The CR (a/c & radio) and 00-01 AP1 should be very close (IIRC within 5-10lbs). A gallon of fuel would make the difference at that point. I just confirmed the CR's entire A/C and radio system weights 39 lbs. Equal prepped CRs, CR deletes and early AP1s should be within that figure. As stated before, I have put my CR on the scales with many different S2000s. The closest non-CR S2000 in B-stock trim was the Tabors early model AP1. It was about 20lbs heavier, same scales, same day but had less fuel.

Just curious ... So nobody wants to propose a soft top delete and a/c radio delete for the non CR S2000s but would rather put a weight penalty on the CR. Why make the cars heavier especially when looking at the other cars in the field? Maybe write it up stating if you use the oem hard top and hardware, you can remove the soft top and accessories and add in the bracing. Sure it would be more expensive and far fetched, but if 39lbs makes that much of a difference to someone, they will happily spend it, right?

-Marc

 

That is what we've been saying all along... James Yom did win the Lincoln Tour in a what would be considered a non STR-prepped ap2 driving his balls off.
[/quote]


What exactly, about my car, makes it not STR prepped?

 

That is what we've been saying all along... James Yom did win the Lincoln Tour in a what would be considered a non STR-prepped ap2 driving his balls off. Not to say that car prep is not important, but you have drivers with lack of seat time spending a ton of time and money building and tuning a car to work for their lack of seat time, instead of actually investing more in driver-MOD.

Now that said, James Yom, Jason Collett, Geoff Walker, Robert Thorne and the other stupid fast STR drivers would be deadly combinations with a CR STR-prepped
[/quote]

How about a Jadrice Toussaint and that Marc Pfantomshift guy in a white STR prepped CR delete for 2012?

-Marc
[/quote]

Fixed for you

 

That is what we've been saying all along... James Yom did win the Lincoln Tour in a what would be considered a non STR-prepped ap2 driving his balls off.
[/quote]


What exactly, about my car, makes it not STR prepped?
[/quote]

Nothing actually, I was making a point about driver mod.

 

That is what we've been saying all along... James Yom did win the Lincoln Tour in a what would be considered a non STR-prepped ap2 driving his balls off.
[/quote]

What exactly, about my car, makes it not STR prepped?
[/quote]

Nothing actually, I was making a point about driver mod.
[/quote]

To piggy back on James driving the crap out of my car.

What most ppl here probably do not know about our time at the Tour/Pro, was that my car was severely handicapped after we made some camber and spring changes before the Pro.
What really makes the driver argument more apparent than ever, was that after the tour I put the car on the alignment rack and found more than 1.5 degrees of front toe in and about .8 degrees of rear toe in.

I would have never, never ever, willingly driven a car with such a bad alignment, if I knew how bad it was.

The point here is, again, the driver is everything.

Like Mark (Sirbunz) has said time and again, the car needs to be able to dance, and with the severe toe in front and rear, the car was more stable than any car James had ever driven. I did not like it since I was used to my old setup and I found it hard to drive at times, but I sure could toss the car around without issues (with Hankooks). Now that I've sorted the alignment out, I am struggling with rear grip, to the point that I think 255's for the front may not be needed, but a must for the rears (I have 245x4 Dunlops).

Honestly, I don't think the weight difference argument holds much weight, pun intended. James killed us all in a heavier, not well setup (on accident), no flash AP2. Could he be faster with less weight? Maybe, but the driver makes the car dance, not the lack of weight.

 

On another note... I just got the call form Nancy that I made the waiting list, and I'm in if I still want the spot now of course this is after I booked a flight for this weekend to visit my family up North.... Ticket is non-refundable.

 

Crap!!! So... you going to Toledo anyway? LOL

-D

 

Get your priorities straight sir. Racing > family. hahaha

As for all this "driver mod" stuff, guys, we race in a sport that counts down to the THOUSANDTH of a second. I have not been doing this for THAT long, but I have both won AND lost by .001 seconds. Take a look at the San Diego Tour this year. I beat out Mark Baer, Thorne's co-driver, by .004 seconds, and he beat out Thorne by .005 seconds. If either of those guys had taken a major sh!t that morning, they both could have beat me. I think I took a major sh!t that morning and was able to beat them. If the weight of taking a sh!t is the difference between 2nd place and 4th place, imagine what 100 pounds of weight will do.

http://www.scca.com/popup/raceresult.aspx?event=17113&file=1284

Look at Street Prepared. Lots of those guys have removed their tops in CSP because update/backdate allows them to. Weight is the biggest enemy in Autox, and if you guys think that 100 pounds is just noise in National level competition, you're mistaken.

When the dust settles and peoples setups become similar, weight will be a key difference. Look at Spec Civic. People have tried and failed to beat the EF Civics with EG Civics, and it's all come down to weight difference, which is similar to what a CR vs non-CR weight difference is. How many EG Civics do you see coming to Nationals lately?

And in regards to people that say let's wait and see, a typical rule change normally takes 2-3 years to come into affect thru the usual channels. Think the patience of competitors is long enuf to wait 2-3 years, and that's not even knowing if it will pass. I've seen people dump cars after 2 events once they find out it's not competitive.

 

I see your point, but consider the following. I am making some assumptions here so feel free to tell me they're wrong, but it makes sense to me.

What makes this class so popular compared to all the other classes?
1) The fact that you can actually do what autocross is supposed to let you do. That is, take your new-ish street tuned car with creature comforts like A/C, convertible top, radio, and no race rubber (i.e. no trailers), and race it as is.
2) 1 above makes it so lots of people participate, therefore making people craving strong competition want to jump into the class as well

If you take away 1, 2 will collapse, and STR will be a class just like all the others. I will not be in it anymore. There are plenty of classes that cater to the person who does not want a daily driveable car. They can go to those. STR is really the only one that lets you have a pretty cool, newish car, that you can drive to work every day.

By going your way, you cater to the people who have CR S2000s. You force everyone else to also have race-only cars. Therefore killing the distinctions it has with other classes.

By forcing the CR to leave its top on or add ballast in STR, you make it so a CR is on a level playing field without really affecting them that much other than not letting them be an overdog. And, keep in mind, it's already known that the CR is a car to have in BS and BS's race rubber caters to someone who would want a CR anyway. The CR already has a good place to play.

If you have a choice between an option where 95% of the cars out there have to do nothing and 5% have to do something really minor (leave top on or add ballast), or 5% have to do nothing and 95% have to make huge modifications that make the car significantly less streetable (take off top)....doesn't it seem pretty obvious which one you should go with? All the other cars seem pretty even so far.

Sure, you could make the argument that only the people it's important to would take the top off, but I think I'm pretty representative of a lot of the class and I know if I had to do that to feel I was competitive, I would leave the class.

 

There will never ever be a rule that adds ballast to one model and/or allows another model to remove some factory part. It's interesting in theory, but will not happen within SCCA rules. Just like the 87 Civic Si is the model to have in ST (I think, may have the year wrong), it's likely that a full-prepped CR will be a tiny bit faster than a full-prepped non-CR S2000 - given the same driver.

Driver is always a factor, just look at JeffJ at 08 Nats (2nd place with only a Gendron bar, Hoosiers, and a cut-off stock exhaust). But a fast driver in a lighter car will beat a fast driver in a heavier car.