2011 CA Festival of Speed Time Trial Results

[ChuckS]

Last year I ran the Turbo for the TT with NO practice in it all weekend (drove the 944 Spec car all weekend) and got a 1:55.9. So, I would have been in the hunt in the Turbo. With the Spec, not a chance. By the end of the weekend, it was lucky to make it around the track. So, to Paul, Russell and Craig - Congrats! Unless I can get the Turbo working, I will probably be in the Spec car for the next event as well.

[rshon]

I think the fastest times from the weekend are more interesting than the results from timed runs:

Young, Paul 01:53.8
Shon, Russell 01:56.1
Booth, Craig 01:56.9
Sharp, Charles 02:00.9

Chuck - You're supposed to cream me, otherwise they won't fix the mod points for next year...
(And I can tell you that he would be at least a second faster if he stopped running on those "fabric-treaded" tires...)

[Gary Burch]

I have a simple solution here but some drivers will not like it. If we get tire penalty points really right the BRI will fix itself.

We've fought that battle a few times, lots of proposals but no action

[gulf911]

lots of proposals but no action

perfectly understandable.... with that avatar...

[Don Middleton]

I have a simple solution here but some drivers will not like it. If we get tire penalty points really right the BRI will fix itself.

Nice thought, but as Gary said, we've been down that road. When last having the "I love Hoosiers" debate, the thought was to try and limit their use to 'P' and above. That didn't go anywhere. So, what is "right" for tire penalty points now?

On the old system, the penalty points relative to the point spread in the class was not realistic. Now, with the tighter class sizes, the penalty points seem more reasonable. How would Boxster Town have them changed?

[ChuckS]

Russell, as much as I like "fabric treaded" tires, if I can get them by tech, I may be running an ultra special "steel wire treaded" tires for the next event.
Unless you have a secret stash of good RA-1's

[Kim Crosser]

Just call Chuck S "Sparky"...

[Cajundaddy]

I have a simple solution here but some drivers will not like it. If we get tire penalty points really right the BRI will fix itself.

Nice thought, but as Gary said, we've been down that road. When last having the "I love Hoosiers" debate, the thought was to try and limit their use to 'P' and above. That didn't go anywhere. So, what is "right" for tire penalty points now?

On the old system, the penalty points relative to the point spread in the class was not realistic. Now, with the tighter class sizes, the penalty points seem more reasonable. How would Boxster Town have them changed?

Hey I realize there are a lot of old war wounds regarding tires and any time someone mentions penalty points, sphincters tighten all over San Diego. A lot of this is simply misunderstanding I think. The purpose of our Zone 8 2011 rules is to foster competition among classes with relatively similar performance. We got most of it right I think. We still have too many penalty points for motor transplants so a 911SC with a fresh 3.6 gets leapfrogged well above other cars with similar power/wt ratio, and the point spread for tire compounds is too narrow. You could have a pair of identically setup 85 Carreras in the same class, one with street tires and one with V710s. The car with V710s has a 3-4 second advantage on most tracks and should not share the same class. That defeats the purpose of our 2012 rules.

I think there should be no restrictions on tire choice. Drivers should be free to run whatever compounds they want as long as they carry penalty points that are relative to their performance advantage. My car should not share the same class with an identical Boxster on 300tw street tires while I am on NT-01s. I should not share the same class with an identical car on racing slicks either. The performance difference is simply too great to foster good competition within the class. I think PCA-GGR had tire compound points mostly right and we goofed by not carrying them over. I think they used 20 pts for 101-200tw, 50 pts for 51-100tw, 100 pts for 1-50tw, and 150pts for racing slicks. This seems logical as when you move up a class in tire compound, you move up a competition class. Simple, effective and it also compares pretty well with other suspension and hp mods. on back-of-a-napkin calculations.

Ultimately tire points don't affect me directly as the Boxster brothers run a spec tire with no variation. Our cars are essentially identical and that is reflected in our very close times at every TT event. I guess you could say I am an impartial observer. But someday that may change and a simple rule set that fosters good close competition within point classes benefits us all.

[Don Middleton]

... I think PCA-GGR had tire compound points mostly right and we goofed by not carrying them over. I think they used 20 pts for 101-200tw, 50 pts for 51-100tw, 100 pts for 1-50tw, and 150pts for racing slicks. This seems logical as when you move up a class in tire compound, you move up a competition class. Simple, effective and it also compares pretty well with other suspension and hp mods. on back-of-a-napkin calculations.

OK. You believe we should have left the tire penalties in place, just as they were in the original system. Does anyone recall why we rejected those penalties and just developed what we are using now? Obviously, we felt that the GGR penalties were too great for the lower tread wear tires.

[Cajundaddy]

... I think PCA-GGR had tire compound points mostly right and we goofed by not carrying them over. I think they used 20 pts for 101-200tw, 50 pts for 51-100tw, 100 pts for 1-50tw, and 150pts for racing slicks. This seems logical as when you move up a class in tire compound, you move up a competition class. Simple, effective and it also compares pretty well with other suspension and hp mods. on back-of-a-napkin calculations.

OK. You believe we should have left the tire penalties in place, just as they were in the original system. Does anyone recall why we rejected those penalties and just developed what we are using now? Obviously, we felt that the GGR penalties were too great for the lower tread wear tires.

Yep, we goofed. Tire points should be weighted to relative performance advantage. 50 points per tire class just makes perfect sense. All of the sticky tire guys will still be grouped together as now just moved up one class. I have not done the math but I suspect if we adopt the GGR tire points our BRI will make sense again as well. Top drivers on street tires will once again be found in the top 10 BRI.

We do have time to fix this before 2012 depending on the wisdom of our membership. If we don't get tire points right we will just be back here haggling over this again for 2013. Sort of a Porsche Groundhog Day recurring nightmare. We shall see.

[Greg Phillips]

... I think PCA-GGR had tire compound points mostly right and we goofed by not carrying them over. I think they used 20 pts for 101-200tw, 50 pts for 51-100tw, 100 pts for 1-50tw, and 150pts for racing slicks. This seems logical as when you move up a class in tire compound, you move up a competition class. Simple, effective and it also compares pretty well with other suspension and hp mods. on back-of-a-napkin calculations.

OK. You believe we should have left the tire penalties in place, just as they were in the original system. Does anyone recall why we rejected those penalties and just developed what we are using now? Obviously, we felt that the GGR penalties were too great for the lower tread wear tires.

From my previous thread on points:
forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4617

Under our old system, we only had 4 different groups for R tires.
DOT tires > 139 are 0 points
DOT tires 50 to 139 are 2 points
DOT tires 0-49 are 4 points
Slicks (non DOT) tires are 6 points
In the new system (x10) they are now 20, 40 or 60 points.

In the GGR system, tires were handled differently:
a)Tires with DOT wear rating 200 or greater= 0
b)Tires with DOT wear rating less than 200 but greater than 100 =25
c)Tires with DOT wear rating less than 101 but greater than 49=50
d)Tires with DOT wear rating less than 50= 100
e)Racing slicks or tires with no DOT wear rating=175

I would propose a change somewhere between these.
Soft compound high performance tires (DOT Street legal) with a DOT tread wear rating of 140-199 : 20 points
DOT tread wear rating of 50-139 : 40 points
DOT tread wear rating of 1 – 49 : 80 points
(Any tire with a 0 (zero) DOT rating is considered a race tire and subject to rule C.).
C. Tires with a 0 (zero) DOT treadwear rating - 120 points
Race tires or slicks, defined as non-DOT tires - 160 points

[Gary Burch]

It's like deja-vu, all over again.

There's a lot of things we should have copied from the GGR rules.

[tb911]

I do believe we will fix the tire rules for next year. There is a already a proposal in place if go look

http://zone8.pca.org/rules_prop.php


The reason we've never made big changes in the past is that too many people argue that they've set their cars up for the current rules and it would be too expensive and unfair for everybody if the rules changed too much too fast. But now, with a complete overhaul, is the time to do this. Once the new rules are in place and everybody optimizes for them (again) then we will be stuck again. So now is the time!

[Gary Burch]

GGR really simplifies a lot of the weight issue, you take points for race seats, stages of interior removal, windows, etc ... I think the GGR tire penalties are far more accurate than Greg's propasal. There is a major difference between a 100 treadwear and a 50 tradwear tire, so I don't think they should be lumped together.

[Greg Trigeiro]

I do like the new class system with quite different cars running in the same class. I'm sure in a couple of years we will see which type or generation of car has an advantage on different tracks within a class. It is nice to have fewer classes and more cars in each class.

I have my car set up to run in CC09 with a Street Stock 996 running Yokohama treadwear 180 street tires.

I ran just one day, Friday, at CFoS. It was my first time on the Roval and I put on Nitto NT-01s for the event. These still keeps me in CC09. I ran a 1:58.8 for my first day on this track.

I can still stay in CC09 running Hoosier R6's with an otherwise Street Stock car. I don't have a trailer at this time to get the car to a track so I won't be using R6's though. All you CC09 drivers, including Tawfik, don't have me to worry about.

I do have choices of tires to run in other classes too.

I can run some slightly harder tires than the Yokohamas and run in CC10.

Or I can drop down to CC11 by putting on my narrow 17" wheels and non-sticky narrow tires.

Does this sound right that I could be in the same class running everything from treadwear 180 to treadwear 40 tires?

Maybe tire points should be more than they are now.