Cal Club Autocross Forums

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"Stock" ain't stock, it's a level of prep. If you wanna see "stock" to extremes, go to Pomona during the World Finals or Winternats.

Hasn't this horse been beaten to death enough? And then beaten post-mortem?

In its past life, Jesus bet on this horse and lost, so it is now destined to be beaten for all eternity.

Jason Rhoades wrote:In its past life, Jesus bet on this horse and lost, so it is now destined to be beaten for all eternity.

J-Rho 4:20

Didn't all 74 Plymouth 360ci E58 8 to 1 compression smog motors make 420hp in a "stock" form???

Steve Ekstrand wrote:Didn't all 74 Plymouth 360ci E58 8 to 1 compression smog motors make 420hp in a "stock" form???

Yeah, and they all ran 11s of the showroom floor. OK, maybe 12s on "street" tires...

Times are a changing ...

Easy to criticizes. Any of you valedictorians or near valedictorians have anything constructive to suggest vis a vis making our sport more economical while we see our attendance dropping ...

Mako Koiwai wrote:Times are a changing ...

Easy to criticizes. Any of you valedictorians or near valedictorians have anything constructive to suggest vis a vis making our sport more economical while we see our attendance dropping ...

Their constructive suggestion is to not change it. Perfectly valid opinion.

Jay W

Mako Koiwai wrote:Times are a changing ...

Easy to criticizes. Any of you valedictorians or near valedictorians have anything constructive to suggest vis a vis making our sport more economical while we see our attendance dropping ...

1. Pick a stock car that doesn't require DAs to be competitive. There are many.
2. You don't need r-comps to be competitive...locally. I'm having a great time this year on street tires.
3. Most costs in auto-x are entry costs. If you can't afford those now, in these times, you couldn't afford them before.
4. The two biggest consumable costs in auto-x are gas and tires. Both can be easily alleviated with co-drivers. Ask the jillion people who drive my car(s)...

Summary: Is the economy effecting our turnout? Absolutely. It's also effecting movie theatres, restaurants, shops and according to some people I know ;) , strip clubs. Banning DAs, r-comps and other "stock" parts ain't gonna fix the economy. In fact, one can argue, in a long drawn out economic rant, that requiring people to buy them would help the economy more.

Curt, who's gonna blow his economic stimulus check on Dunlops...no...screw it, Bridgestones. They cost MORE.

Run STS/STS2

We may be talking about an entry level form of motorsports, but its still got National competition and a National championship.

What you really have to say is you can have a FUN time locally. And you can always participate in the bigger shows with a dull knife at a gunfight.
Or you can go all out for National championships. That's going to take money. There are some classes cheaper than others, but still money.

An ST civic, crx, or miata isn't dirt cheap, its more nice landscaping fill cheap. And tires are pretty cheap. They are small atleast. And last well.

Pretty simple, every stock class car has to run the stock size tire with a treadwear no less then 300 on a factory OEM stock size wheel.

Is such a tire available for higher end sports cars?

John Coffey wrote:Pretty simple, every stock class car has to run the stock size tire with a treadwear no less then 300 on a factory OEM stock size wheel.

...and this "helps" how? It reduces cost, but it ain't better.

Will and I drove my car in this form a year and half ago and it SUCKED. Not mildly. It sucked like a $20 hooker sucks. It was comical and we said never again. Just bolting on slightly wider Azenis, on the stock steel wheels (with hub caps ) made a vast difference. The DA Konis and 710s? Will's popping champagne corks. We're talking less than $2,000 in "mods" and Will has won most of it back.

Jayson Woodruff wrote:

Mako Koiwai wrote:Times are a changing ...

Easy to criticizes. Any of you valedictorians or near valedictorians have anything constructive to suggest vis a vis making our sport more economical while we see our attendance dropping ...

Their constructive suggestion is to not change it. Perfectly valid opinion.

Jay W

What Jay said. There are now four ST classes, many regions of the equivalent of our SK classes. How much cheaper does it need to be?

Besides, you're raising the issue of how much it costs to build a nationally competitive Stock class car as if it's a real barrier to entry into the sport. It's not. Run what you brung is the way most if not all people start. Some of what's brung will be unfortunately modified in a way that puts an uncompetitive car with a novice driver in something like CSP. Not mentioning any names here *cough*me*cough.

Your rule would create more overdog cars. How's that supposed to get AND KEEP people coming out? We already have an SEB unduly influenced by a certain former member[s] who have god knows what agenda. Rules take-backs that are utter BS for the most part.

I can't believe I'm even posting on this, but...

I think in most every stock class, any driver capable of winning, will be able to at least trophy, if not top-10 in a car capable of winning (i.e. a car that's right for the class), on that car's stock shocks. No matter how you limit shocks, costs at the top for shocks will be similar to what they are now. Autox is several years behind on shocks, no ones using the really trick stuff yet, triples, quads and remote reservoirs are old tech...

Race tires aren't necessarily any cheaper than street tires. I know, many have said this many times... Look at 710s, they last for freaking ever and the top drivers can win on them. A set of Neovas shaved to 4/32 won't last much longer, especially on a camber challenged car and will likely be more expensive.

300 treadwear... What about cars that come with under 300 treadwear tires from the factory?

Front swaybars are somewhat necessary now because of R tires. This isn't necessarily why they were first allowed though. I suppose street tires would somewhat lessen the need for a fsb so there is a potential cost savings there. But, fsb's also help fix some general issues many stock cars have, R-tires not included.

The ST classes are not a great example of a desire to run on street tires IMO. Those classes allow much more prep and are more expensive to run than the similar stock class. Plus they are essentially built around a few cars that can be made to work really well on street tires.

The majority of ppl who atuox at the top level for any reasonable length of time want to run on R-tires. So it makes sense to have street tire classes (not counting ST) only at the local level, IMHO.

something like CSP. Not mentioning any names here *cough*me*cough.

... or my "SM" WRX.

Your rule would create more overdog cars. How's that supposed to get AND KEEP people coming out? We already have an SEB unduly influenced by a certain former member[s] who have god knows what agenda. Rules take-backs that are utter BS for the most part.[/quote]


I agree.

In SS I don't see a huge PRICE difference between r's and MAX High Perf Summer in my sizes, and with 710's probably not a "huge" difference in wear. Hoosier wears faster of course. Big tires cost $$$$$. Fact of life.

To make stock classes run on stock SIZE tires will result in there being one to two spec overdog cars & a bunch of uncompetitive cars.

For guys that run SS (Z06/Lotus/Porsche) I don't think the consumables is a deal maker/breaker. Maybe is in other classes.

I think (unfortunately) attendance will fall off due to two things:

Gas cost (paid $4.50 gal today at COSTCO for regular in the Suburban. The guys/gals that live furthest away from venues will be the first to drop.

Fun factor, see many previous threads. Mainly not enough runs.

Mako Koiwai wrote:Times are a changing ...

Easy to criticizes. Any of you valedictorians or near valedictorians have anything constructive to suggest vis a vis making our sport more economical while we see our attendance dropping ...

I see zero cost savings in your proposal. Currently I do not see double adjustable shocks as a must have, plenty of people win on singles. And even if you did ban doubles your proposal to open up rear swaybars now means I can spend $800 on a custom blade or speedway rear bar, all you did was move the money from shocks to bars.

Those of us that pay attention already see the top ST cars being trailered to events, or at the very least the "race" st tires - which have been shaved down to the nubbins - are not on the car when it gets to the track.

Stock class Solo imho is ridiculously cheap when compared to any other type of motorsport. How many other classes, or series, have people driving their cars to events and to work.

Jason Isley BS RX8 wrote:

Mako Koiwai wrote:Times are a changing ...

Easy to criticizes. Any of you valedictorians or near valedictorians have anything constructive to suggest vis a vis making our sport more economical while we see our attendance dropping ...

I see zero cost savings in your proposal. Currently I do not see double adjustable shocks as a must have, plenty of people win on singles. And even if you did ban doubles your proposal to open up rear swaybars now means I can spend $800 on a custom blade or speedway rear bar, all you did was move the money from shocks to bars.

Those of us that pay attention already see the top ST cars being trailered to events, or at the very least the "race" st tires - which have been shaved down to the nubbins - are not on the car when it gets to the track.

Stock class Solo imho is ridiculously cheap when compared to any other type of motorsport. How many other classes, or series, have people driving their cars to events and to work.

Agreed, Max's car would be on a trailer if we had one and a truck.

I'd estimate between the three of us we'll have spent 3 grand on street tires by the end of this season with testing, championships and national events.

Sometimes these things cost savings things are counter intuitive.. just ask Rick Jung how much he's spent on Stock clutch replacements when one "more expensive" aftermarket clutch would have served him fine.

Jason makes the best points about stock class. In the long run, even with evil DAs and r-comps, it's still the cheapest way to race a car that you can drive everyday. In a perfect world, these same cars would come from the factory "ready to race", but they don't. Some need more help than others, so either you pick the right car or the right parts to help your car. Cost usually ends up about the same.

Now, that being said, I always get a little nutty when people say we need to "offer more for less" in regards to our sport. Again, perfect world, it would be $5 and we would get 10-12 runs. The fact is we have to cover certain expenses, so there is a cost to each event. Yes, if we lowered the cost of participation we might make up the difference in volume. To me, that then turns the sport into Wal Mart. Sure the low prices are great, but ya gotta deal with a lot of the "bottom of the barrel" people that shop, and most importantly, work there. I've always said that, yes, we need new people, but we need quality not just quantity. More important, too, is that we need to keep the quality people we have. Low prices ain't gonna satisfy either of those needs. I still don't know what the solution, exactly, is, but it ain't Wal Mart...

Jason Isley BS RX8 wrote:Those of us that pay attention already see the top ST cars being trailered to events, or at the very least the "race" st tires - which have been shaved down to the nubbins - are not on the car when it gets to the track.

I think these are poor arguments, Jason. There are good reasons to trailer ST cars:

1) Comfort and conveinience. Yeah, they're noisy and ride rough.
2) Safety of the car. Not only is a breakdown on the highway a nuisance but in this case, it ruins the whole point of going - to use the car!
3) A way to get a broken car home.

Why not show up with the "race" street tires?

1) Wear/waste
2) Wearing the "wrong" camber into the tires
3) Not picking up debris (nail, screw) in any tire you want to compete with!

That said, trailering is not a necessity. I know this because I drove my Escort to Atwater several times, Wendover once, Arizona once, and Topeka once. I also drove it to every Cal Club event for 7 years and every SD Tour in that time except for one because my co-driver had a trailer. Most of those times, I was on stock tires. I bought the "race" tires to go optimally fast on, not burn the inside tread off on the freeway. And the stock tires/wheels were free to keep so there's no cost in swapping tires.

Driving to the event at 32mpg was certainly a money-saver vs. trailering, especially when you consider all the costs of trailering (buying the rig, fuel , insurance, wear and tear).

And that's how I learned that ear plugs make your ears sore after about 3 hours. ;)

300 tread wear??
my car would be useless. Not fun.
All this in hopes that more people MIGHT sign up. I say boo. :barf:

This all reminds of how the FIA [ie, Max "Spank me Nazi girl" Mosley] got in his senile mind that changing a whole bunch of rules would lower the cost of racing in the most expensive series in the world. F1 race engineers scoffed. Every rule change creates costs associated with engineering to the new rule. Overall cost of entry and continuance in the sport stayed pretty much the same. :mrt:

The moral of that tale is that changing rules to "cut costs" is nonsensical. Creating a new class just adds to the confusion we already have with the classing structure.

But wait! I've got! Create a class for completely unprepared cars. No changes allowed whatsoever. There's even an unused class name for it: BP. Of course it now means BUT not PREPARED. No matter.

If you do away with DA shocks people will just get singles customized/dynoed/tested/rinse/repeat until they've spent as much or more than DAs anyhow. Pro-parts is going to have to clone Jeff a few times to meet the demand.

I think it's impossible to regulate cost through rules.