Optima
 

Lance I agree Have a place to run the car
My esp firebird is no longer legal for that class
with all changes made and instead of moving to
Cp I can do osp or Cam now.

This whole discussion is great
Reminds me of a favorite movie line
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid

Getting ready to fight for running the hole in
the wall gang so Butch chooses knives
The other guy is ready to start and Butch says no no
we need to go over the rules

The other guy says Rules in a knife fight?

Ok - I'll take a stab at this...

Jody's question was "what would a pro-touring class look like if there were classes for competitors?" My answer addresses that question alone and does not have anything to do with the USCA, ASCA, or OUSCI.

Eligible cars - anything older than 1989 with current Registration and Insurance. Must have basic, functioning, "street car" equipment: headlights, tail lights, signal lights, hazard lights, backup light, license plate light, horn, wipers, self contained heat, built in audio, glass windshield, functioning side windows and a minimum of two seats. All "street car" equipment must be permanently installed. MINIMUM weight must be within 2% of the manufacturers advertised dry weight.

Wheels - open

Tires - any 200 treadwear tire (no size limitations) purchased from Tire Rack, Discount Tire, or other recognized tire retailer OR any DOT legal tire (no treadwear limitations) 275 mm wide or less (also purchased at a recognized retailer). Must produce receipt if requested. Ideally tires would/could be branded at the time of purchase.

Suspension - open

Brakes - open

Body - open

Aero - open

Engine - open

Transmission - no sequential gearboxes

Exhaust - mufflers are mandatory

That's it. Fact is rules can not or should not be drafted to specifically cater to any one's preconceived notion or particular car. This is Pro Touring and as best as I can recall the premise of Pro Touring was based on improving and modernizing old cars and not limiting them or putting them in to a particular pigeon hole.

Now... If there was a series I would add the following:

1. In order to compete for event or series point individual CARS would have to be certified and would have to complete a 300 mile cruise prior to be eligible for points. One day prior to any event a certification cruise would be held. Drivers only have to complete one cruise per season BUT if an engine is changed they must recertify at the next event to remain eligible.
2. Drivers must be the registered owner of the car.
3. No professional drivers.
4. No tire warmers

The conversation surrounding USCA and OUSCI is another one entirely. Cam and Jimi have done a great job putting the series together and the reality is, like it or not, we are a small part of the automotive community and if you are going to be the Ultimate anything you can't put a bunch of limitations on things... Unless you want to compete to be the "Ultimate red 1964 to 1973 American built, two wheel drive street car with 275 tires weighing over 3726 pounds with a five speed".

Seeing what you can do against a new factory built is fun but at the end of the day its for racing.

The most fun I have had at a track was with a group of friends racing for the weekend. Chasin with no times or who beat who. We did have race groups just to keep it safe. But it was just us n trhe track.

Just a bunch of guys who built their cars in carports to guys that had shops do the work for them. All in fun.

Those rules look vaguely familiar James. It works very well in that arena and could translate very nicely, sans the engine rule since it would be easy to cheat around. A 300+ mile cruise every time to a separate event with no trailers, sag wagons, etc. would also significantly change the vehicle and logistics dynamic, but USCA coverage would be tough.

Separating into a "PT" group would be great for ME to see. However, without sponsors, these events won't happen. So, the question becomes what do the sponsors want to see? What do they need in order to keep their interest in sponsoring, advertising, and attending these events? If we knew better what they want, it might be easier for us and USCA to craft an accommodating format.

In the end it is the Optima Ultimate Street Car (singular.)

They did an excellent job orchestrating that whole deal, especially with the chaos of SEMA thrown in with it.

Lance, thanks for mentioning me. I'm sure some of the guys on here can attest to the grin I had all weekend. I was in my element. Sure, sometimes things don't seem "fair" but as others have said, we come for the cars and the competition and stay for the friendships. I'm still hoping to finish mid-pack like I did at each of the qualifying events I did this year. Results soon I hope.

Some of you saw the pic I posted of our first run group session in Advanced, running order was GT-R, 997 TT, ZR1...65 Chevelle! The order changed in later sessions but I was pretty darn happy to be right up there with those cars. The ZR1 was only 0.8 secs faster than me in that session, lol.

Yes, this would be good. Not just an easy freeway drive, but a good mix. I think a substantial drive would have a few dead soldiers by the end. I'm sure there were a few "racey" clutches that weren't too happy about the drive down Las Vegas Boulevard in stop and go (mostly stop) traffic. That was pretty cool actually getting to drive the strip :D

I agree with most of what you said.

All that does is tell me that I must start with the lightest car.

Since we don't typically run in the rain and don't have to put that many miles on in the cruise, I think most would run the 275 A7s over any of the 200 TW tires. 200TW keeps it simple.

This times eleventy.

That would be cool but see Rodger's comments regarding Drag Week and Kyle/Ryan drove the White Monster on OneLap so it seems that all it proves is what an individual is willing to put up with.


Like.


Opinions vary. Look at how pure motorsports used be compared to what it is now.

I would very much like to hear an opinion or two from someone who competed over the weekend and would like to see a change.....and I would _really_ like to see the results from the weekend to see how outgunned the PT cars are.

That brings me to another question, is anyone surprised by the outcome? There was 10 events throughout the year, the AWDs and late models didn't just get fast in Vegas, did they?

But you have that option as it is. The only reason to even mention weight is to get away from the attempts to craft rules that require you to run a B-body Dodge to meet the rules. Minimum wights are tough because a base '67 came in at less than 3100 pounds dry... Making a minimum weight of 3200+ is unrealistic given many of our cars could have weighted less to begin with.

True but if you were on A7s in Pittsburgh you just lost and, depending on the cruise, you could heat cycle the tires out before you got to the track. It's a risk that some would take and would be interesting. Not a lot of soft tires would survive two days happily...

Yep - I was there with Kyle and Ryan... in the pouring rain... on a bridge...in rush hour traffic... in Bowling Green Kentucky... on Derby day. We were both pulling trailers. :) And I'm fine with that. Nobody should be able to tell me what I can drive on the street. I've driven with a kirky seat for more miles than most would enjoy - no big deal with seat covers. Heck - last week some people were telling me that you had to have AC to be a real street car. I didn't own a car with AC until I was 26 - I never needed it here.


I was there. We were badly outgunned for the most part and it was no surprise. The points champion drove a 5th gen and late model Camaros and Corvettes were dominant throughout the year. And yes - AWDs were there all year - but this was the first event where they were ALL there the same time.

BUT - we tried - we had fun - and we would all do it again.

Being the points champion is a little on the superficial side in my opion. He happened to also go to 5 events this year, more than anyone else as far as I know. It would have been hard for him not to be the points champion. The points champion should have been the participant that scored the most points overall in 1 event in my opinion.

Points for the championship were based on the best 3 events. Ken went to 5 events in the 1LE, Bryan went to 3, Kyle went to 6, I went to 6, Ryan went to 7 and Billy went to 5. Nobody in the Top 20 went to fewer than 3 events. If we used the best single event score the National Champion would have been Brandon in the Evo and the title could have easily gone to someone who was the only car in their class.

In what world would a points championship be based off of 1 event?

There were 10 events and I'm pretty certain he attended more than 5.

I'm not certain how they counted points or determined a champion, but if they were going to revise it all all, the thing to do would be to take everyone's 5 or maybe 7? Best shows and throw out the rest. You take their best 5 point scoring events and whoever had the most points combined is the champion.

When you are offering 10 events, it's not much to ask the top points guys to run at least half the series, and obviously if you have someone run every event they are going to better their chances at scoring the most points, throwing out their bad events.

A lot of short track series's run a similar points system, using their top however many points nights to determine the champion.