Budget/Price classes for Australian Motorsport?

[StillIC]

I have raised this issue in other threads, but to avoid hijacking them I thought I should start afresh......

Oh no. Another instance of a class with one entrant. I am going to pose my solution again...budget/price based classes. And here's how to do it:

- Run budget/price classes in parallel to existing classes.That is, you can choose to enter 2 classes if you wish, or just one.
- Use the rules that are used in Folk Racing to police the budgets (allows competitors to buy your car at the class budget price after an event).
- Eliminate the old class structures whenever there are zero (or only one?) competitors at 'n' events in a row, in any given old class.

This will ensure that all existing cars will remain eligible. It will come close to ensuring that cars remain competitive in the new classes, and if not, the popular old classes will remain. If you are in it just for fun and not for trophies, enter your car in a budget/price class that ensures no one will buy it for the budgeted price, or that you will make a tidy profit if they do!

I can't see any down sides other than expensive cars that might be class winners in existing slower categories (e.g. NSW 1A Lotus Elise), but are not are not very fast against other expensive cars in faster categories, might be left out in the cold. But those owners can afford to drive something else.

[StillIC]

I can't see any down sides other than expensive cars that might be class winners in existing slower categories (e.g. NSW 1A Lotus Elise), but are not are not very fast against other expensive cars in faster categories, might be left out in the cold. But those owners can afford to drive something else.

Here's 4 that I can think of:
1. Older cars become more competitive, for example there are people like me that want to drive a more modern MX5 that costs double the money and is faster but not that much faster than the old model that it should be in a way higher category.
2. Some people who don't want to or can't spin their own spanners get penalised even though their cars are equivalent to someone who does there own work.
3. My car has thousands spent on it for safety equipment, under your proposed system people would have an incentive to compromise on their safety to be more competitive.
4. People who use good quality parts rather than DIY or copies get penalised, function should be more important than cost.

IMO the focus should be on getting parity between the cars capabilities not how much is spent which is why I think refined categories or a points systems is the way to go.

Thanks for your response Dan.

1. I am not sure I understand the problem. Your more expensive car is a bit faster than a much cheaper older car. So your newer car will be in a higher budget class and be going a bit faster. No problem. Or are you saying that the older car could have extra spent on it to make it faster than your newer car. Sounds great, as this seems to be what most of us here on this forum are doing, but in doing so under existing rules pushes us up many classes in the existing system. This is the issue I am trying to solve. Also, please note that if your newer car is competing in an existing popular category, that category will continue to exist while ever it is popular.
2. This is only true if people who spin their own spanners consider their own time worthless. Do you consider your own time worthless?
3. Let's not include safety equipment part of the budget/price (and we can discuss/work out what this includes). Solved!
4. People who use good quality parts are penalised? Are you saying good quality parts are more expensive but not faster? If so, perhaps those people should be penalised! Please note that I am not suggesting that the cars should not meet existing safety are other general requirements as stipulated in the CAMS manual. Same rules, just different classes. If you choose to spend more to make your car no faster, bad luck. If your increased cost makes your car more reliable, well done, as this gives you a better chance at winning a/the championship.

Yes, I am aiming at getting parity between cars too. I think we have the same objective.

[StillIC]

....

Oh no. Another instance of a class with one entrant. I am going to pose my solution again...budget/price based classes. And here's how to do it: ....

Remember we are talking about, in this case, a National level event. Posting 'solutions' on the interwebs is not going to achieve anything by itself.

The conversation has to start at the State level. If you want a totally different class structure, you will need to get one State to adopt it, and then convince the others (IMHO).

I am all for harmonisation. I think it would be easier to harmonise based on the current technically based regulations, but I recognise that the alternative is possible - I just think that the politics are too difficult. However you can always approach the Club officials and CAMS delegate(s) and put it too them....

Thanks for your response Ed.

I have to start somewhere! I figured that it is better to start with competitors and have a bottom up movement, rather than a top down approach (which has no support). This is why I suggest running the budget classes in parallel, at least initially. I have seen a parallel class run successfully in club motor sport. Here in Newcastle there was a Skyline cup, where RB30 Skylines competed for honours in various events, even though they were all in different official/existing classes (Type 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.). They had their own basic informal rule structure, I believe (I wasn't in it). Any collective can agree to do this. It doesn't need the support of a single official. Not one. No politics is required at that level...yet. Indeed, any collective can do this for any agreed set of rules, not just the budget/price class system I am proposing.

[oztrackdays]

Just accept it.

Look at the classes with control parts the dollars just move on to cubic spending on setup.

Even if you have all the "parity" in the world. class/budget PWR, time brackets blah blah,
what do you do when someone brings a better tyre a tyre you can't even purchase locally
or even at all. eg WRC tyres that are only made for competitors.

109 Octane Fuel is allowed do you ban it due to spiritual budget differences.

Talk to motorcycle racers where a 6 bhp difference is insurmountable, and they will
use up 10 sets of brand new tyres on their test and quali days to give them a better
suspension dial in.

Also the rules will continue to change but the changes are "paid" for by the sponsors,
if you really want the rules to change be the sponsor and until a bigger sponsor comes
along you are golden.

[Dan]

1. I am not sure I understand the problem. Your more expensive car is a bit faster than a much cheaper older car. So your newer car will be in a higher budget class and be going a bit faster. No problem. Or are you saying that the older car could have extra spent on it to make it faster than your newer car. Sounds great, as this seems to be what most of us here on this forum are doing, but in doing so under existing rules pushes us up many classes in the existing system. This is the issue I am trying to solve. Also, please note that if your newer car is competing in an existing popular category, that category will continue to exist while ever it is popular.
Yes, I am saying that you could make a car like an NA faster than my car for less money. A turbo and a set of coilovers would easily make an NA faster than my NC.

The thing is that many people like me didn’t build their car to a specific budget or for it to be the cheapest car on the track, personally I wanted a car to keep long term which is modern and would be reliable on the track, for me a Turbo NA meets neither of those criteria.

Regarding the problem you are trying to solve, people should accept responsibility for modifying their cars and pushing themselves up a class, I do that and modify my car to suit the rules of the class I compete in. Last year I was in 2B and knew that a Carbon Hardtop or a Diff would knock me out of the class so I didn’t put either on until after the season finished. The rules are black and white with clarification available from the Supersprint Panel so people can’t really complain unless they modified their car and then the rules were changed after they modified their car to suit the rules.

2. This is only true if people who spin their own spanners consider their own time worthless. Do you consider your own time worthless?
No, I don’t but my time is cheaper than the price I pay a workshop to do work for me.

3. Let's not include safety equipment part of the budget/price (and we can discuss/work out what this includes). Solved!
Fair enough.

4. People who use good quality parts are penalised? Are you saying good quality parts are more expensive but not faster? If so, perhaps those people should be penalised! Please note that I am not suggesting that the cars should not meet existing safety are other general requirements as stipulated in the CAMS manual. Same rules, just different classes. If you choose to spend more to make your car no faster, bad luck. If your increased cost makes your car more reliable, well done, as this gives you a better chance at winning a/the championship.
Better parts are often only fractionally faster than cheaper parts or in some cases slower like my RX8 front wheel hubs which make my car heavier but improve reliability.

To give examples of mods that are only slightly faster are my MCA Red’s over cheaper coilovers or my Cusco Diff over the stock Diff but if I’m allowed to run both in the rules then I’ll run the best possible. Welcome to racing..

Talking about DIY, look at Lightyear’s car. He snapped his homemade rear wing, that would of been cheaper than my $1,500 APR Wing but I don’t have the skills to make one and I’m happy to pay for my APR to not have to deal with that sort of bullshit. I don't see an issue with that.

I guess this whole thing is a difference of opinion, I’m not on a race to the bottom in terms of cost but you seem to think that because you and some others run a tighter budget you should be allowed to get a big advantage over those that don't run a tight budget.

Yes, I am aiming at getting parity between cars too. I think we have the same objective.
You aren't getting better parity with your system though for people who have more expensive base cars or those that already built their cars without paying a huge amount of attention to a strict budget.

I think classes should be refined but nothing should be based on the cars value unless we are talking about seperating people from obvious miss matches of base cars, if people want to race on a budget they need to either stay in a class they can afford to be competitive in or accept that they will never be competitive in the class they are in.

Just accept it.

Pretty much that.

[NitroDann]

They should do points,

chassis x is worth 20 points chassis y is worth 25 points etc.

Each mod adds some points.

Power to weight adds points, run classes by points.

If rx7's win this year increase the points cost of the rx7 chassis. If slicks have an unfair advantage this year make slicks worth 5 more points next year etc.

Mandate power to weight displayed clearly in big writing on the rear window so everyone knows whos cheating.

Dann

[Dan]

^ Yep, I agree. A points system is what I proposed in the thread this stemmed from.

They use a points system for the Evo Nationals (Evo Nats) which seems to work well but it's only one type of car so it's easier to balance. With so many different cars in the Supersprints it could become a tough to balance out but probably not impossible (it would be more feasible if it was just MX5's).

Here's a screenshot of the points spreadsheet where you put the points in for those who haven't seen it, different models have a different point cost associated the same as different mods which determines your category.

[NitroDann]

Its easy to balance among different chassis, you just take 50x competitive cars of all marques and build a spreadsheet that is fair according to their past natsoft results and mod list.

A patient person could make a spreadsheet in a weekend.

Dann

[Dan]

True, the issue is incomplete information at this point in time though since people don't declare their mods which means you can only infer what mods they could of possibly done based on what class they're in and also you don't know how well they are driving the car to differentiate between the drivers capability and the cars capabilities.

A couple of extra questions from the Supersprint Panel could get a good idea of driver experience and mods though.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[Okibi]

Our club doesn't run any door to door racing. Everything is run against the clock so there's a lot less risk of damaging your car.

Our classes are a lot more fluid (we don't penalise people for silly stuff like braided brake lines) and we fight it out for Maltesers and Toblerones.

We have competitive battles through each of our classes and even outright times are a mix of V8, Turbo and Naturally aspirated MX-5s.

Everyone pitches in and the events are held in good spirits. This is grass roots motorsport.


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The next level of our local WA motorsport are sprint events that are still against the clock but have a wider variety of cars, the level of competition is higher, the costs are higher and the risks people take is also higher. If you want to compete for outright times you need a pretty quick car but the courses are technical enough that you couldn't win an event unless you were a good driver.

classes:
(i) 2wd up to 2000cc
(ii) 2wd over 2000cc
(iii) 4wd up to 3500cc
(iv) 4wd over 3500cc


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The next level is door to door racing, I don't think we have any MX-5s competing in door to door racing currently in WA. Budget classes would be formula vee or formula ford.



All the other classes must be similar to other national classes but on tracks like Barbagallo having newer tyres and more horsepower than everyone else is an advantage but those who win races are all very skilled drivers so money isn't everything.

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Then there's rally, speedway, drift, drag racing etc.
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I think if you want fun and competitive racing, choose the event that suits your budget.

Sure a point system might work, but each track and each weather condition would have to effect your handycap system. As Dann says Natsoft would be a good place to start.

If you're desperate for a more level playing field stick to one make series.

[StillIC]

.... if people want to race on a budget they need to either stay in a class they can afford to be competitive in or accept that they will never be competitive in the class they are in.

Just accept it.

Pretty much that.

Dan, in NSW Supersprints (as an example) there is no remaining class where a bucket load of money couldn't win it. Not even Type 1A (std. road registered under 1.6L), where Bryan's lap records are now threatened/starting to be beaten by a $75,000 Lotus Elise. How many of us have $75k to throw at a track car?

No, I won't accept it. Making classes more competitive and having more than one or two competitors in each has to be achievable, even if the result is not perfect (as there is no such thing, and OzTrackDays points this out). Improvement is what I want to see. And this doesn't happen very often in Australian motorsport.

[Dan]

The start of that paragraph you selectively quoted was:

I think classes should be refined but nothing should be based on the cars value unless we are talking about seperating people from obvious miss matches of base cars

Based on that you can see on that I do see the merits of doing some refinement on the base cars allowed in different classes which could help people like Bryan avoid obvious mismatches like you pointed out but using the total value of a car including mods I think is the wrong way to do things for the reasons I already pointed out.

I even have personal experience similar to your example, I was in 2B at NSW Supersprints last year and my class included an Exige which won the class. I would of come second in the class behind him if I attended the last round. That Exige was WAY more capable than my MX5.

I didn't think of it as being unfair having an Exige in my class, I was happy with my improvement over the year and the fact I was much closer to him than I should have been. Had I not moved out of the class I think with some work I could have given him a good run this year since my best times are now close enough to be competitive (I could have done cams too which would have helped).

[StillIC]

Dan, your example of 2B is a good one. Before you were competing in the state supersprints this class was dominated by Honda S2000s for a couple of years (still have most lap records), until they got bored smashing all the MX5s. Then along came the Elises/Exiges, but most of them got bored doing the same thing, although there is still one or two around. I don't recall if an MX5 ever won this class, but if one did/does, it will be because of a lack of more competitive cars. MX5s just aren't expensive enough! In a budget based class system, you wouldn't have to compete against the likes of Loti unless the owners took a massive risk by entering them in a price class way below their showroom price.

Please remember that budget racing is *not* the cost of the car, but the value of the car you would be willing to accept, based on the class you enter, if a competitor took the option of buying it from you. That is, if you were in the $20,000 class, and a competitor decided to buy your car from you, you have to sell it at $20,000 to remain in the championship. You then have the option of buying it back at the next round, if you wish, and no-one else elects to buy it.

I actually don't imagine that most people would enter their cars in a price class that is at or below the perceived value of the car. At least not initially. Also remember that I am not suggesting that a budget based class system should be compulsory while ever there are other existing popular classes to enter. It is not a *replacement* but an *alternative*.

[NitroDann]

It shouldnt be price, it should only be past performance.

If the price of the car dictates that it will win without further handicap, it can simply be handicapped if it continues to win to make it even.

Furthermore, its easy to make the series cheaper by simply handicapping anything expensive, like outright horsepower, slick tyres, shock absorbers with a retail price exceeding X, or with 2 way adjustment.


Dann