I love this idea. A street mod class for street tires. At the end of the day I didn't want to run hoosiers, but I got them with the plan the go turbo which forces me into SM. (yeah, it's not done yet, I know) I'm not on a huge PAX hunt anymore so by all means err on the side to make me slow after adjustment, but it would keep people like steve and I more interested. Scott's suggestion is perfect.


Forcing people to buy R compounds to be competitive due to certain mods they get is the biggest problem with classing imo.

As for the R or F in the street touring classes, as far as I'm concerned that has already been tossed even if the class names don't reflect that. The classes aren't even supposed to have brackets for specific weights or power levels, they're just used to slot cars into based on how they have performed at SCCA events.

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#20 Scion FR-S 6MT Powered by:
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2013+14+15 Atlantic Sports Car Club Overall Autocross Champion
2013+14+15 Atlantic Region Motor Sports Overall Autocross Champion
2017-18 BAC Overall Rallycross Champion

Great Ming, that sounds fantastic. Thanks for doing this.

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#20 Scion FR-S 6MT Powered by:
Great North Performance, Morine's Towing Performance & Off Road, Jani-King Canada and Blue Buzzard Performance Parts.

2013+14+15 Atlantic Sports Car Club Overall Autocross Champion
2013+14+15 Atlantic Region Motor Sports Overall Autocross Champion
2017-18 BAC Overall Rallycross Champion

That SEB bulletin was in March/16... Would the SEB's response to #19322 in June/16 imply that there has been further discussion about the E36 M3 switch to STR? Maybe it fits in STX better?

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"Your car goes where your eyes go" - Enzo (the dog)

Brian Jarvis
Barbarian Mutter Werks Motorsports

There's nothing about limiting the number of runs to only 4 so offering more runs isn't an issue. There's no mention of minimum or maximum number of runs in the ARMS Regulations. The ASN Autoslalom Regulations states:


Guess it's up to the organizer whether to allow more runs or not. I like more runs, but I've seen events turn bad pretty quick. Was at Devens and it looked like we were going to finish in record time then a car decided to leave a trail of oil over half the course and that took about 2 hours to clean up. Slemon is setup to handle 100+ cars so should be able to handle 6 runs with a typical regional turnout.

I've never quite understood our region's obsession with 4 competitive runs. Events I've run in Ontario are basically 'We start at 8am (Another difference. ) and run until 5' and its just however many complete runs they can fit in for the day. I guess there could be a strategy element to a known/fixed number of runs, but that's taking things pretty seriously, IMO.

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2005 Forester XT (Daily/B2Tuned), 2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS P4WD Class Rally Car, 2006 WRX RallyCross Car (Sponsors: Rally-Tech, Great North Performance, ISI Automotive)
Check out: Rally East, The Ledwidge Lookoff Rally

I definitely like the idea of being able to get more runs in if the time allows it. But I'm not sure I like starting events at 8am, when you need to drive ~2 hours to get to a event 8am is way to early when you're not a morning person.

I know, we have a challenging region with distances and what not. Easier in Toronto where they're working from a pool of 2500 competitors within a 100km radius.

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2005 Forester XT (Daily/B2Tuned), 2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS P4WD Class Rally Car, 2006 WRX RallyCross Car (Sponsors: Rally-Tech, Great North Performance, ISI Automotive)
Check out: Rally East, The Ledwidge Lookoff Rally

If you suggest or vote towards 8am start times I'm coming to find you.

Gordon, that one was a freebee.

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#20 Scion FR-S 6MT Powered by:
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2013+14+15 Atlantic Sports Car Club Overall Autocross Champion
2013+14+15 Atlantic Region Motor Sports Overall Autocross Champion
2017-18 BAC Overall Rallycross Champion

I'm with Dev.....

You guys might not start at 8 Am but the organizers do. lol. I am in no way waking up any earlier.

One last question on the JDM car stuff. If they are running in SP, can someone swap in a (NON-USDM/CDM) componets into there (USDM/CDM) car?
Then Scott could run the same motor and crash bars that steve M3 has.

Also i am fully in for a street tire SM set of classes. A lot of other areas run them, and they fill up, But i think the PAX might be to good. Any FWD car running in ESP or higher, would just bump up to S-SMF class, S-SSM legal cars from BSP or up would bump, and S-Sm would have a better PAX the CSP or higher.

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Watch out for porcupine exiting turn 9!!!!!!

AX-1995 Honda Civic CX FSP
RR-1995 Honda DelSol VTEC GT4
2009 Canadian Solosprint Champion.
ARMS Race Director. Race@armsinc.ca

BMW doesn't make flimsy tin can cars for other markets. They make sturdy high quality cars for all markets

A lot of areas that I saw in my quick searching run a .975-.980, so it ends up being around .853 I think that is fine for our SMS class. Nobody is fully modded out around here. Should be slightly quicker than STU which is .845

I would suggest you review how the Steel Cities Region implements their Tire Index Class. They allow any R-Compound class to choose, during the registration process, whether they would like to run in the Tire Index Class. It's the last box choosen after Car Info, Number and Class menues. All cars get the modifier applied by timing and scoring and run in the same group against each other. Seems to work fairly well, as I run in TSM with the M3 due to 3:64 rear gears. Though it is still very difficult to PAX well against properly prepared cars. Also a T is much easier to make then an S and S is so prevalent in the naming structure I would avoid it. TSM or SMT is much easier from experience. TCSP or CSPT etc.

I've included a link to a previous event result below, as an example. You can look at the main page to see more.

http://www.stcsolo.com/content/results/ ... Event4.pdf

I would also suggest that each run group have three runs in the morning and three runs in the afternoon. Especially if you are embracing the use of PAX for championship standings and such. This helps to account for changing course conditions throughout the day. We have seen 1 to 1.5s run differences between run groups from a dirty/dusty morning surface to a cleaned rubbered in afternoon surface. The whole time with the sun out on a 40s course. The importance of setting courses for PAX is also very critical. A lot of effort goes into making a balanced course for PAX around here.


Cheers,
Craig

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2001 Porsche 911 Turbo, ASP
2003 Mustang SVT Cobra, ESP, SGT2

Thanks for the input Craig - it looks like that club uses 0.980 for the 200tw PAX modifier.

We have talked about morning/afternoon runs before. It's a good idea, but the hurdle has always been worker changeover. When you've got 80 competitors it's easy to do 3+ rungroups and enforce live worker changes. It gets hard with 40. It worked really well at the CAC this year. We'd probably have to drop AMP as a regional if we did 3 morning/3 afternoon runs. Digby and slemon could be cut down to 60s courses (which isn't really a bad idea). For parking lot stuff it's super easy.

If we went that way, I'd want it to be consistent across regional events. If we did it this way I think you could drop the requirement of keeping class groupings together, but someone always has the chance of getting screwed by weather no matter how "fair" we try to make it. This years SCCA nats are proof of that.



...How many trunk floors have you welded at this point?



Course design is far and away my #1 beef with this region.

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'99 BMW M3 / "Elvic"

I'm up a lot earlier that 8am for Slemon. I was up at 5am for Loring and still wasn't up early enough to do a course walk.


Not looking to change anything concerning JDM vehicles or what modifications are allowed. If it was legal before, then it's still legal. If it's not legal, then it still isn't. Allowing JDM cars in SP isn't anything new either. ASN issued a bulletin back in 2012 to allow it. People have trouble finding the rule/bulletin so just putting it formally down in the ARMS regulations so people can find it.

I seem to have misplaced my sarcastic emoji lol

FYI. I found the following information on the Steel Cities website explaining their Tire Index Class.

http://stcsolo.com/i-want-to-drive/supp ... gulations/

Street Tire Shootout

Open to any entrant running in a vehicle prepared to any Open class other than Street and Street Touring classes, regardless of experience.

The vehicle must use tires meeting SCCA Solo Section 14.3, except for width restrictions (i.e. Street Touring tires with no width restrictions).

All other Open class rules apply, specifically including wheel restrictions.

Street Tire Shootout participants will be designated with an “T”, optionally followed by their base class. For instance “T” or “T-DM”.

Scored using the current year PAX/RTP index.
Street Tire Shootout participants are eligible for Driver of the Year awards, and PAX times will be additionally adjusted by a .980 factor to account for the street tire requirement.

Other supplemental classes may be created or removed on a per event basis.


Cheers,
Craig

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2001 Porsche 911 Turbo, ASP
2003 Mustang SVT Cobra, ESP, SGT2

Can we formally add the street tire modifier of .980 to the agenda for the workshop? I'm going to try to go back and forth between race and solo, and just want to make sure it is out there.

Thanks!

Have the meeting times ever been staggered or scheduled at different times? I know there are a few of us from solo who would also like to be at the race workshop...

Maybe this would make the day too long, i dunno just throwing this out there

Ming updated the first post to include topics, I assume those will be on the agenda.

My 2 cents on the street tire stuff - keep it to SM only? That class list makes me dizzy just thinking about T&S and registration. And like Joel said, it does wonky stuff with the ST/SP classes. Why run STP at 0.836 when ESP-T at 0.852*0.980 gets you 0.835. Or BSP-T has the same PAX as STU. DSP-T very close to STX. There's more to SP than just the tire difference.

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'99 BMW M3 / "Elvic"

Yeah, I've been editing the original post as the conversation progresses. Should become the agenda for the workshop.

As far as I know, the workshops have always been held at the same time. It was one of the benefits of holding the workshops separate of the AGM, you could possibly attend multiple workshops.

I'll update the proposal for 0.980 in a moment.

I think fewer classes is better in general
This is coming from someone that has to lug a trailer around just to get tires to an event, and hates putting the effort into changing them

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Money ---> Heat and Noise

MMSC #12/ASP

More random thoughts:

Do we want to talk about doing morning/afternoon runs for everyone at regionals? What's the organizer perspective on this? I know as a competitor I would prefer 6x60s runs over 4x90s runs. I'd actually prefer no course ever goes over 60-70s but that's just one opinion. As I said before this would almost definitely remove AMP as a regional unless we did a major start time change. But I've been brainstorming about how some of the larger courses could be done. Feel free to pick it apart.

1) Worker station assignment based on run order. 1st to run in the group is placed at the furthest station from start. 1st to run in the opposite group is assigned the same station. Shortly after their last run they go out to relieve the 1st person from the other run group.
2) Alternatively - more vehicles to ferry people out?
3) For the smaller lots (SJ, Geary, Coliseum), keep random station assignments but hotswap workers. I don't think there would be any real issue with worker changeover on lots like those.
4) Would still need a regular lunchbreak.
5) At the organizer's discretion during the afternoon, runs can be called early before the end of the first afternoon session if time will be an issue. So during the 4th or 5th runs of the 1st group make the call.
6) A lot that can't run 2 cars at a time may need shorter courses if entry count is high. I know FMC did 6 runs at geary this year, but with only 27 entrants. If they had 50 would that still have been possible?

Second random thought: Novice class? If you've done X (where X=a low number TBD) total events in your life, you can enter it for that year and run against other newbies.

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'99 BMW M3 / "Elvic"

Doesn't it break safety rules autocrossing at AMP anyway? Concrete barriers, run off, etc

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Money ---> Heat and Noise

MMSC #12/ASP

I would say a lot of those should be determined by the organizer. You can have a longer course, but there's a lot of things that happen in the background in order for an event to run well. There's a lot of prep work that goes into putting on Slemon. If you asked me a few years ago, I would never have considered doing 6 runs at Slemon. I think it's do-able for a regional now. Each venue is different and you need to tailor the course and logistics around them. Shortening the course at Slemon doesn't help at this point. It used to be longer as we used to run down the taxiway. We stopped doing that because it complicates the event. It takes longer to get the course setup. Worker changes took forever. You couldn't launch another car until the one on course went down and back from the taxiway so it greatly affects how many cars you can get though in the event. Now we run completely on the concrete. It shortened run times, but the biggest gain is the course is designed so we can have 3-4 cars on course at the same time. Shortening the course at this point doesn't gain much. If you cut 10 seconds off a run, it only reduces the time a car launches off the line by a second or two. Shorten the time too much, then you run into issues with workers not having time to reset pylons or not enough workers to cover a station.

You can greatly increase the number of cars you can get through at Digby by shortening the course on the long end. Cut 10 seconds off the time on the long end and it's a direct 10 second improvement on how quickly you can launch the next car. But you can't get more than 2 cars on course at that venue so that's a limiting factor.

Loring is a huge venue with even longer courses. They get 100+ cars and 6+ runs each through because they have around 6 cars on course at the same time. There's a lot of work to support that many cars on course.

You can't shorten a run at AMP. Only option is to get as many cars on course as you can. That puts stress on course design, timing and scoring, workers. Benefit is you never run into a scenario where 2 cars might collide with each other. However you need to make sure there's enough of a gap that another car won't catch the car ahead of it.

When I do worker assignments, I try to make sure there's at least an experienced competitor at each station. Then there are people with health issues and some work assignments, e.g. timing and scoring, that only some people can do.

Loring used a bus to ferry workers the first year or 2. It made worker changes too long so they stopped. Now, workers drive out in their cars and they have parking spots. They can do that because they have tons of room. It's not something you can do at AMP... or maybe? Maybe cars could park in the shale at Digby?

If you can get 3 run groups, you don't need a lunch break. Different venues require different numbers of workers so tough to say. I was talking to Dustin at the Coliseum and said I'd need around 45+ competitors to do 3 groups. We were pretty close to being able to run 3 groups at Slemon for the CAC. I'd rather be overstaffed than understaffed.

Course at Geary this year supported 2 cars on course. With only 27 competitors, stations were short staffed so they only had 1 car on course at times. Would have easily supported 50 cars.

Digby courses are likely to get shorter anyway, the runway is deteriorating badly in some spots and there is a section of "new" pavement that is extremely wavy that we had to avoid. I've seen pictures of cars parked in the digby shale, not sure if it can still be done and if people would even be willing to do it. AMP has the infield which gives decent access to the track but is also quite rough.

I do see your point about worker assignments - we try to do the same for ASCC, when you put inexperienced people together they will miss stuff. So scratch that idea.

As for 3 groups...it always seems more pain than it's worth. When SJ did it at the arena it resulted in some big imbalances for worker counts because of class groupings. There were 2 of us that had to cover the entire opposite side parking lot, it sucked. And given the trend of street being wildly popular it's really hard for any organizer to get an even 3-way split.

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'99 BMW M3 / "Elvic"

Scooters!



Seriously. I've thought of bringing my son's with me to events to get around quickly / easily.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

I should try one. Would fit easily in the car with the rest of my stuff.

The larger street class does make it more difficult, but we were hopeful during that (last minute) Harbour Station event that it wouldn't be a problem as the pre-registration showed as it a nice equal balance for the 3 way split ...which went to pooey in a hurry on the day of the event (partly as a 1/2 dozen cars passed themselves off as stock that weren't ...and a bunch bailed in the rain for workers)

We tightened the scruniteenering up this past year at Long Wharf to not only include safety, but also class eligiblity and created a worker assignment checkoff ...and the three run groups worked out fantastic. Everybody (but us organizers) got to spectate one, work once, and run one.

BTW am I crazy (alright I know the answer to that one ) but didn't we used to run four run groups when Slemon first started?

Stacy

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The fricton circle for my 911 Porsche resembles more of an oblong... I'm either trailbraking or accelerating while trying to get it to turn!

Number of runs in a day is a function of start interval, smaller gap between cars = more runs in a day. If your course design means only two cars on course safely, then make the course shorter. If you can set up a safe course for three or more cars on course then longer isn't an issue.

The other thing that slows down days is having to stop:
for red flags
for drivers lost on course
to rebuild sections after a driver takes out multiple cones
for timing & scoring problems
waiting for corner workers to get to their stations


Fix these and you can get six runs for a big turnout

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Charles