No, it isn't. A corpse in an AM car will be faster than a great H-Stock driver. If the cutoff happens at the right point, the corpse that brought the $$$ car will trophy, the HS driver won't. I fail to see why PAX doesn't "work for you". Honestly, if there are 30-car autocrosses, the only trophies should be PAX FTD and FTD anyways, there are barely enough cars to have classes....
If they're too slow then they need to improve the car or driver or both. If everybody was the same all the time there would be no point in even racing! It's simple, easy to enforce, and there's only 12 possible combinations.
I won't comment on the PAX not working for us -- it predated my interest by about a year, so I couldn't accurately summarize why so many in our club are against it. As for improving the car to improve the times -- some will, some won't. But trying to find a rule or class set that provided clear indication of how to do that has been the main issue.
Autox is, in my opinion, more akin to sports such as golf. No one tries to classify golfers based on their equipment. Instead, the golf world is sorted by skill. If you look at any data set from any autox, you will see natural groupings of times. I know I'm always more interested in who's laying down similar times to mine, and less interested in any arbitrarily designated class.
Thanks for all the comments so far -- I don't expect people to "like" it at first glance, but I suspect if you ran under the system you'd admire what it will accomplish (creating more competitive groupings of drivers and increasing competition within our club).
Even with the most expensive and best "driver" (get it?) made, a corpse couldn't hit a ball 600 yards, autocross is a different story.
Agreed, Gimp. The OP is just trying to give himself a headache.
If you want to know why I say SCCA, look at what has happened to NASA-X when they thought they could do it better. Now, "one-make" autocrosses are a lot easier to class for. We had some great BMWCCA classing with the NCCBMWCCA, which allowed for things that almost every BMW "enthusiast", that wasn't a competitive autocrosser, did that would put their cars in a prepared/modified class in SCCA (ASC delete, fan delete, strut mounts, debadging/taillight changes that took even "stock" cars out of stock class with the SCCA).
Gimp wrote: Even with the most expensive and best "driver" (get it?) made, a corpse couldn't hit a ball 600 yards, autocross is a different story.
A corpse couldn't beat me in any car, either. In fact, I'd even give him a head start :). And I know that Tiger Woods could beat me regardless of equipment. In fact, he'd likely beat me only using a nine iron.
Think about why we class cars. It's because we recognize that some cars are naturally faster than others in an autox. But it's not universal. There are many cases where a person is faster than he or she should be, based on the car they are driving.
Take a data set from one of your own events. Apply the rules proposed. Tell me if it works with what you see in your own club. I'd bet it would. Does it match the classing system you currently use? If not, where's the flaw? I'd bet it's the classing .
I love this -- thanks for all the critical pokes. The system only gets better with more thought. We intend to run this system along with a class based system this year to see what happens.
I am a member of a small club that has its own classing scheme. It seems to work pretty well for us.
Class A) "Race Tires" (treadwear < 140) 300+ hp or Car weight < 2000lbs
Class B) "Race Tires" 200-300 hp
Class C) "Race Tires" less than 200 hp
Class D) "Street Tires" 300+ hp or Car weight < 2000lbs
Class E) "Street Tires" 200-300 hp
Class F) "Street Tires" less than 200 hp
The club reserves the right to "reward" exceptional (somebody who is not just winning but totally and utterly dominating) drivers with a bump up in class.
I like the dynamic scoring idea. I don't totally understand it, but I like the idea. I don't think pax is a good solution if the people in your club don't mod their cars to take advatage of it. Even if you build your car to the limit of a pax class and win, you still beat people only based on an arbitrary system that they don't subscribe to. I like the idea of racing against people who are running similar times to you regarless of car or prep.
If I'm getting beat by someone consistantly in a car that is in a slower class than me and eventually I end up faster than them, I will still feel good that I am improving.
A corpse in an AM car will be faster than a great H-Stock driver.
Hence, the need for a Zombie class.
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