Still a month to go with registrations for Mid-O. Lambie, Burke, myself already in. Others are on the fence but I suspect some will commit. You know how these things go.

We'll assess at the end of the year but I think the numbers will be significantly better and similar to the early growth curve of SPB.

On the upside, now that we have a decent tire we might start nibbling at the heels of GTB cars

 

Curious, how do organizations/series with weight/hp classes achieve this? Why not just split the whole Porsche car universe into 5,8, or 10 weight/hp ranges/classes? I know it's much more complicated than weight/hp (e.g. suspension, tires, spring rates, brakes, aero, etc) but others have done it, even with multi-mark series, so it can't be impossible. Maybe restrict tires to R7 across the board; restrict non-OEM suspensions to just a couple well-known coil-overs; restrict spring rates to a narrow range of % of car weight; restrict aero (?); restrict brakes (?); allow most safety, durability, and temperature control mods. Just thinking out-loud. I don't understand how people invest $ and time to build and maintain a race car only to race it with 3-4 other cars out there, if they can even find them in the field.

 

Besides a sticker or some form of trophy, isn't it really all about racing the cars around you with the car you love the most?

 

No, that's DE. And it's not about stickers or trophies either.

To me, it's about racing many cars very similar to mine and many drivers with ability similar or slightly better than mine, so I can improve in both driving skill and race-craft (strategy, positioning, planning, attack/defense, etc.). There's no reference about doing things better or worse when the other cars' abilities (and how they compare to your car's) are unknown or random.

Games are much more fun when played with someone of equal ability under equal rules and limitations. Would be boring if you played chess against your dog, or against another human who played under rules and limitations that were different from yours.

It's about the game, for the game's sake.

 

Check out NASA's ST and GTS P/W classes and you'll see how they do it. https://www.nasaproracing.com/rules

No matter what, once you establish a few rules, you'll end up with platforms that are better suited to the details of the rules and others that are less well suited. P/W equalizes low and mid range acceleration reasonably well but, all things equal, the heavier cars will have noticeably better top end and the lighter cars will have better cornering and braking. And the platforms with more inherent downforce or less total drag will be better than the other platforms. Usually one or two platforms will emerge as dominant as they are the best fit to the rule set and calendar.

It's hard. If it was easy I'd like to think the racers before us would have already solved it all.

Here's a reasonable scenario to outline "trouble brewing." Take a NASA ST P/W group, and suppose the local racers are several 3 series, Miatas, and Corvettes and they've managed to get a rules set that leaves the cars all reasonably competitive. Everybody has a good time. Then one mid-pack guy sells his BMW over the winter and shows up the next season in a PDK Cayman R with maybe a restrictor and a sophisticated aero package and he just starts mopping the floor with everybody even though his driving isn't top notch. So maybe adding rules to penalize the more exotic transmission / engine placement / aero would be better than the Cayman winning every event with a just-average driver... right? So NASA's ST class has P/W penalties for things like that to try to balance it out. Does that make the racing better or just make Porsches less competitive? Is it fair or better for the community? Hard to say. It is what they do in ST, and in the end it's quite reactive. People keep showing up so I guess it works at least that well.

So right now we have spec classes that appeal to some, P/W classes that appeal to others, and maybe a catch-all for the outliers. It's not perfect, and as we get better we hope so do the rules.

 

I think we should just keep arguing until we can finally get on the track. Is winter over yet?

 

And for that there is SPB, SM and SRF just to name a few. But I think for most of the people that are racing in PCA classes that are typically 4 or less, they chose it because they liked the platform. I'm also pretty sure that the majority of them aren't checking the class sticker in front of them before deciding if they are going to try and setup a pass.

^^ This!

 

I agree

Lets kick some US asses!

 

This winter totally blows. I can't believe how excited I was just to load the car for a road trip from Rochester to RPR so Behe can work his magic. Now I have to stuff the car back in the shop until LRP. 4 weeks baby..

 

good luck finding a 997 for 10k more than you paid for that Cayman...

 

Yes -- that's DE, track days, etc. There can't be competition (by any meaningful definition of the word) without equal rules limiting the competitors.

 

There are 6 SP997 builds. All are expected to be at the Barber Club Race. The soon to be posted PCA Club Racing News will have a recap of the spec, but the basic concept is a hopefully low to operate modified stock 911 spec race car using the DFI motor.

 

http://pcaclubracing.org/wp-content/...CRN-2018-2.pdf

SP997 cover and story on page 20.
LMK if you guys have any questions about the class. My contact info is in the article.
Thanks