K S2K
'99 Durango (you'd be surprised how well this does on an autocross course,
right Jean????......)
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Lamfalusi <lamfalus@excite.com>
To: Paul Zahornasky <p.zahornasky@att.net>
Cc: autox@autox.team.net <autox@autox.team.net>
Date: Friday, July 07, 2000 12:53 PM
Subject: RE: Stock class rules was (Re: Sequential Stock Cl
>I'm not talking about "MOST" cars, I'm talking about the competitive trophy
>winners. Obviously there are plently of people who are slightly less
>competitive who go to a NT event or two and go to Nationals. But I'd bet
>that at least half of stock class *trophy* cars are trailered. Or if the
>cars aren't trailored, then are they the daily driver for the owner?
That's
>often not the case. If you have any actual data that proves otherwise,
>please, make a believer out of me so that I don't need to go and buy a tow
>vehicle and trailer. I'm sure you're aware of the simple fact that racing
>toe alignment of a car often makes it annoyingly twitchy at highway speeds,
>or the simple fact that if you are driving quite a distance to Nationals
>with weird alignment settings, your street tires aren't going to last very
>long. So once (for an example) a friend of mine set his alignment up for
>racing, driving it on the road did indeed become annoying, and it would
have
>been cost prohibitive to continue doing it because most people don't have
>the money to throw away on tires that just get chewed up driving to and
from
>events if that's what he did. Of course you could repeatedly get the car
>realigned, but that costs money too. Maybe some cars don't have to have as
>wacky an alignment as I've seen on some, but I know that a lot of cars
>benefit from some good toe-out and it then greatly behooves the owner to
>trailer the car. Face it, its simply not cheap to race any kind of car,
>stock or otherwise.
>
>-------------------
>Mike Lamfalusi
>'97 VW Jetta GLX
>GS - Chicago Region
>
>On Fri, 7 Jul 2000 15:20:46 -0400, Paul Zahornasky wrote:
>
>> Where do people get this crazy idea that most stock cars at Nationals
are
>> trailer queens? Yes, some people trailer their Stock Class cars to
>> Nationals. More probably have a small utility trailer that hooks to the
>> back of the car. MOST simply throw their tires and gear into the back
of
>> the car and go. Hell, Matt Murray does it with his Porsche.
>>
>> I would bet that most of the people that trailer (Stock Class cars) do
it
>> because they want the additional room that a tow vehicle and trailer
>bring.
>> They may be bringing extra tires and rims to an event as rains, they may
>> have additional family members coming along, they may have bikes or
>scooters
>> that they want to bring.
>>
>> Paul Zahornasky
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-autox@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-autox@autox.team.net]On
>> Behalf Of Mike Lamfalusi
>> Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 2:39 PM
>> To: rjohnson@friendlynet.com; autox@autox.team.net
>> Subject: Re: Stock class rules was (Re: Sequential Stock Cl
>>
>>
>>
>> Not to mention that most cars are trailered because they are next to
>> undrivable on
>> the street. You better ban trailering stock cars to events if you're
>REALLY
>> devoted to keeping it pure and innocent as you seem to be. Better ban
>those
>> expensive lightweight wheels too (creating more disparity in classes
>since
>> some cars come with light wheels from the factory). Face it, anyone who
>> thinks it is cheap to run a competitive stock class car is fooling
>> themselves. We all do this because we like it, not because it's cheap.
>If
>> you want to truely race cheap, start slot car racing or something. I'm
>not
>> trying to be a jerk or anything, but I just can't see how this argument
>> holds up.
>>
>>
>
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