JSR_AP2

I haven't followed any form of car racing in quite a few years and not having had cable in a long time didn't help. These past 7 days though, I had nothing else to do while sitting in the hospital (not for me, but for my 5 week old baby) when not taking care of my baby but watch tv and they happened to have cable (Speed channel). I don't normally watch Speed even when I had cable due to over-run of NASCRAP, but I was surprised and excited to see the SCCA T2 runoffs aired. I've always liked a variety of cars in a race (not a big fan of one-make or spec-series as a spectator) and there's never been a real series for sports cars. There's series for GTs and sedans turned into race cars, but not many for the small, agile, lightweight 2-seat sports cars. The T2 race seemed to be the closest thing with Soltice GXPs, 350Zs, and Elises and I was really enjoying watching the race. Afterwards I thought it'd be great if some S2000s, Sky Redlines, Caymens, Z4s and a few other sports cars made it to the runoffs to battle it out. I came home today (and my baby is doing well, but needs to be on medication for a long time) and looked up T2 a bit. This is where I was disappointed...S2000s are classified in T3 as of 07 (I really think they are competitive in T2), no one runs Skys because the K0Z (or similar) option isn't available from the factory, no Z4s (though the Z4M is qualified, but I guess they don't do well...I'd assume due to a large weight penalty), and so forth. Sadly, what I thought was a series where all the sports cars I like would be competing in turned out to be a disappointment with many of the 2-seat sports cars made to compete with one another in the general market excluded for one silly reason or another in the race arena. Anyways, I'm just expressing my disappointment for the lack of a production sports cars series and particularly one where the S2000 competes with the cars they were meant to compete with (instead of FF cars all the time), plus I'm running on 3hrs of sleep for the past 7 days. Is anyone else disappointed?

Mrsideways

Lots of S2000's did make it to the runoffs. But they run in T3. Check out the race tomorrow (wednesday) on speed at 1pm est. I'm in the car that got hit from behind on the 1st lap.

JSR_AP2

Mrsideways - ouch, sorry to hear that. Sadly, I won't be able to watch the T3 race as I'm back home now with no cable. When I said I wish other cars made it to the runoffs, I meant for the T2 class. The class has the potential to be the series I've been looking for, but sadly the rules for certain cars (like the S2000) either restrict or reclassify the cars into other classes instead of having them compete with the cars they are most naturally competitors against. Good luck in 09 if you will still run in T3.

PedalFaster

You make it sound like the S2000 in T3 is some evil anti-S2000 conspiracy, but the reality is that the S2000 started in T2, couldn't match the pace, and got dropped down to T3 to ensure it a competitive place to play. You should be happy it's in T3, not mad.

negcamber

Probably if the cars were stock, then the S2k would be competitive in T2. Since there are some mods allowed that significantly help the other cars in T2 and don't help the s2k at all it was not surprising that it wasn't competitive until it moved down to T3.

A lesson there for SCCA Solo II as well...now that the cars are getting older, more are showing up in street prepared. With the allowable mods, BSP doesn't seem the right place for the car.

PedalFaster

The other thing about racing classes is that they naturally tend to homogeneity, even if there are theoretically multiple vehicle options (e.g. Z4, Camaro, Elise, 350Z, etc. in T2). The reason is that most people want to win, and it's a lot easier to jump into a known good car and clone a front-runner's setup than it is to develop a new car from scratch. No conspiracy required to explain the phenomenon.

JSR_AP2

The S has similar power to weight ratio as the current cars in T2 & didn't they take away rear tire (was 255, later 245) reducing the competitiveness? It seems it can be competitive with the current T2 class had it been given appropriate/fair modifications. I'm not mad it's in T3, just disappointed it wasn't allowed to be competitive in T2 where the rest of the field are natural competitors instead of having it compete against FF cars (cars that are not typically on the same shopping list when someone's looking to pick up an S or similar car).