hence why i said about 5000 dollars in drivers training

 

Wow, a couple of nationally competitive drivers have provided some excellent input on this thread, that's helped me. Thanks.

BC

 

Sorry, I just don't buy it. Most locations don't autocross all year, so figure that people start in March and end after September -- that's only six months. Even if you could double-enter every event and run both Saturday and Sunday, you'd only be looking at about $100/weekend, so that would be only about $3000 -- spread out over 30 weeks.

Your $5000 number is about an order of magnitude too high.

Note: I DO compete nationally, so I have a pretty decent idea of my costs. Last year I only spent about $4,000, and that was INCLUDING tires and travel.

 

well yes auto-x and only autox is about 100 bucks a day
but per day you can only get about 6 runs which is NO WHERE NEAR ENOUGH

ON TOP

HPDE is about 300 per weekend + tire + other wear and tear items figure 500-600 total per weekend including gas (WOT all the time you do get sh!tty milage).
Private training (@ BeveRun) is about 300 for 4 hours and 500 for 8 hours.
so go figure...
im saying u have to train a new race driver and whip him/her into shape for fierce competition him/her need HPDE (for seat time purposes) and private training etc...

If you want to have SEAT TIME (as its the most important part of the equation)
you need to pay for HPDE and private training

 

I go to the track alot probably 1-2 times a week. It helps a little but I honestly dont see it directly contributing to a national championship. Sprint and road race are so much different from auto-x. There is a distinct learning curve that happens after a while and the only thing that is going to improve your skill is driving national style courses against national level drivers. ohh yeah and talent, need some of that too.

 

This is sorta interesting. Have these discussions taken place in a forum on the internet? Or do you mean verbal discussions? If you're referring to something on the internet, I'd appreciate a link. I've never read anything about this subject aside from that article in SportsCar magazine.

 

IMHO as a dedicated track guy... I don't think the HPDE instruction is gonna help you too much in AutoX. The dynamics the car goes through are completely different trying to relate FROM track to AutoX. Working the other way however, good AutoX drivers almost always make excellent track drivers because they can apply the knowledge differently.

 

well when i first got the car, i went to an auto-x session like 2 weeks after i got the car (i barely drove)... then because of i was not familiar with the car nor auto-x in general... i clocked terrible times...
learning the dynamics and getting used to the car with appropriate seat time helps...
yes HPDE is different from autox but dynamics learned and seat time will still result in experience thus making one a better driver which in turn helps autox

 

+1 me too!!!

 

Regardless of the amount of money and training necessary to be competitive nationally, in which category do you belong...

a) I like things the way they are ; replacing the shocks, sway, wheels and catback exhaust is acceptable to me.

b) I wish stock meant stock - no equipment upgrades aside from tires.

 

I'd choose B. If by tires it meant any DOT legal tire.

 

i'd like to be in catagory "B" knowing that the Z is one of the best cars in B-STOCK along with RX8... that means it would be a serious contest of true skill? no... then everyone would buy the same heavily favoured car...

 

I'd choose A. I think part of being a good driver is being able to set-up your car and choose the right components (find the rigth settings for the sways and shocks)...that's part of the joy I get from cars.

but then again, I'm not really concenred with being super competetive in a ceretain class - I added the mods which I would enjoy and could afford, and then found which class I ended up being in

 

Having been through both road racing and solo schools, I know for a fact that while there are some similar skills, there are some very distinctly different skills required for both. More skills from solo translate to road racing than road racing skills translate to solo.

Just for example, in road racing your first goal is to finish, second is winning. If you don't finish, you can't win. This means that you can't use 100% of the car or driver all of the time. If you mess up one corner, you can often make up the time lost simply by cranking out a couple of laps closer to 100% than you would otherwise.

However, in solo all you need to do is put together one killer run (or one per day), and that means that you must be absolutely perfect for 45 to 75 seconds. There's no time to "make up" for a mistake -- from the time you leave the line, you're losing time; the goal is to lose as little time as possible. This is one of the reasons that a better driver in an unprepared car can be significantly faster than an average driver in a fully prepared car.

The car setups and dynamics are also significantly different. For example, a car that is neutral to loose on a solo course will be undrivable to the point of being dangerously loose on a track. A car that is drivable on the track will likely be a plowing pig -- or be extremely loose on-throttle -- on a solo course. Also, spinning a car at 30 MPH is significantly different than spinning a car at 60 MPH.

Finally, although this has been discussed probably thousands of times before I was even old enough to drive, the stock allowances are for two reasons: safety and cost. Many cars -- even today -- are marginally unsafe on the standard anti-sway bars. Since most of the weight of the car is on the front suspension, it makes a lot of sense to control the roll capabilities of that end of the car. The rest is cost-related -- most OEM parts are significantly more expensive than third-party replacements, and sometimes are significantly safer as well.

 

20k to win a stock class? are you serious?!??!

BBS are great wheels no doubt, but 5k? there are plenty lighter and cheaper alternatives (even though it is difficult to find a 17x7.5 wheel).

which r-comps cost over 400+/tire?!?! last time i checked 710s were $200/tire

race spec pads? the ones with no initial cold bite but will eat through rotors and not melt when the outrageous operating temperatures that occur during auto-x for our braking system reaches 500+ degrees? what's wrong with our stock pads? they are fine!

$3k for an exhaust!!! i'd be satisfied with a borla! you can find them for <b>3</b>00 used! and it still cuts a lot more weight over anything you can find out there before going to a $3k Ti system (overkill??).

is it really necessary to have a $400 takata harness when a $150 schroth or a $100 sparco/g-force will do the same thing???

and like chris said.. steering wheels are out and so are shift ***** and are totally unnecesary to win a stock class.

like most said, i don't think you can adequately put a price on driver experience. you can throw all the money you want an evo schools and 'private training' but it won't get you anywhere if you just don't have that edge.

say WHAT? if the rx8 and 350z are the best cars in bs, then why wouldn't it be a pure competition of skill? they are the same cars!! that's not to say i agree with this statement, since it does take 20% luck (all you need is to get that one, clean, fast run), 20% set up, and 60% driver to win (ok i pulled these numbers out of my ***).

i couldn't agree anymore and i think everyone here will argue with this statement. i am by far not an amazing driver nor near the skill level or competitiveness of the del, pdx, the thompsons, or anybody on the national BS scene, but i still have no problem taking my 350z w/ FSB to a top 25 out of 150 on stock re040s.

anyway.. sorry.. i just had to add a response to the statements made by bee esp pee although it seems like many of you have already done that.

back to the original topic... why isn't stock stock?

i've really got no other answer than to reiterate the arguments listed by our pro-drivers. they give a pretty good baseline of why stock isn't stock and i think the modifications allowed within this class are within reason. auto-x isn't cheap. being allowed to change shocks and FSB's allow cars within the same class with small variances the ability to compete at a more competitive and fair nature. besides, who really wants to drive a... just for example, an FS camaro with the stock shocks.. those things drive like boats.

so i guess i'm in class A.

another worthless post by yours truly, jun.

 

Heh, why isn't "stock" stock? This is a discussion on the SCCA forums about once a month... Here are the common answers:

1. Tires: Any car is going to eat tires so this is a wear item that everyone will replace. Simple rule is any street legal tire...makes for a simple rule to follow.

2. Break Pads: Basically same as tires.

3. Shocks: Same here too.

4. Front Swaybar: This is the one that causes the most "discussion", the way I understand this one is that in the mid 80's a lot of older cars didn't have front swaybars, yet the newer models of the same car did (or some cars didn't ever get one from the factory). To level the playing field this rule (any front bar) was created. How true this is I don't know, but it is the single most quoted answer.

5. Exhaust: Wear Item.

6. Plugs/Wires: Wear Item.

7. Wheels: I'm not a HARD CARE autox person, but even I wouldn't want to run my autox tires on the street. The ability to replace wheels with stock equivalant aftermarket parts means that people CAN have a set of street wheels/tires and autox ones.

Basically you can replace all wear items with aftermarket parts, which would happen anyhow, and the SCCA knows this. You can't FORCE someone who is in it for the fun to replace their stock shocks with a new set of stock pieces at $8-900 a pop for some cars, when they can go to autozone and get a cheapo set for <$100 a piece.

Now I'm waiting for someone to bring up the R-Comps in stock class debate...dont' go there...an even bigger can of worms.

 

dyezak, The R-compound tires are a point I was trying to make. My opinion is that stock should reflect the car as stock from the factory. Yes, items wear out and "true" stock would require an OEM or equivalent replacement, not an upgrade in performance. Tires should be specifically "streetable" tires. The point of a stock class, again in my opinion, is to reflect all cars in the spirit that the manufacturer originally intended. I also think that this might be the lowest cost class to run as well. Once performance parts are added and stock/oem parts are upgraded the term "stock" seems to lose its meaning.

Perhaps the real issue is that its so difficult to effectively distinguish between OEM, OEM-aftermarket, and performace upgrade part that this distinction isn't worth the effort! Rich

 

Without going too in depth...this IS the rule right now. The tires MUST be DOT legal (ie. street legal). The Hoosiers/V710's that people are running ARE street legal. However I do agree, the tire manufacturers are going against the "spirit" of the rule producing these tires. But as long as they are available and leagle....give me my R-Comps.

 

I will try to help you with this, as I know how much it took to win BS.

shocks, off the shelf non-custom not revalved koni sports $580
swaybar $180
catback home made $150
light weight wheels, one set SSR Comps $1900
Kumho V710 $1000
KN air filter $40
Alignment $60

So $3330 to set up the car that won natls. Now that the car is set up all I have to keep buying is tires. Almost half of that total was won back at nats with $800 from Kumho and another $800 from Mazda for the win.

As far as streetable tires I drive 60+ miles each way to every local event on my race tires. I get about 100 runs and about 1200 miles out of a set.


btw the 2nd place BS car was even less to set up as he ran stock front swaybar and his home made cat back was a piece of strait pipe.

 

Mods and equipment to set up the car = $3330
Yearly tire budget for competition = $1000
Being a good enough driver to win Nationals = Priceless!