Difference between Club Track Days and Supersprints?

[Li7hium]

Hey guys,

I'm hoping to get to Wakefield in June for the Supersprints with a friend of mine who is in the Z Club, but I don't plan on competing.

Are Supersprints essentially practice days, but with higher car and CAMS requirements and with entry into a Championship Pointscore?

Still no actual bumper to bumper racing though, is there?

Matt

[StanTheMan]

Principle is the same. Its a speed event. you go out in your group. When i did it in 2000 it was up to us to organise ourselves in order . The newbies would follow a slightly more experienced MX5 driver To learn the the lines. In those days they allowed 2 cars start at 1 time. Once started you were on your own.

My own experience was that a Club event was run way better than any of the supersprints. Quite occasionally some open wheeler would drop its load all over the track. The Track marshalls would then go & clean it up. sitting in the line up grid for 30 or 40 min was part n parcel of the experience. I found the MX5 Club of NSW was mutch better value for money.

on the flip side. Quite a few members have outgrown the MX5 practise days and are looking for a bigger challenge. eg. slammer, Red Baron and quite a few others. In supersprints, There is a mutch bigger variety of cars to match yourself up against.

I like to stress. Things may have changed since then. Quite a few racers have gone up into bigger & better things since then too. Its just my own take on it. and this was also in 2000 season and i only managed a few races the whole season.

[Craig]

Note that the Supersprint require a rollbar now and you need to pass all the rules regarding the rollbar too, which as Red BAron pointed out is real hard if your avergae height and above. Top of your helmet needs to be 2 inches away from the rollbar, not easy to do in a 5 unless your a shorty.

[StanTheMan]

put a hard top on it. ?

[irwin83r]

think since the hardtop isnt a permanet structure its still deemed a open top. though im only speculating. theres been another thread recently regarding problems with roll bars and 5's

in short you need a steel one thats CAMs approved (brown davis)

need 2\" clearance from helmet top to bar top

only way to do that with a brown davis is to get after market seats which puts you in 2b class (or modified)

or get the standard seat re-trimed. removing alot of the bulk from the center section and seat.

second option would be cheaper and may keep you in the standard class.. i got a rough qoute for 900 to retrim both seats in leather and play with padding.. though i'd guess it would end up being more around the 1000 mark.

[Red Baron]

Supersprinting is serious fun, and very competitive.

The other advantages, and why I got involved last year is the variety of tracks that you get to experience, the various makes that you compete with and the competitive spirit that exists.

CAMS in their wisdom have chosen to enforce a set of rules that impact on the MX-5, I can understand why they have made the changes and have no problem with this.

It will be simple to modify a standard MX to comply, providing you are prepared to invest the $'s required and put up with the inconvenience of having a vehicle that is modified to suit.

A hard top will not suffice, unless you weld it on, and have it engineered to satisfy the RTA, please correct me if I am wrong on this.

For me, the options don't make sense. For others they will.

For anyone considering Supersprinting, who is prepared to modify to comply (and those modifications will not move your class, but must be road legal) just do it, you will really enjoy the experience.

And bye the way, I have a set of Wheels and Tyres for sale to help you.

baron

[rain902]

cams does say at least 50mm.


Im guessing that if we were to raise the height of the bar we would not be able to put the roof up? That would be the simplest way - change the height of the bar to offer increased clearance...

My club allows alterations for safety without considering them a modification - eg if i removed the rear seat to save weight, thats a mod and stuffs me into another class. If I remove the rear seat to allow fitting of a rollcage, then thats OK. (btw vicroads requires the removal of the back seat to allow the car to be road registered with a full cage)

Same goes with my drivers seat - its free, I can fit anything I like without it being a modification. Note that this does not extend to the passengers seat.

Thats one option - allow the seat to be free if a rollbar is installed, would encourage the installation of rollbars to improve safety without being concerned about a class change simply because of compliance with cams requirements.

[Cal]

Im guessing that if we were to raise the height of the bar we would not be able to put the roof up?

I am 180cm tall and as such this is a problem with a standard seat or even a Sparco. You need to put a Sparco Sprint on some alloy plate about 5-8mm thick and bolt it to the floor. This gets you a couple of extra cms lower than using the standard seat rails. Only thing is the seat position is no longer adjustable. This is what I am doing in my 2F race car. I want to be able to run with a hardtop at times.

Cal.

[pluto]

Sadly, the rollbar issue cuts me right out, as I'm not prepared to modify. Can undertsand the regulators' point of view, and the safety aspects underlying (all-in-all making more sense than the double throttle return spring, or metal tyre-inflation-tube caps), but I'm not ready to compromise the whole open-air driving experience that is the Mx5.

If I'm still hot on the whole SS thing, I might have to look into tintops ... '94 M3, maybe? Still, not the same...