Loren Williams <Loren@kscable.com> wrote:
> Steve Hoelscher wrote:
>> For those that think because Roger doesn't run STS he has no place
>> commenting on it, think again. Assuming STS achieves national status at
>> some point, an STS protest will land in the lap of The Chief of Protest,
and
>> this past Nationals, that was Roger. It will be his charge to deal with
it.
>> In its present state, the street tire rule is un-enforceable. So how is
the
>> protest committee supposed to deal with it? This places the PC in the
>> impossible situation of trying to enforce the un-enforceable. (Not far
from
>> the stock ECU problem) No matter how the PC rules, it will find itself
>> buried in controversy. I would not want to find myself in such a
situation.
Hear, hear. Any rule that cannot be enforced is wasted ink.
> How is the Stock/SP "DOT approved" rule any more enforcable than the STS
"140
> treadwear" rule?
Unlike "treadwear" (which you MUST remember is NOT based on any sort of
verifyable specification whatsoever) the DOT stamp carries with it a bunch
of specifications that the tire must meet in order to be considered a DOT
tire.
I'm not sure what those specs are (although I understand that the
steel/fiberglass belts in the tires have something to do with the spec) but
one could, in theory, cut open a tire suspected of being non-DOT and
compare its construction against the DOT spec.
A grooved slick can't be a psudo-DOT tire, because it's not made the right
way.
> I think we have to accept that there are things that we just can't afford
> the expense of regulating in this sport. As difficult as it may be to do
> at National level, some things may just have to be left to the trust and
> good sportsmanship of the competitors.
That's fine as long as everybody plays ball. Eventually, if the motive is
strong enough, someone will screw things up - and there's nothing you can
do about it.
Go re-read my little "Return of BFG" story. Now realize that it still works
EVEN IF ROGER HAS NO KNOWLEDGE THAT THE TIRES ARE "CHEATER" TIRES. You may
trust your fellow competitors, but do you trust the tire companies? What if
(another hypothetical example) Hoosier decided they want a chunk of the STS
press, and they made a "street" tire, and that tire was technically illegal
- but they didn't tell anyone that it's illegal. Stamp "140 treadwear" on
it, offer contingency, and watch them win.
For that matter, what if Hoosier decided to make a legit 140 treadwear
tire, that was optimised for autocross in every other way possible. A
typical street tire is designed with about a billion different compromises
in it - but a tire designed for a single use doesn't need those
compromises. I bet the current Hoosier DOT tire, molded with a harder
compound to satisfy "treadwear 140" would still be a much better autocross
tire than any available street tire, and would be legal without any
technicalities or "gray areas"
> Tires and ECU's are good examples.
ECUs are another example that has to be dealt with, and soon. The problem
with ECUs in Stock class is just as bad as the STS tire issue in terms of
enforcability. In a nutshell, an ECU program can be replaced with
completely arbitrary programming, often without having to open the ECU box,
and it is IMPOSSIBLE to prove that it has been done. I'll spare everyone
the description why that is, but trust me - I'm a computer guy, I know how
the ECUs are programmed, and what they do, and I'm telling y'all as a
Subject Matter Expert that ECUs cannot be policed.
The big difference here is that, as yet, the benefits to a "cheater" ECU
are fairly small on an otherwise unmodified engine. You can play games with
ignition timing and (as long as the fuel system is up to it) fuel maps, and
pick up a little power here and there by eliminating some compromises, but
unless the engine is MASSIVELY detuned (and the only thing doing the
detuning is the ECU) you're not going to see really large power gains - I
figure maybe 25 HP as an upper bound, and 10 HP as a slightly optimistic
average.
Couple ECU tuning to other changes (larger injectors, head porting,
headers) and yeah, you'll see big changes. But without those mechanical
changes to support it, there's not much benefit to reprogramming the
system.
Furthermore, power pays very small dividends on an autocross. The
difference in times between two otherwise identical cars is probably going
to fall into the noise of driver ability for all but the most underpowered
cars. The extra power won't hurt, but it won't win on its own either. This
is completely unlike tires, which pay HUGE dividends.
One potential exception lies in things like computer controlled
differentials, drive-by-wire, stability systems, etc. The saving grace here
is that programming these things in the first place is so damned difficult
that it unlikely that anyone will be technically able to extract higher
performance from them without the resources of an OEM, where engine system
reprogramming is monkey work.
> I'm sure there are others... anybody want to talk about fuel?
Fuel can (and has been) analyzed - there exist labs that can do this today,
fairly readily. The "pump gas" specification allows a lot of leeway in
formulation, but any fuel "special" enough to make extra power will fail
the tests. I bet you could get away with VP's 103 unleaded or Citgo's 100
unleaded, but 116 leaded would fail for sure.
As much as you (with STS tires) and the SEB (with ECUs in Stock) may hate
it, you're going to have to address these problems. The rules as written
cannot be enforced, which is the same thing as having no rule at all.
DG
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