Whats happening to the MX5 racing??

[pressure pack]

thought I would give my view. seems to be different to most others.
don't care for classes
don't care for points
don't care for trophies
modify the car as we please
go as fast as we can
love to race.

[forcedfive]

David, if you need a hand seeing what can be done to run rounds at club track days I would be happy to help if needed.

[Trackphotos]

modify the car as we please
go as fast as we can
love to race.

We have a class like that at QR/Lakeside. It's called QR Sports and Sedans, or Outlaws for short. Run whatever you like, field varies a lot. RX7s, 180sx', old falcons, E30s, occasional old gt3 cup cars, and ex-nascars. Lap times in the group range from around 68sec at the slow end up to about 54.5 at the fast end, so it's a big spread. Everybody slots into their little groups on track and the points and trophies that QR provide are pretty much irrelevant.

[pressure pack]

Yes Trackphotos . With the decline in racing fields this is happening more often. WP run tin tops, which is similar to your QR class. They even let MX5s with rag tops run in the class. With the high cost of racing and the promoters desperate to get cars on the track, the days of single make racing may soon be ending. MX5s could be a survivor, due to a large pool of potential competitors. The Mx5 cup has already been running with other makes. We just need to get more MX5s out there. But I don't think making more classes is the answer.

[chops]

135 points

I think using CAMS 2B/2F style regulations would make it very hard particularly on turbo cars and a massive barrier to entry for new entrants. How many turbo mx5's currently race in any category under 2B in NSW? A third of the field last weekend were turbo cars and I don't think any of them would have complied and I am not sure how many would be interested in restrictors.

Turbo cars are good at Wakefield but less so at South Circuit. A 2.5 NC on slicks will kill a turbo car on semis at South circuit

[forcedfive]

I for one would not be interested in running a restrictor as I want to do other events with my car besides mx5 cup.

[plohl]

the points list needs some work.... you could have a:
60pt, (relatively) stock class,
100pt almostseriousmods,
120pts sh*t'sgettingreal, and
150pt blownlotsofcointogoreallyfast categories.

but anyway.
I think the main issue in qld with the prod sports stuff is there is essentially no room for the lightly modified mx5. You go through natsoft and look at times form 3 - 4 years ago and there was a large number of cars running in the 65-63s mark around lakeside. Look at all the 2f mx5's running in prod sports now and they're doing 62 - 61s at least, with the front running cars dipping below the 60s mark. That's bloody fast, and the cars doing that have had a baller amounts of money spent on them, not to mention development time. I think a competitive NA/NB mx5 in 2f class really comes down to the engine package. This isn't a viable option for everyone, for many reasons. Not to mention there are a mix of cars running in prod sports now which means if you are running 63s laps, you're likely to get lapped on an 8 lap race around lakeside and robbed of a lap... whilst you're at the back of grid... doing your own time attack session.
Which is why I was super happy about the mx5 race PSCRAQ hosted recently. It was a good mix of cars and times which meant everyone had somebody to race.

There are many ways to get lap times down and I think the 2F/2B rules aren't the best way of doing that... for an mx5 race series anyway.

[NitroDann]

Cams rules are horseshit because they ban 90% of what people these days want to do to make their car go faster, which is an engine swap and/or an aftermarket turbo system.

For that reason alone its balls.

Aftermarket turbochargers are the new black.

[plohl]

Plus Dann makes money off turbo kits, so new rule, all cars should come with nitrodann turbo kits

I agree, the CAMS rules are horseshit.

[Magpie]

Lets think about all the interested parties:

Series aim - is it about the driver or the car? If about the driver then strict rules on car mods are required, driver skill is dominant . We have all heard about people cutting up a header making changes and welding it back so it look OEM, is it ever possible to make rules to prevent this, NO. If it is about the car then well the rules dominate, they should be made to get as many cars as possible irrespective of the drivers skills. This requires thinking about how to split the horsepower differences that will emerge. However, how do you ensure consistency in defining HP.

Non Social Media - Some what important, they want something that is easy to cover and has drama (crashes/close finishes/tales of struggle against the odds stuff)

Social media - Live reports, up-to-date information, coverage (crashes/close finishes/tales of struggle against the odds stuff)

Series Sponsors - want people to buy their products/services. This is achieved by media coverage and success of the series

individual car/people Sponsors - same as for a series sponsor, exposure for their brand.

Serious Drivers - want to win and always be one step ahead of the competition, try and make the rules to suit them then exploit any loophole in the rules (overly simplified)

Participants - make up the rest of the field and have no real chance of winning but are content to be on a racetrack. Want to be competitive but lack the funds or the skill. This is where media coverage can be focused, the 'benchwarmers'.

Pit crew - if you are lucky enough to have one want to be part of a winning team.

Spectators - want the drama (just like the media), don't want to have a one sided show as this is boring, want to be entertained.

Trying to get all the parties with an interest to agree on a set of rules is impossible as they all have conflicting interests. The starting point is to decide if it is about the car or the driver. The next step is to consider the common denominator, that is exposure, how do you make rules to give exposure? Maybe talk to some potential series sponsors and get them to suggest the rules, give them ownership anyway it is their money.

Whilst CAMS rules maybe 'bullshit' they are rules that are in place, are known and consistent. Look at the rules for the 86 series well defined but not accessible to all as it has an entry cost of about $70k so you would need a budget of about $270k for the series.

It could be possible to come up with a handicap formula that is used to adjust points based on lap time, position placed (in class/overall) and car mods to aggregate scores, essentially regression to the mean. People will again ague that this is just regularity by another word or excludes blah blah blah. People should stop looking at ways to not do something and how something can be done.

[forcedfive]

The points system seems to group cars that would likely run considerably different times and probably not fair on a highly modded na bp powered car. I know this is just a preliminary discussion but it would require a lot of honesty, to work. As policing very difficult. The time based classes currently run allow almost any car to compete and classes a to c at least should be quite competitive in a quick field. I could hold back with the likely result of winning class b but I, as I would expect most, want to beat the car who is going quicker than me. If we can get more cars back under the time system this is obviously the easiest to police. Maybe some form of tweaking to the points system next year may help in some respects to continue to encourage racers to race to the best of their capability and quickest class they can.

Get as many cars as possible on the track as cheaply as possible and almost all cars will have others ariund them to "race" with Drive your car set up as you like it as fast as you can and enjoy the experience. If you come away with a smile you are a winner.

[chops]

the point system seems overly complicated to me. I think simplicity is one of the keys both for competitors and organisers. Running a series like this would be no piece of cake and I am sure guys like Steve and David amongst others spend more than enough hours making it happen as it is. Getting track time in NSW at least seems to be getting harder not easier and simplifying the process to get good grids can only be a good thing I would have thought. I think a time based system works the best for being the most inclusive wether it is the fairest for all competitors is hard to say

at a rough guess the engine combos that ran on the weekend were
1.6 N/A
1.8 Standard N/A
1.8 Modified N/A
1.6 Turbo
1.8 turbo
2.0 NC?
2.5 NC

out of a 12 car field

how do you make that work equitably and police it? I think the majority of people entered are there for the fun of racing their car and chasing the bloke in front not the plasticware. I would be amazed if anyone actually drove to a time regularity style. There is much easier/cheaper ways to go and do that

[zossy1]

Rules for racing are like a salary cap in pro sports. They set limits on how far you can go.

I'm not interested in starting a spending war. There need to be limits - points, rules, whatever. If you want unlimited mods, well, that's what Super TT is for. Or the W300 for that matter - though the 1:03 cutoff (WP) is a sort of limit in itself.

I don't have any real issue with 2B rules, except that the MX5 is not competitive in prodsports. In an MX5 only field, 2B allows significant freedom in mods, but puts some limits on aero, and of course, forced induction.

4B rules in supersprints are far more lenient, and allow FI/engine swaps, but will bump you up in class for higher displacement swaps (for the capacity multiplier for FI or a rotary swap). This is only fair.

The most popular racing classes in Australian amateur circuit racing remain IPRA and Histoics. Both have had longstanding and stable rule sets. That is what we need IMO.

[pressure pack]

Running the MX5 cup in conjunction with club track days, is the best idea I have heard yet. This would expose track dayers to racing.
Surely it would draw in new competitors.

[Magpie]

pressure pack may have the right idea.

In Queensland, at least for the sprints so clubs (Porsche/86) are running in conjunction with Queensland Raceway sprint events. Only issue can be that the field size increases to a size where participants get reduced runs and club participants forget that it is a QR Street Sprint series and the track layout will not be changed. For example at QR Street Sprint Rnd 3 there were 77 cars, split into 5 groups with 4 hot laps per session and 4 sessions. Normally you would expect 4 groups, 5 laps and about 6/7 runs. Many of the Porsche club members wanted to run another layout...

Queensland MX5 club track days are well supported but run on a weekday hence attracting people to non sprint events on the same day would be difficult. Plus from my limited knowledge there are not too many from the club that would make the transition.

At least for 2016 I'm sticking with Time Attack style. I comply with the rules that my car runs in and it is easy to make changes to the car for the nuances in the rules.