Well, obviously I don't want to put the weight up high, however, considering I would like to add 225lbs to the vehicle my options for weight addition are limited.

Sweet, good news indeed.


The rule book I'm following is a little different than what you fine gentlemen are used too, basically we class cars by their hp/weight ratio and an arbitrary handling index. The rule book is actually very good and does exactly what our region needs the book to accomplish. Knowing this, the optimal car for our series would be the 2007 S2000 (due to the revised HP rating and heavier weight), however shelling out the bling for a new STOOK isn't in the cards. By seeking a particular weight I am trying to enable the car to run in a more optimal class than what the factory numbers would indicate.

With this in consideration, adding ballast would not be in the spirit or the rules, infact it could potential exploit high torque vehicles which are less affected to weight addition as one example.

For my race prep I am not

 

i felt the CG change with my OEM top - not good.

 

Not really. According to your description, running it in this "optimal" class is at least as much a violation of the "spirit of the rules" as just adding ballast. Basically you are seeking to add ballast and pretend it's not ballast. I fail to see how this is more sporting than adding ballast and admitting it is ballast.

 

Well, not really.

The true "spirit of the rules" (if you believe in such things) seems to be for largely stock cars to run against each other, having decided that the governing statistic is rated HP/mass ratio. You're doing everything you can think of to add 225 pounds to the car, even to the extent of looking for the heaviest hardtop money can buy, in order to find what you feel is a friendlier class for your car.

I don't see any difference in "spirit" between bolting ballast to the passenger seat floor, and artificially looking for ways to add enough weight to shove you to a different class. If you're going to read "spirit" into the rules, it seem kind of silly to me to manufacture such artifical borders.

And the idea of "spirit of the rules" is fine for women's lacrosse, but it is, to say the least, an oddity when spoken in the context of automobile racing.

 

Beat you to it, Mark.

 

Damn; that's what I get for being long-winded!

 

Don't worry, I enjoyed the read


Perhaps what I really should be asking, if these cars really start at 2811, with the addition of the mandatory mods(HT, rollb, full fluids, etc) can it make the scale at 3035? From the sounds of it, the answer is no , unless one were to add none critical or un-optimized items to the vehicle.

But yes, it is a fine line with how do you prep the car in this case, do you aim for the optimized lightest most expensive solutions which puts the car into said faster class which would require other additional modifications to keep up. Or, do you put "standard" equipment (ie: heavy OE hardtop) on the vehicle and run in the class below. Of course, if you're running in the class below than the car is paying a penalty to get there and therefore should be inline with the other cars in the class.

 

haha, this is the most ridiculous thread I've read in a while -- how do I cheat my car into a class against crappier cars? hahaha

That being said, here's how:

Sound equipment ... according to you and your extremely specious form of reasoning, it would still be in "the spirit of the rules" to throw a bunch of subwoofers, amps, huge boxes (I wouldn't use MDF, go with something nice and heavy ... posibly oak? ), and some big components. Then maybe throw some nice big heavy wheels, prefferably with spinners ... and a shit-ton of air fresheners

 

Correct. No.

 

The funny thing is, you could most likely do this. I don't believe the rule book stats that the car must have all non OE audio accessories removed. I'm sure if one used this strategy and started winning the rule book would change pretty quickly, but until than the spectators can enjoy the beats.

At the end of the day, in terms of track time you are paying a penalty for weight and the car should be slower. Is the car really as fast as Class A with the weight addition, or because of the weight addition is the car now only as fast as class B?

However, I