dgrobs

I think that’s fair if Alex, Neil, and Geddy are all part of the deal.

Zhao

I can't speak for the US, but in Canada we flooded our market with unskilled workers sapping up resources while at the same time seeing an exodus of skilled workers retiring or relocating, so it's quite hard to find skilled workers here if you run a trades business here. That's translated into shop rates going up because they can, but it has not really translated into hourly wage increases. Hourly trades here likely make exactly the same per hour they did 5 years ago, or even 10 years ago.

Tires are another thing I know a bit about. Prices went skyrocketing because of shipping costs, but shipping costs went back down to normal levels, and tire prices remained high. I do not know who is making a killing off tires, but I do not think it is the factories in China, nor is it the shops installing them. Markup is absolutely pathetic on tires at the shop level. IMO some people are making an absolute killing right now while others are struggling. I know my income has gone up maybe 30% vs what I was making last year.

joejenie

I own 4 of the current MX-5 Cup cars. I have 3 kids that all drive them and my son races with me periodially in MX-5 Cup. We also have a local MX-5 Cup race series at our local track that all 4 of us do. They are definitely not cheap up front, but they are extremely easy to resell and they hold there value well. I have bought and sold a couple and usually sell them a couple years later for what I paid for them. I have only bought 1 of them new. A good used one can be had for $70-85k. The racing is the best I have ever been involved in though. Damage is reasonable to fix too compared to other cars. I had a big wreck at Petit Le Mans last year that took out the whole side of the car and bent front and rear sub frames and the suspensions on that side. Total cost to fix was under $10k. That would have been $50-75k in my GT4 car. They are challenging to drive fast. As for speed, they do similar lap times as the 911 Cup, GR86 and Spec e46.

Nowanker

Inflation.
Lots of fiat money floating around that is not accounted for in the Consumer Price Index.
The so-called inflation rate has been high, but luxury item prices have grown disproportionately.
The extra cash must go somewhere....

LuigiVampa

I touched the wall, at about 1mph, in my 991.1, with just enough force to push my radiator and pop it. $6k for a hit that occurred at 1mph.

What does a crash in a Miata and Cup car have in common?

You can't have a $5k repair bill in either.

quickboxster

fell asleep, didn't you.

LuigiVampa

I just realized that PCA has given me a built in excuse from now on. If something goes wrong, I didn't make a mistake, I was just sleepy!

The PCA ad hoc medical committee probably would ban Kimi as well because they know a real racecar driver when they see one!

NaroEscape

Example of the “too many classes” argument.

CMP race has only 38 registered (come on people!!), comprised of 23 classes. And 10 of those are in VGTO and VO (5 each).
15 classes have only one car.

LuigiVampa

You get a trophy! You get a trophy! Everyone gets a trophy!

Sorry that there are not more cars registered for this race. It is a cool little track and I really enjoyed myself when I visited in 2022.

It is the only track where I owned, for a year, the lap record. I now only have 99.5% of the record as someone pipped me last year.

Zhao

I hate racing like that, unfortunately a lot of club racing turns into that. People want to win, but only 1 person can win, and if very fast drivers stay in a class and collect all the trophies, you often have people leaving that class in droves for another class where they feel they have a chance to win.

Matt Romanowski

It's also that no one wants there class changed where they are grouped with other classes. Just look at P1 and P2 in SCCA now and the arguments over combining them.

GlenL

Yep... Too many classes and not great options to combine them. The bag is off the cat, for this.

I think PCA messed this up by expanding out from the letter classes. Those grouped vehicles by expected lap times with limited modifications. Maybe keep letters and the GT1-6 classes for modified cars.

But, no! They wanted to create all those spec classes and then special classes for special cars. I see people love them some SPB and GTB1 cars. I'm thinking those would be GT-5 and GT-3. Sure, people want car-to-car equivalence. (Or the appearance of it. ) The spread of lap times isn't all about driver ability.

There is the argument for just doing power-to-weight. That's done in some leagues with actual dyno runs. PCA gauges power by engine displacement and type instead when defining the GT classes. The problem with simple power-to-weight is that road racing has a clear bias to being light in the first place. That leads to a 2-D chart tabe with P-to-W along one axis and just weight along the other. Five grouping of each, which seems about right, means 25 classes.

Using P-to-W and just W can be reconciled by slicing the X-Y table diagonally. (Work with me people...) Two cars will match up in lap time (and that's the goal, right?) if the lower P-to-W car is also lighter. This was the idea in the letters by checking each model. It could be done with objective measurement, too.

Look at the spread of times for a well-attended race. If the fastest car turns a 2:00 then the slowest will be near 2:45. For cars to be in competition, the lap times need to be within a second. 45 classes? This is getting worse!

Maybe the answer is really no classes. It certainly isn't more classes. Run whatcha brung and feel good about the result. Rules cover safety equipment and after that, have at it. And stop people from being dicks.

Jas0nn

Spec (and spec-ish) classes are what is driving growth in racing, imo. We see this at both the "high end" - Sprint Challenge, MX5 CUP, TA2, GR86 Cup, Mustang Challenge - and at the grassroots level with classes like SM, SRF, SMX, SE46, SPB and so on.

PCA's letter classes go back quite a way, but their ruleset has been very slow to adapt to the way racing has phenomenally changed over the past 40 years. It wasn't that long ago that letter cars still had to have interiors and passenger seats, but it has been quite a while since I've seen anyone drive to/from a race! And the reality is that outside of a few exceptions, most letter cars have been racing for some time; there are very few people coming into these myriad classes. I expect to see a consolidation of Letter classes in the near future (likely through P:W) - but that will really be about to creating fewer/larger classes so that drivers are incentivized to race more often, rather than really trying to entice new drivers into these classes. Prudently, the time/effort in trying to attract new drivers is better directed into spec and spec-ish classes ...

(All of this is just my .02, so that for what little its worth).

Krokodil

The Porsche Owners Club (POC) revised the class structure about 7 years ago, moving toward power to weight adjusted for tire type (GT1 - GT7) and a few of spec classes. For power to weight we stratified into Stock, Modified, and GT. The only material change in last seven years was the addition of spec classes for the 9X2 and 991.2 Cups as they moved out of Porsche Sprint. This was driven by the BOD and there have not been any material rules change requests from members during this period - so it appears the structure is working.

The Stock (S1-S7) and Modified (M1-M7) are mostly contained in our Time Trial (timed DE) run groups leaving 10 race classes (992, 991.2, GT1-GT7, BSR (SPB)). For all intents, all W2W race cars are currently running 991.2, GT2, GT3, GT4, GT5, GT7, and BSR - effectively 7 race classes with the three largest being 991.2, GT3, and BSR, comprising approximately 85% of entries.

Nowanker

NASA ST runs P/W classes.
The P/W calculation is adjusted for different modifications, including tires used. I'm below 2600lbs and take a bonus penalty for that.
Dynojet with specific settings is standardized.
6 classes, Run watcha brung.