I for one would welcome a no-holds barred class. Some people do enjoy playing
in the unlimited $ class. Other folks enjoy playing in a class like that as a
challenge - lets see if my creativeness & engineering skills can overcome
cubic $. Sometimes that actually happens! And others (like me) would love to
watch - I bet it makes for a good show when you are working. I bet OSP would
be one of those classes at Natioanls that people make a point to watch - kinda
like CP.
Come to think of it, if an unlimited$ class is not desireable, then we should
clean things up and get rid of A-mod. Think of OSP as street legal A-mod.
There are many, many other classes for people like mostof us to play in, but
no real class (ok maybe AM - but try to drive one of those to the store ot the
Friday night cruise) for the those motivated by the things that and OSP type
of class allows. I'd love to do OSP if I had more time and free$!!! I say
give it a chance and let the class enrollment decide it's fate.
Give peace a chance. Lets all just get along. We are the world.... I'm sure
Gandi said something appropriate as well.....
>===== Original Message From dg50@daimlerchrysler.com =====
>> Back to the OSP topic. It sounds like what you're saying against OSP as a
>> National class is that there would be no way to control the amount of
>money
>> spent on a car, therefore, encouraging some sort of mean/nasty cutthroat
>> element.
>
>Halfway. For a National class, the "mean, nasty and cutthroat" is assumed
>at the very start. We do what we can to discourage it, but it cannot be
>legislated away.
>
>However, limits have to be placed that limit the effectiveness of Big
>Money. You cannot _eliminate_ the effects of Big Money (not even in Stock
>class) but you can keep it so that the return on the dollar invested curve
>falls off very quickly.
>
>For example, one can buy $300 Koni shocks (in Stock) that are 95%
>effective. Or you can build $3000 JBZ shocks that are 96% effective. That
>$2700 price difference doesn't buy you much in the way of extra capability,
>especially if the range in driver ability on a given day is in the 75% to
>100% range. The extra performance advantage due to the cubic money falls
>into the driver performance noise.
>
>It turns out that, for autocross, suspension and chassis are very much more
>effective than engine power. (You can see this by identifying all
>Stock-class cars that have 150-ish HP from the factory. They range across
>all Stock classes, but yet perform very differently) It also turns out that
>suspension and chassis development is many times more expensive than engine
>development. Any monkey can make a 400HP motor, but effective chassis
>development is a rare and expensive skill.
>
>So in an OSP-type class, where pretty well anything rules, the guy with
>$20,000 invested in suspension and chassis development will walk all over
>the guy with $2000 invested in suspension and chassis. This is not
>necessarily the case with engine development - and in fact (I have
>firsthand knowlege of this) more power often makes the car more difficult
>to drive. You've driven the Phantom, imagine what it would be like to drive
>if the power output was doubled....
>
>Because suspension and chassis work is so effective, a superior
>suspension/chassis can often make up for differences in driver ability.
>Once that happens, you've got a real problem, because now any rich hack can
>buy wins. Once you cross THAT line, you slaughter class participation,
>especially if the majority of your participants are somewhat
>underfunded....
>
>To a certain extent, that happened to ESP this year, and no, I'm NOT
>talking about Bob. Bob is well known as a Daddio-class driver, so when you
>get beat by Bob, you're never really sure if it was the car or the driver
>that beat you. But when you get beat by a rich first-time-to-Nationals
>no-name with a clone of Bob's (very expensive!) car (I'm paraphrasing some
>ESP friends here - right or wrong, that's how they see it), then it tends
>to reduce one's enthusiasm for participation.
>
>The root problem in ESP this year was a mis-class - the overdog car has a
>much better chassis and suspension than the rest, and the SP rules prevent
>the changes that would equal the balance. The solution is to re-class the
>offending car, and I understand that that is happening. OSP, being
>all-inclusive, doesn't have the reclass option. If you get hit with an
>overdog, you're stuck with it - unless you ban it, and then you have a
>whole NEW can of worms, as the message you send to the competitors is "do
>too well, and we'll kick you out" which of course removes a lot of the
>motivation to succeed, and can kill a class just as surely as the overdog.
>
>> In a class like OSP, where it is a given that there are essentially no
>> rules, it would be really amazing to see what would happen, or more over,
>> what is already happening in small sections of the US. Maybe _I_ wouldn't
>> run there. I haven't the skills, money, nor garage. But if there's
>already
>> an existing contingent, why not?
>
>Because I think the "old skool" existing contingent wouldn't enjoy it very
>much, as the whole makeup of the class would change (for the worse) in a
>hurry.
>
>Let's say that OSP was brought in for 2001. The SFR guys, having 10+ years
>of development under their belts, do very well. Their cool and amazing
>cars, being cool and amazing, attract attention. Perhaps they even attract
>some sponsor money (although there are problems with OSP with that -
>manufacturers are hesitent to kick up money for cars powered by Other
>People's Powerplants). So now they have some fame, and some money. Life is
>good, right?
>
>Well, that fame and money will attract those that seek fame and money,
>because it's fame and money that powers "serious" motorsports. So you get a
>TC Kline or a Roger Penske bringing a car out to play. They have a good
>driver, and they have the money needed to do the suspension and chassis
>development that pays such huge performance dividends (and costs so damn
>much) And the car they bring stomps the old skoolers into the weeds, and
>does so SO BADLY that they can tell that they won't be able to become
>competitive again without a similar level of investment. And you lose a
>large proportion (perhaps all) of your Old Skoolers pretty well overnight.
>
>But it gets worse. Someone else with the resource levels of a Kline or
>Penske will want to come play, to get their share of the fame/money pie,
>and they will bring more money, and the bar will raise. And then Kline
>either responds with a similar investment, or leaves. Left unchecked, the
>bar will rise higher and higher, getting more and more expensive (and
>losing more competitors along the way who just can't keep up) until finally
>the cost/benefits ratio swings the wrong way for even the richest
>participants, and they pull out. And now you're done. Game over.
>
>THAT schenario has played out many, many times in other motorsports, and
>for motorsports with very high levels of benefits, the bar has gotten
>raised very, very high indeed. Autocross does not, as yet, have the level
>of rewards needed to sustain a very high level bar, so the bar does not
>have to go very high before it's too expensive for all involved, and the
>class is dropped by those competing.
>
>In SFR, the bar is so low right now (no money, little fame) that the cost
>of entry is still reasonable for most everybody. That's healthy and good.
>Things are stable. But tip the balance far enough, and you'll lose that
>stability, and the class with it.
>
>If you want, you could probably even test this theory. Have NAP put up a
>$10,000 prize for the top SFR OSP winner - and then sit back and watch what
>happens next.
>
>SM, by the way, isn't totally immune to the "Big Money" problem, especially
>since we are actively _seeking_ (at the National level) the kind of fame
>and money that has the potential to ruin the class. But so far, it appears
>that the rules limit the effectiveness of Big Money to the point that while
>Big Money could (unquestionably) buy a SM championship today, it couldn't
>get the bar high enough to put it out of reach of smaller fish determined
>to work at it - just like Stock or SP.
>
>At least, that's the theory. And we have the will to tweak the rules if
>needed to keep the playing field reasonably level, should Big Money turn
>out to be more effective that first surmised.
>
>This, incidently, is why Porsches aren't allowed in SM. Porsches cost big
>money to buy. They cost even more to modify (the markup on Porsche parts of
>equal quality to Civic or Chevy parts is astronomical) And they perform
>very, very well, as they start off very well engineered, and they have a
>lot of tuners out there who can build very much MORE capable cars if you
>throw enough money at them. Any rich hack can buy a Porsche capable of
>dominating SM for quite some time, until the engineering and development on
>the other cars finally reached the point of equality - assuming you had
>enough competitors stubborn enough to stick it out that long. If it looks
>like you need a $150K Porsche to win, where's the motivation for the guy
>with the $5000 Civic?
>
>Anyway, I think OSP is one of those ideas that is fantastic as long as it
>stays local. Exposing OSP nationwide would cause more grief than benefit,
>I'm afraid.
>
>DG
>
>
>
>.
Mike Taylor
miket@interaccess.com
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