SCCA is adding a class just for us!

[IndyDave]

Dave, the S197 is a better platform than a 1967 Camaro, one of which trophied at the ProSolo Finale last year in STX.

I have to call you on that. You in your '67 Camaro finished 29th at the Solo Nationals yet the best finishing S197 Mustang was 53rd. You did indeed trophy in class at the Pro Solo Finale in 5th (congrats by the way) and there was no S197 Mustang competing in STX in that event.

Comparing results from national competition to what happens at most regional (local) events isn't fair. The guys running at the pointy end of any class aren't going to abandon their class to run a local class, there's no incentive.

[j-rho]

The car broke a pushrod first lap day 1, and had a catastrophic oil leak day 2. It has a total of 5 events under its belt since the rebuild.
BTW, these cars are all in STU now.

[1966longroof]

I can't wait to run my car in CAM. They seem to love the classic muscle cars in the SFR, they put my car in the wheel twice last year. It will be nice to group all the vintage cars together. I was out classed running against EVO's in SM-T2, and way outclassed in CP. My car has too many mods for ESP so I usually just ran FUN. I don't mind running against other late model V8 rear drive American cars, I have to do that at GoodGuys anyways.

Goodguys run the Late Models in there own class (on Super Sundays).
I do the Auto X strictly for fun. I have to, with only 215's on the front and 235's on the rear in a 3300+lb everyday family car. I love Goodguys, ASCS, and Power Tour Auto-X events. Everyone is having fun and relaxed. I will do my first SCCA event next month, as CAM seems to be a FUN place to play. I hope anyway.

[soloracerSD]

I know it would be costly maybe uncompetitive.But have you thought of putting a LS7 and as wide as you can get Hoosiers on the 67.Then try SM. or Prepared I know you like challenges Jason..

QUOTE=j-rho;1047881]The car broke a pushrod first lap day 1, and had a catastrophic oil leak day 2. It has a total of 5 events under its belt since the rebuild.
BTW, these cars are all in STU now.[/QUOTE]

[Craig510]

Goodguys run the Late Models in there own class (on Super Sundays).
I do the Auto X strictly for fun. I have to, with only 215's on the front and 235's on the rear in a 3300+lb everyday family car. I love Goodguys, ASCS, and Power Tour Auto-X events. Everyone is having fun and relaxed. I will do my first SCCA event next month, as CAM seems to be a FUN place to play. I hope anyway.

This is true at the National Events, but at the "Get Together" events, they allow late models both days and group any non-truck newer than 55 in Street Machine. All the Pleasanton events with an AutoX are Get Togethers. The late models don't seem to have an advantage on the small GG course.

[Bryce]

I think tom posted a top time in a relatively stock 13 mustang. The advantage is buy versus build.

[Matt@BOS]

I think tom posted a top time in a relatively stock 13 mustang. The advantage is buy versus build.

Bryce you're right. Tom came in very close to a top overall time in the Mustang. , I'm going to add in that I think there is actually a major advantage with the new cars on a Good Guys autocross out west, since they have ABS and a tighter turning radius. When Good Guys is constrained to a small parking lot their autocrosses really come down to the ability to brake and make U turns. I think the problem with a lot of the late models being uncompetitive is due to either driver or car set up. Most of the late model cars aren't built with track events in mind, and mis matched assortments of bolt ons and skinny front tires with big rear ones.

[struck by Lightning]

I'm also looking forward to the CAM class and will bring out the camaro. Last year we ran the truck in ESP and the competition was tough where many times we were competing against Camaros, Mustangs and Evo's however I'm proud to say we did very well. Our efforts yielded a second place finish in the Fresno / San Francisco Region Championship Series, not bad for a 4,800# truck as many of my competitors have said.
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[Project92rs]

Reading through all of this banter, I am left wondering about one thing (maybe two ...). Where's all these 3rd-gen F-bodies and Fox-body Mustangs? GM and Ford made a gazillion of them and in my opinion, these are the best of the models. They were cheap, plentiful, and handled great. And there's quite a few Solo classes they can be built for and do well in.

So where are they?

Mary Pozzi

We've been known to bring 1 or 2 to events over the years. ;-)

[Derek69SS]

There WAS a movement to tailor a new NATIONAL Street Touring class specifically for PT cars, which would have addressed most of everyone's concerns listed here. Rules were specific, but open enough to include about 95%+ of the cars on this site. Only the extreme outliers would have not been class legal.

Someone's idea to push this poorly conceived regional-only non-competitive CAM exhibition class has effectively killed that proposal.

This class has set back the possibility of legitimate national classing for PT cars years... if ever now. :(

If my "attitude" towards it seems coarse, it's not without reason.

[dontlifttoshift]

That I agree with. I would much rather have STP than CAM, but I still don't think 95% inclusion the way it was written.

[Derek69SS]

I only saw a rough draft, and offered my opinion for a few changes to a friend who is on the STAC.
I do not know exactly what would have been different in the final proposal. Based on what I saw, most of the limitations were pretty generous to street-friendly bolt-on type modified cars. 95% may be high, but I think fairly accurate for the cars within the year range given.

I won't say much more, because I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about it... The year range that I saw proposed was 1955-1978 and included any car outside that year limit which shared the same platform as a car within it. (Camaro up to 81 for example). There were other things that kept it "musclecar" rather than "sportscar" oriented, such as requiring a solid rear axle and the car had to be minimum 4-passenger (except trucks). Tire size limitations and engine/trans allowances were quite generous.

[IndyDave]

Oh brother.

A national class for PT type cars has not been killed. Before a national class to exist there has to be interest and a field of cars running in SCCA Solo at the regional level first. Traditionally, a national class develops from trends happening at regional and when it existed, divisional competition. Regions are seeing more PT type cars but have struggled to provide them consistent classing. So the goal in Topeka was to come up with a way to help regions who have these cars at their events and give those competitors some consistency in classing. SCCA looked at several options, all were taken seriously and weighed. It was decided that instead of bringing a detailed rule set that they would opt for a simple rule set that mimicked rule sets that already exist for PT cars running in other organizations. The thought is the people the class is meant to attract will be familiar with SCCA's rules because they already operate under similar rules. What's so outrageous about that? CAM's rules are Goodguy's rules with a minimum weight rule added. Goodguy's Autocross is the largest sanctioner of autocross events for PT cars. Simple. No skull-doggery, no conspiracies, no back door politicking, just decisions made by people who did a lot of footwork, attended a lot of PT car events and talked to a lot of people involved in the PT world on what they wanted to see SCCA do if it wanted to attract them to SCCA Solo events. For now, CAM is the answer. It's not a perfect answer but neither were any of the other options.

[dontlifttoshift]

So the STAC was involved?

[j-rho]

...The thought is the people the class is meant to attract will be familiar with SCCA's rules because they already operate under similar rules. What's so outrageous about that? ...

They are very different Dave. All the non-SCCA places have the "we reserve the right to exclude any car that doesn't fit in with the spirit of our event" - a car built just to maximize performance, could be excluded on a whim. That is the opposite of how SCCA rules work...SCCA wants people to prepare themselves to the (legal) limit of the rules, because that's what makes for good competition. In the P-T world, people are not accustomed to having "limits".

It'll be easy for parties to be happy during this honeymoon. It's when reality starts to settle in, and the foundation of the relationship gets tested, that its shortcomings come to light. As a basis for long-term success, there are some serious flaws in what's been proposed, and a lot of the heartache to come, could have been avoided with a just a few simple things that I've already presented.

I know everyone involved (including yourself!) is doing their best and acting in what they believe is the club and membership's best interest. Some of us still can't help but be disappointed in the way it's being handled though.

[j-rho]

So the STAC was involved?

Donny, I've spent the last 10 years in continuous service of either the STAC (Street Touring Advisory Committee) or the SMAC (Street Modified Advisory Committee) - both relatively new categories that were created around the time I started autocrossing (2001).

In both cases, the categories started off as too open in some areas, and a lot of the competitor pain around ensuing rules changes, were over takebacks. Recall the STAC update/backdate and aero debates, and the bevy of weight adjustments in SM.

The relatively unlimited nature of SM bears some resemblance to CAM. The understanding everyone should have is, when you are allowed essentially unlimited control over the chassis and can make enough power, the smallest (widthxlength), lowest, best balanced, and lightest (or at least lowest pounds-per-mm-of-tire) car will win. A lot of the SM adjustments were done to neuter platforms (like the Porsche 914) that had tremendous inherent advantages over target cars (Corvette, RX7) in these areas.

The takeaway for CAM is you can provide the unlimited modification stage you want, but you have to control the resulting values in those four areas to make sure the right cars end up on top. CAM already has a limited weight; add in something to limit rear weight bias (as was figured out decades ago in CP), ride height (these are supposed to be streetable cars?), and overall size (set minimums for wheelbase and track width that accommodate the meat of the target car base - classic pony/muscle cars - but nothing smaller) - and you have a winner. Oh, and allow period-correct stuff but otherwise no real aero.

You could easily expand inclusion for oddball (too small, too new, etc.) stuff by penalizing in raw weight, or pounds/mm-of-tire, and continue to use that as a tuning knob to keep that portion of the audience engaged, while ensuring your high-volume target vehicles remain perceived as the "cars to have".

That was the basis for a class called STP (Street Touring Ponycar) that I proposed...unfortunately CAM was already too far along and it got killed. If CAM is to make it, I suggest it will end up looking just like the STP I presented...but only after several years and lots of new-to-SCCA-person heartburn.

The question is, if CAM had been proposed as STP, with its extra 4-5 rules, would those few simple rules have created such a negative reaction, it never would have gotten off the ground and failed? I imagine that's what Dave and others believed. I get what's being tried here, but feel it's disingenuous of the club to present this to the largely non-initiated as a new place for them; they are not likely to understand the distinctions between regional and national classes, and may come to find out the hard way, after having expended personal resources in pursuit of increased competitiveness in a venue (the top of our sport) that doesn't actually yet cater to them.

[NJSPEEDER]

Let me ask you this.

If you had one of these cars in question...(do you, I don't know)...what is the motivation for wanting to compete in CAM and not running in one of the many existing classes that your car is already eligible for?

I have an idea as to a number of possible reasons but I make a point of not putting words in other peoples mouths.

The reasoning is simple, there are a lot of restriction in other classes that many later model muscle and pony cars are eligible for. SM is about the most wide open solo catagory but has a lot of engine limitations that would eliminate any number of otherwise legal cars. Also CAM allows for a much more suspension modification on a street car. While I understand suspension is wide open in CP there is also the distinction that CP is a gutted race car class.

Blind limitations, just like the class killers that you mentioned in one of your previous posts, are high on the list of reasons many of us stopped participating in SCCA events. If there were great leaps in ability made with in a generation I could see some reason to object but that simply isn't the reality. G-bodies, F-bodies, and Fox Mustangs all used the same suspension, are a similar stock weight, and can fit all the same engines through out the generation that would only be partially eligible under the closed ended 30 year cut off.

-Tim

[dontlifttoshift]

Jason, why didn't any of this go out for member approval like other rules changes then? I don't understand why seemingly simple things, like a steering wheel allowance, take months and months of public debate and letter writing but an entire new class was created under the radar and put into the rule book with out any member feedback. Even as a regional only class.

[j-rho]

To get into FT, has to go through SEB. SEB was handed CAM by their bosses... such is how it goes.

[dontlifttoshift]

Got it. Thanks.