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Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter)
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 1:33 p.m.
Tom1200 said:

So with all that said here is my idea: a claimer class......................you can do anything you want but anyone can buy your car for 300K. 

I thought that sounded like a great idea until I was mulling it over while grabbing gas at lunch.  Taking it to it's logical conclusion, which in racing is pretty basic as people tend to push things to their illogical conclusion.... 

First if this is a pro series where you are spending hundreds of millions you tend to have new cars every year, and unless you are Ferrari and can sell a few to your exclusive customers for multiple millions, there's not much use for old race cars until they hit historic racing.  So, if you can have your car claimed after every race all you have done is a)force the rate of development so you're coming out with substantial upgrades every race as you know the competition will get last weeks hot E36 M3 from you.  Second, you life all your components for one race not caring they could fail the next time it moves, as you are not planning on using it again.  Now, if you limit the claiming to 1-2 times a year, again, you've added cost as they just plan on making the cars obsolete and either selling them for $300K or scrapping them.  No biggie when you're spending hundreds of millions.

Next if you're talking 'club racing' then you've just made it easier for the Scott Tuckers who literally have already dropped $2 mil to build a car for one event and have no further use for it.  Last I heard his D sports racer went to Australia less engine.  Note I recall something about it was such a specialized one off it needed to be treated like an F1 engine with pre warming, then different maps for warm up and racing, then another map to shut it down or it would seize up if you just stopped it, plus a life span of one race.  Alternatively you just make it so the rich guy can buy the best car leaving the poor guy who may have 'only' spent $100K building it,without his pride and joy that has taken years and years of hard work and dedication in their garage workshop.  That person is now disincentivized to ever try again.

This has sort of been seen in Lemons.  They did away with crushing a car at every race (spectators curse or something?) as it was so unpopular with racers who saw their hard work and hours destroyed it was eliminated.  With local level circle track racing it works because the people at that level aren't in a cubic money war to start with.  The people who are uber serious about their racing are racing in higher, non claimer classes.

Look at kids karting, or even better quarter midgets.  With some something that locked down you see guys turning up with one kart on an open trailer doing everything as a family, and you see dads paying for semi's full of (I'm not kidding) 3-4 chassis, multiple engines, masses of spares and many hundreds of thousand of $$"s for a year.  What the hell would happen if those classes were open.  Imagine the dyno hours that already happen with spec sealed engines, what happens when you're looking for the last 0.0000000000000001%.

I think open rules worked 'back when' because technology was still advancing so far and fast that there were many paths to the same result.  Now technology, modeling and simulation are at the point where you are looking at ever diminishing levels or return which adds cubic dollars.  The exception being places like Pikes Peak and the Dakar where the environment dictates that there are still different routs to success.  Hell, if Rouge Cow or McLaren decided to throw some serious coin at Pikes Peak and put Hamilton or Mad Max in the car I bet they could, probably after a few years to figure it out, build a car that would make Lobe in his Peugeot look like me driving a Reliant three wheel up there with one dead cylinder.  The fact that it may cost a few hundred million wouldn't matter if they find a wealthy backer with an open checkbook.  Heck, I recall McLaren came very close to building a Land Speed record car, which should be added to the list of true open classes still, but (thankfully?) couldn't get funding for it.  That plan was basically to build a ground effect plane with full DBW which essentially flew along the ground using electronics to control it's pitch and yaw while the meat sack pointed it in it's general direction.  Like modern jet fighters it would be impossible for a meat sack to control it.  The meat sack is just there to tell it what he or she wants it to do, and the 'vehicle' electronics do the rest.  The wheels were basically just hanging down on very soft springs once in motion so they were just in contact with the ground for minimum rolling resistance and not actually transferring the mass of the vehicle to the ground.

I know I keep sounding like a nay sayer.  I love the idea of open classes, I just realize that in reality we are pining for something through rose tinted specs thats time has passed.

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter)
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 1:40 p.m.

How about a list of classes/events that are truly open with minimal rules and no equalizing BOP

  • GRM Challenge, and look how the rule book on that has grown since the original 99 $1,500 challenge.
  • Pikes Peak
  • Rally Raids
  • LAnd Speed racers
  • British Hillclimb - (Home made one off carbon tub single seaters with 4.0L modified F1 engines weighing well under 1,000lb's with meat sack attached.
  • GRM Forum fantasy builds
  • Errr
  • Umm
  • LeMons '$500' creations
Geno1
Geno1 New Reader
1/26/22 1:49 p.m.

Being around long enough to have seen not only cars towed behind the loyal station wagon but some even DRIVEN to the track the one glaring evolution was money.  Lots and lots of money.  At first it was a few teams and for the most part they seemed to have more money than talent so things stayed reasonably stable.  Now you see complete rigs at the RUNOFFS!  Look what it's done to F1.  Two teams dominate and at least one driver is a rolling car wreck and only there because of daddy's.....wait for it....MONEY!

Each series has its basic restrictions; displacement, suspension and aero.  Obvious maximums for some things like length, width and wheelbase.  But any BOP comes from the loser who needs to figure out is it's because of horsepower, drag or talent.  The old Can-Am and Trans-Am series were classics of this.  Jim Hall stretched it somewhat so the ruling body pissed on his campfire.  But about that time the world economy was creating more and more people with more and more money and, well, money talks and you know the rest.  More sponsors saw a great promotional opportunity and some teams gave up begging for sponsors to picking and choosing.

Where there's a problem, be it political, economical...well, damn near any category, even racing, it's all about FTM....Follow The Money.

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter)
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 2:04 p.m.

In reply to Geno1 :

Funny, At least in Europe money was once seen as the democratizing force in racing.  From the beginning of racing until the 60's racing was a rich mans sport.  You bought, built, ran your own cars.  That's why you had princes, royalty, titled peers etc. racing.  Then sponsorship started, and especially with all the tobacco money, if you showed promise in the lower formula, you could get picked up by teams and people could even make money racing in F3, the sponsors allowed people to reach much higher heights than they could in the pre sponsorship days.  That was still true through the late 80's and early 90's, but then suddenly in the space of a few short years there was a shift and suddenly a young successful racers who had previously been paid by an F1 team to be their test driver, were suddenly being asked to pay $1-2-3 million to get a contract as a test driver in F1.  Now it's to the point where Jean Alese had to sell his F40 that he was given as part of his Ferrari contract to pay for PART of a season in F2 for his son.

You can still make it in racing with no family money, but these days unless you have friends or family that can contribute literally millions in your younger days, you're never getting to F1.  Again, listen to Dinner with Racers, they have some good podcasts among the Indy camps, 500 winners, NASCAR champs they interview many journeyman racers who started in club racing, taught (and often still teach and coach) while making a living as the PRO driver in SRO or IMSA touring cars, GT4's etc.  It can be done, but it's not a ticket to the high life.  

 

bowtieBMW
bowtieBMW New Reader
1/26/22 2:04 p.m.

Racing rules are easy. 1) no aero.  2) spec tire.  3) fuel use limit.  Those three rules, plus safety rules for the cage etc.  Perhaps a cost limit or claimer rule.  Different classes have different levels of tire and fuel.

Unlimited racing would escalate to unworkable very quickly.

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter)
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 2:06 p.m.

Man, I keep sounding like a negative A-hole, I don't mean to.  I love racing, always have, always will.  I do miss the old days, but I've accepted that time, technology and circumstances have all moved on.  Not to mention spectator interest which is down from the glory days in all categories inc. F1 and NASCAR, meaning sponsor $$'s are harder to find and more often aimed at Business to Business than spectators in many categories.  

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter)
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 2:09 p.m.
bowtieBMW said:

Racing rules are easy. 1) no aero.  2) spec tire.  3) fuel use limit.  

Define no aero.  Impossible these days.  You don't need wings to make downforce.  Hell, you can angle a 2x4 to create downforce, although it will have a lot of drag, but no rules means drag less important than POWARRRRRRRR.  It's simply not possible to eliminate aero.  I've even head interviews with F1 designers where they claim there is no such thing as pure mechanical grip, it's all aero dependent once over 0mph.

Emilio700
Emilio700 GRM+ Memberand New Reader
1/26/22 2:20 p.m.

We built a local series for Miatas with specific performance caps, no BOP : SuperSpecCup. Haven't had to change the rules significantly in 9 years. For a few years we had a few pro level drivers so we added a 100lb "Rock of Triumph" ballast to the points leader for every wknd. When the pros left, we ditched that equalizer. A championship winning car can be built for $15k and run the entire season on two sets of spec tires. The cars see no radical innovation, thus keeping costs down. I’m a believer in specific performance caps and build envelopes to keep series alive.

W/O BOP or performance caps, the costs runaway and everyone leaves. The current style of BOP that FIA, IMSA and SRO use is not written in stone pre-season. That leads to corporate level gamesmanship and sandbagging. The “box chocolates” method of doling out restrictors, ballast and such is a mess.

I think a lbs/hp cap on a sliding scale could work. Also a max fuel load, to encourage some economy and further restrict hp wars. Cap tire size as ratio to car weight, so everyone has about the same max contact path to weight ratio. Set basic rules on aero surface area, moveable devices, electronics in suspension and brakes, 4 wheel steering, number of wheels, number of driver wheels, etc. IOW, give teams a “box” that they can do whatever they want in, lap times unrestricted.

My proposal for a new Hypersport series:

4 wheels only

AWD allowed

4 whl steering allowed

Transmission, free

Max 2.5 lbs/hp

Min wt 1700lbs

Max wt 1800lbs

Passive moveable aero allowed

Maximum 2 controlled moveable surfaces 1.5M² each

Maximum Tire size 315/30R18

Hybrids allowed

EV’s allowed

Maximum ICE: 1

Maximum cyl ICE: 12

Tube framed cars allowed 2.4 lbs/hp

FIA crash standards for GT2 (this will raises cost a bunch but help avoid a bloodbath)

 

JStrobel80
JStrobel80 New Reader
1/26/22 2:37 p.m.

I have to percolate on this for a bit, however off the top of my head heres a couple of thoughts...

1. Reverse start order from qualifying. 

                   You qualify on the pole, you start last. To discourage cheating/sandbagging. Race lap to 

                   qualifying lap % ratio. 

2. Point system to keep viewers engaged. Points based on where you qualify and where you finish. 

                    This ties into #1

3. No long term driver contracts. Free Agency at the end of the year. 

                    Drivers to rest on their laurels. Less financially capable drivers can have quantitative                            value based on points in #2. It could create interest to watch Bob/Roberta earn                                    their way to the top of the sport through the years. 

4. Gambling...money creates interest. 

                    How far will Bob/Roberta get this year? You win, the spectator gets a VIP weekend at                          24  hours of Daytona with the team.

5. Driver salary cap, money is in winning. A less financially backed team pulls off a win, they have

                   more development money. Not completely tied to sponsor money for teams that only 

                   win. Also, like gambling, you have to put money in to win. Sooo...all these sponsors you 

                  see on the sides of the cars, a percentage of that goes to the "pot". This benefits the                          sponsors by acknowledging them at the win ceremony, whether their team wins or not. 

Ill keep percolating for a bit

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter)
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 2:38 p.m.

In reply to Emilio700 :

Cool, what do you mean by 'passive movable aero'?  Is that like the F1 F duct, or are you talking about something like the old 50's Mercedes air brake, which I would consider active, even if mechanical?

One problem with lb's/hp is that Diesels, and electric come to that, get a massive 'area under the curve' advantage.

Tom1200
Tom1200 UltraDork
1/26/22 2:46 p.m.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

My 300K claimer was a pro series.

As for amateur series I'm running a great class now, F500.  While it is a spec class there is a minimum/ maximum wheelbase and a limited section on drive lines the rest is open.  Very very limited on aero (you can have a diffuser).

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter)
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 2:49 p.m.
Tom1200 said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

My 300K claimer was a pro series.

As for amateur series I'm running a great class now, F500.  While it is a spec class there is a minimum/ maximum wheelbase and a limited section on drive lines the rest is open.  Very very limited on aero (you can have a diffuser).

Good one, I love F500's except for the noise due to the CVT.  How about a cheap open wheel electric series using the same rubber puck suspension system with a spec battery pack?

Pete. (l33t FS)
Pete. (l33t FS) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
1/26/22 3:05 p.m.
j_tso said:

In reply to jharry3 :

Group B died because of fatalities. Rally cars now are faster and much safer, and they cancel stages when spectators get too close.

Rally cars were faster about three years into Group A.  Limiting them further caused them to refine what they had.  It is probably a lot easier for the drivers, too, given that in the Group B era a rally might have five days of stages, over 2000 miles of transit and special stages, and ONE overnight halt.

Another thing to think of is that Group A was the top dog from 1987 to 1997, WRC (basically Group S with a restrictor) was 1998 to the present, with two rules restructurings in I think 2013 and 2022.

Group B was 1983 to 1986, and all of the monsters came in 1985 or later.

Group B cars were undeveloped because there was no time for development.

 

Another thing to think about, have been watching old WRC footage, from before they had a half meter of suspension travel... and realized that Sebastien Loeb's WRC career is older than some WRC drivers.

Robbie (Forum Supporter)
Robbie (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 3:30 p.m.

What about a draft (like football or baseball)?

But instead of drafting players, you draft tech.

So take something like current F1. Make 5 sizes of tires. Five gas tank sizes. Five aero packages, five chassis, five engines. Worst team at the end of the year gets first pick following year (not of all categories, but one category). Then all teams go through picking their vehicle.

Win one year, then you draft last next.

Tom1200
Tom1200 UltraDork
1/26/22 3:54 p.m.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:
Tom1200 said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

My 300K claimer was a pro series.

As for amateur series I'm running a great class now, F500.  While it is a spec class there is a minimum/ maximum wheelbase and a limited section on drive lines the rest is open.  Very very limited on aero (you can have a diffuser).

Good one, I love F500's except for the noise due to the CVT.  How about a cheap open wheel electric series using the same rubber puck suspension system with a spec battery pack?

You forget that F500 rules allow for 600cc 4 cylinder motorcycle engines (with a restrictor plate). The GSXR600 seems to be the default choice.

If there was a cheap battery pack substitute I'd be on board, especially for autocross.  There was a F500 EV that ran pikes peak one year. Jay Novak built it, I seem to recall it being about 150lbs heavier than an F500 but that would still only be about 1000lbs.

APEowner
APEowner GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
1/26/22 3:58 p.m.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Emilio700 :

One problem with lb's/hp is that Diesels, and electric come to that, get a massive 'area under the curve' advantage.

When I was building some dirt track engines in the '80s one of the local tracks talked about a HP cap to keep one of the drivers who ran my engines from dominating.  There were two issues with that plan.  One was that he was dominating because he was an excellent driver, had a well setup chassis, and excellent tire guy and always finished.  The other was that my engines had more area under the curve than the competitors and didn't make the peak power number that they were targeting in the first place.  I had an open honest conversation with the chief steward and the killed the idea before it gained much traction.  No pun intended.

KyAllroad
KyAllroad MegaDork
1/26/22 3:58 p.m.

I know this sounds silly coming from a guy with a tube framed car but I think a series using real cars and their original block/layout/drive wheels but otherwise unlimited would be cool.  

Force manufacturers to bring some cool tech into their street cars while allowing race engineers to go bananas with what they have.  FWD V-6 and boring sheet metal...but pushing 1,000 hp and struggling to figure out how to keep it on the track.  It would be entertaining, and entertaining is the name of the game.

Robbie (Forum Supporter)
Robbie (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 4:01 p.m.
Tom1200 said:
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:
Tom1200 said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

My 300K claimer was a pro series.

As for amateur series I'm running a great class now, F500.  While it is a spec class there is a minimum/ maximum wheelbase and a limited section on drive lines the rest is open.  Very very limited on aero (you can have a diffuser).

Good one, I love F500's except for the noise due to the CVT.  How about a cheap open wheel electric series using the same rubber puck suspension system with a spec battery pack?

You forget that F500 rules allow for 600cc 4 cylinder motorcycle engines (with a restrictor plate). The GSXR600 seems to be the default choice.

If there was a cheap battery pack substitute I'd be on board, especially for autocross.  There was a F500 EV that ran pikes peak one year. Jay Novak built it, I seem to recall it being about 150lbs heavier than an F500 but that would still only be about 1000lbs.

Formula leaf? Leaf drivetrains and f500 style chassis. I've long thought it would be a good idea.

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter)
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
1/26/22 4:12 p.m.
Tom1200 said:
If there was a cheap battery pack substitute I'd be on board, especially for autocross.  There was a F500 EV that ran pikes peak one year. Jay Novak built it, I seem to recall it being about 150lbs heavier than an F500 but that would still only be about 1000lbs.

Thank you for a new time suck rabbit hole to investigate!!!

Meporsche
Meporsche New Reader
1/26/22 4:40 p.m.

Let's get in the Transmogrifier  and head back to 1953 with Buddy Palumbo.

bowtieBMW
bowtieBMW New Reader
1/26/22 4:44 p.m.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

Flat floor, no wings.  Sure there will be a little aero, even good venting to prevent lift.  Still, this would be a massive reduction in grip, extending braking distance, limiting traction, and slowing the turns.  We can get rid of those silly chicanes.

Jesse Ransom
Jesse Ransom GRM+ Memberand UltimaDork
1/26/22 4:54 p.m.

I wasted a bunch of time trying to answer this.

The question is about what we're trying to achieve, and in what context.

As was pointed out above, totally unlimited doesn't work in 2022 because we're too good at cars. The resulting monsters would be undriveable by humans, and would turn their occupants to paste while putting holes through grandstands if they did have an off. In an age where you can literally have 1000hp in a street driven car that's cheaper than a new econobox, we effectively have unlimited power without rules. Let aero completely off the leash and we'll be cornering over blackout numbers.

That's the technical side of the limits of unlimitedness. On the other side, we have to be clear that as much as these could be faster than anything on else, they can't be the pinnacle because the people with the money to be the pinnacle do not care for unfettered rulesets. They want to know that by having a ruleset that rewards marginal gains, they can exclude most of the world, and achieve a fairly predictable return on investment via exposure by being in the pinnacle class. Nobody actively participating in F1 is made to look clueless; Haas is getting a return on investment. (I'm not insinuating they lack clue, just pointing out that even the slowest F1 team is rightfully regarded as Elite)

I have thoughts on relatively freeform racing, but then I'm really just on a tangent to the question. On refreshing the page, I see we're going there.

My particular desire? No aero, as verified by supervised testing for ride height at varying speeds. If ICE, displacement cap; something small enough to genuinely force tradeoffs; 2L naturally aspirated, 800cc forced induction? I'm sure those are wrong, just chucking numbers out. If not limiting to ICE, we go to anyone's favorite energy limiting tech... Ammeters and fuel flow meters? I'm not worrying about nuts and bolts right now...

Business plan? What are you trying to achieve? Pro series? Amateur? It needs to be cool enough to be watchable enough to generate enough eyeballs to generate enough contingencies to cover a significant part of the cost of participation. This is an... involving endeavor. Not many folks are going to have the time and means to out-of-pocket that kind of development, but I think we kind of want to keep the sponsors out of running the teams, and instead running the series. Maybe caps on individual sponsorships, but generous contingencies paid way down the field? I'm afraid that as soon as you get one participant sponsored by Red Bull and another by Monster (or Ford and Toyota, or...) you'll have folks trying to tailor the rules to the checkbooks, and it'll be marginal gains and lawsuits before you can say "back in 2023 I could tell the cars apart..."

Definitely gone now
Definitely gone now SuperDork
1/26/22 6:01 p.m.

It doesn't need to be BoP, it needs to be BoB. Balance of Budget. Open rules, do what you can with ingenuity, only $xxx,xxx.xx allowed to be spent on car. The other guy figures out something cool? great! Now you better get as smart or smarter to keep up. We need thinkers, not millionaires. 

APEowner
APEowner GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
1/26/22 6:21 p.m.
Definitely gone now said:

It doesn't need to be BoP, it needs to be BoB. Balance of Budget. Open rules, do what you can with ingenuity, only $xxx,xxx.xx allowed to be spent on car. The other guy figures out something cool? great! Now you better get as smart or smarter to keep up. We need thinkers, not millionaires. 

 I think something like this has potential.   It seem like you might need to control development spending somehow as well to avoid millions of dollars being spent on things like wind tunnel work.

CatDaddy
CatDaddy New Reader
1/26/22 6:34 p.m.

I've thought about this a lot in the past. It's tricky for sure! The best series have had the least rules, group B and C. 
 

basically today if you wanted to reignite the middle class racing, you'd need to subsidize entry fees for the racers first.  People who may be interested in racing wont be able to stomach a $500 or $1000 entry fee. 
 

after that, mandate no tire changes during the race and no refueling.  
 

mandate a spec fuel tank size. 
 

for endurance racing, mandate an overall fuel limit and tire limit  

then just have simple width/ height rules. 

then we reach the aero drag part of things... some rich and or geniuses would dominate based on aero. So, mandate a weight penalty for each win. 200lbs per win, no maximum. 

-50lbs for a 2-3 finish. -100 for 4th and down. 
 

then add the claimer rule. $30k.  Hopefully someone would make money off of making a good e46 win for $20k! 
 

I think over time it would balance out. 

 

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