Rule changes and X cars

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Re: My thoughts

Postby MikeD on Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:17 pm

David J Marguglio wrote:Members and affiliate members will be allowed to enter an X car at any event with less than 100(?) entrants subject to successfully passing tech. inspection.


I'm not disagreeing with you Dave, but for the sake of argument, at what point to you take a count? If the X-Car gets its registration in early when there are only 50 cars enrolled, then they will be accepted. However, if at 6:30 AM the day of the event the count reaches 101 does the X-Car get eliminated? It would be kind of a bummer to get up at 5:00 AM just to find out you've been excluded, wouldn't it?
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Re: My thoughts

Postby ttweed on Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:42 pm

MikeD wrote: However, if at 6:30 AM the day of the event the count reaches 101 does the X-Car get eliminated? It would be kind of a bummer to get up at 5:00 AM just to find out you've been excluded, wouldn't it?
That is exactly what the BMW club does. They pass out cards at the gate to the first people who show up. Red for club members running BMWs, green for everyone else. Red cards register first. If the event limit is reached before they are done, no greens get to enter that day. BTDT, trying to enter my Porsche with them.

Not that we need to copy them, and I hope we would be flexible enough in enforcing any policy that we wouldn't exclude someone in that hypothetical position, but this is also a good argument for pre-registration, which we are encouraging by specific policies lately (extra $20 fee) anyway. I think that a pre-reg policy is necessary just to ease the burden on the trailer folks on the morning of the event, just like the $10 "late-to-tech" penalty is for the tech folks (but I do think that both fees should be $10, if anyone is listening!)

If enough people pre-register, we should have a pretty good idea of the event count the day before, and could possibly avoid unnecessary disappointment by calling or emailing on the Friday before, maybe?

Just a thought.

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Point Counterpoint

Postby gulf911 on Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:04 pm

Lets take a look at the last AX/DE how many entrants pre-registered? At about 138 cars I am thinking we had at least or very close to 100 pre-reg's?. Anyone bringing an X car would know they can be excluded once 100 cars are entered. I would agree with Dave, except X cars for Members only, no affiliates. This way there would be less of an argument regarding taking time from pcar members, as the member just brings his X car instead of his Pcar. This would be a good starting point. One last point, We let that pseudo 914 with a V8 run, and a 550 spyder can't? Anyone care to explain this one?
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Postby kary on Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:05 pm

Like Kary, Martin Reinhardt had a desire to build a fun and quick little car to occasionally autocross; he also has very close ties to the club and wanted to stay involved. He endeavored to build a 550 spyder to the highest standards and succeeded. Because of his use of a lot of modern (mostly Porsche) running gear, his car was likely far superior car to the original 550. Upon completion, Martin was told by "the powers that be" that he would never be allowed to enter that car in an PCASDR driving event. After much anguish and little driving (not as much fun on the street I would guess) Martin sold his car.


I must be slow here and do not have all the facts, but as outlined above in David's post Martin was denied access outright. How come there was a 550 spyder replica in the last auto-x event?
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Postby kary on Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:31 pm

David, and others,

Just thinking out loud so to speak.....looking back at the historic driver counts in 2003 all but one of the events were over 100 drivers and the one that was under 100 was a rainout (85 drivers). If it had not been raining it was sure to be over 100 drivers. 2002 was the same situation as 2003. 2001 had two rainouts at 99 and 83 drivers with all the rest over 100, same situation as before. 2000 had some smaller event turn outs where there were possibilities of driving X cars under this proposed policy but that was when the driver boom started to occur.

So I guess what I am saying is this policy would not be met on any auto-x event over the past 3.5 years except for the 6/6/2004 auto-x where there were 96 drivers and the event was not a rain out! BTW one of the rain outs this year was 199 drivers, oh my! Are we arguing for the right policy here?
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Postby MikeD on Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:48 pm

Kary,

I think the policy is sound. I just think we need to come up with the right number. In order to figure out what that number is, I think we first need to figure out at what number do events become overcrowded (see my previous post)? Is it 120, 125, 130, 135? Once you have that number then, and I believe only then can you decide on the X-Car Factor (XCF). If the sellout number is 130 then maybe the XCF should be 120. Or maybe the XCF is 95% of the sellout number? So if the sellout number is different per-venue you still have a hard XCF.
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Postby kary on Tue Aug 03, 2004 6:06 pm

Mike, that is a very easy discussion. It is dependent upon lot. The west lot has serious issues at about 120 to 125. Look at the last auto-x, we finished an 11 lap day at 6pm with a 135 drivers :shock:

For the other two lots, which are roughly the same size, the numbers needs to be done around 100 to 110.

So if we do this and people pre register and some how X cars make it into an event, what happens when other Porsche driving members (not affliliates) show up and find the event over subscribed and get 10 or 11 laps in a day (I remember when we got 14 to 16 laps in auto-x) and they finish again at 6pm? I think we might have some hostile people when they see X cars or affiliate members driving X cars taking up track time :roll: BTW, this is what has happened in the past.......at least when I was auto-x chairing.....
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X-cars in AX and DE

Postby Greg Phillips on Tue Aug 03, 2004 6:58 pm

I think the correct approach is to set a pre-registration limit for each of the lots(and events) recognizing that there will always be some same-day entrants. If your goal is 130 in the West lot, you could set pre-reg as 100 (or 90 or 80) and if by Wed. before the meet that number is met, no X-cars for that event, posted on forum and everyone knows.
I think there should be no distinction between affiliate members and regular members. If two from the same family, houshold whatever want to run, they are both welcome, in Porsches unless the pre-registration is too low.
I think Kary is right, that autocrosses are a difficult venue to add X-cars because of popularity. A more reasonable approach would be to get qualified in a Porsche at autocross and then run the QDE's and big track events in the X-cars (if they pass tech).
If tech is a real concern, one option would be to have the car inspected at one of the shops before any events are run.
Also, I feel we should not be too particular about what constitutes a Porsche for running in events. A Beck spyder to me meets the spirit of the the law if not the letter (as well as the 914 with Chevy V8) :wink: .
I think if you looked real hard at some of the modified cars you would find more non-Porsche parts than factory. How much fiberglass is required before it is still a Porsche :lol:
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Postby MikeD on Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:53 pm

kary wrote:Mike, that is a very easy discussion. It is dependent upon lot. The west lot has serious issues at about 120 to 125. Look at the last auto-x, we finished an 11 lap day at 6pm with a 135 drivers :shock:

For the other two lots, which are roughly the same size, the numbers needs to be done around 100 to 110.

So if we do this and people pre register and some how X cars make it into an event, what happens when other Porsche driving members (not affliliates) show up and find the event over subscribed and get 10 or 11 laps in a day (I remember when we got 14 to 16 laps in auto-x) and they finish again at 6pm? I think we might have some hostile people when they see X cars or affiliate members driving X cars taking up track time :roll: BTW, this is what has happened in the past.......at least when I was auto-x chairing.....


Kary, I'm not sure what you are saying. If the event is soldout then there would be no X cars. So what's the fuss? You need to take the two topics as separate and distinct.

Problem A symptom: Getting only 10 or 11 laps and finishing at 6PM.
Problem A cause: Overbooked event.
Problem A solution: Limit the number of entries to the event.

Problem B symptom: Members griping because they cannot run an X car at an event that is underbooked.
Problem B cause: X car policy to abstract and decision criteria not clearly defined.
Problem B solution: Define a fair and reasonable policy by which members and chairs can know the results of a decision without question.

I do not think you can solve Problem B without first solving Problem A. Otherwise you are still going to be left with an abstract policy by which subjective decisions are made because you will have no idea when said event is full. Unless of course the policy reads something like:

Members and affiliate members will be allowed to enter an X car at any event that is not deemed full on or before 07:00 the morning of the event and is subject to successfully passing tech. inspection.

Which, in my opinion is still vague and subject to debate...
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Postby kary on Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:20 pm

Mike, not sure how to respond to all that other than to say the condition that can and will happen is this:

Pre-registration up until a few days before event. The X cars are able to particpate because not enough people pre-registered. Now after the deadline to determine X cars and up to the morning of the event non-X cars continue to to register. Now you are at 120, 130, 140 cars in total with X cars in the mix. The event runs late because there are so many cars and non X-car drivers get frustrated because they feel only Porsche's should be there given the turn out. They feel the event quality has been lowered, less track laps, longer day.

The only way to avoid the scenario I describe from happening is that we only allow people to attend an event if they have pre-registered. If we also say X cars are allowed to particpate at a certain point ( 120, 130, etc) with an upper limit on the event particpation total we will get complaints about not being able to particpate for many folks wondering why an X car can particpate and they cannot. So that does not work either. Quite a paradigm change for a club that does not turn away Porsche driving particpates in auto-x. Moving on to your new statement.

I agree with your amended statement, though I do not see it as vague, more like a PITB for those people that want to try to get into the event a 7am with an X car. That will deter many folks after they show up and are denied repeatedly.

It is ironic to me that this conversation has come around again because this topic and the various resolutions that have been presented here were talked about a four years ago. It was determined at that time that the only way to cope with the demand was to provide the auto-x chairs the ability to decide. That was because the particpation levels were so high and making a bullet proof policy is difficult no matter how much we want one that works. The black flag policy falls in the same category as this. It was difficult to make a bullet proof policy that could be administered fairly and accurately. Now I see little in the way of black flag procedures.

We cannot please all of the people all of the time as the saying goes........though your last version of the policy puts the pain on the X car drivers which is probably where it belongs considering we are a Porsche club.

I think I would change the time in your statement to 7:30 or 7:20, kind of like stand by on an airplane flight.
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Postby martinreinhardt on Tue Aug 03, 2004 11:40 pm

I personally love to see a Porsche 550, 356 or 904 replicas (I prefer the name reproduction) at the AutoX and think we should consider them as Porsches and allow them in the X class all them time.

My 550 Spyder was a little special 2.2liter 180hp for 1100pounds, but the main reason for not letting me run was savety; it had a single lap belt and no roll bar (just like the real deal). I understand the concerns, specially at the time we had a few incidents.

I was actually allowed to run the 550 at the "Bring your other car" AutoX, but unfortunallty I already had sold the Spyder end of march of last year. It was a fun car, but if I rebuild another one then it will build a 904 / 6 with A-Arms all around. 8)
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Postby John Straub on Wed Aug 04, 2004 10:22 am

I guess you are talking about non-porshe X cars when it comes to making a policy, correct? :?
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Are we all on the same page?

Postby David J Marguglio on Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:12 pm

The thrust of this debate is obviously about auto-x, but if you look back to how this whole thing started, it was in reference to QDE. Now if we can agree on a system that will allow x-cars to run any event with less than 120, 110, 100 (whatever the magic number may be) then that would result in the following:

1. X-cars would be turned down at almost every auto-x
2. X-cars could run at almost every QDE
3. Under-attended QDE, TT, DE, and auto-x would become more profitable with additional x-cars.

Now since driving events pretty much fund the club's existance, I feel that the third benifit is particularly noteworthy. And if the onus proves to be on the x-car driver, how can anyone disagree with what seems like such a win-win situation???
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Vote

Postby MikeD on Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:27 pm

Vote: yes
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Postby Jad on Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:19 pm

Sounds reasonable to me, but maybe we should have a power to weight ratio range or a weight range that would assign a clear figure to assure 'reasonably even' cars. Thus, karts would not weigh enough or full race cars might be too fast. Very quantitative ranges such as the same range as the Porsches that are running. This might help define what is an allowable x-car and what isn't.
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