WCMA Road Race Classing Review

[Roy Wallace Racing]

My point on cells was not so much about mounting as it was about how fast the fuel escapes a stock tank once it has been breached. It doesn't matter how strong it is, if there is a hole ALL the fuel comes out all at once. A fuel cell prevents a large fuel spill and provides time to get the driver to safety.
Or in the case of our white Honda, prevents a high volume spill where there are many unprotected crew members.

RWR

[Terence Thyr]

Just to chime in on the fuel cell talk. I'm all for having fuel cells at a certain level, I think as it currently stands it makes sense to require one once at the GT level. I had made a comment earlier that probably didn't make the point I had wanted. What I was trying to say was that it seems odd to me that an ST car can make head and valvetrain changes, have a different intake manifold, bore the throttle body and yet has to retain the stock intake and airbox. From a cost perspective the first thing I would prefer to due is change to a cold air intake and revamp the tune, that makes way more sense to me than starting off with headwork. However if I did that I would be forced to reclass to GT immediately, which would mean a fuel cell right off the bat. The point being that NASA's point system for modifications allows one a far greater flexibility in choosing mods that make sense for your own car. Nothing says that we wouldn't be able to stipulate that fuel cells would be required at a certain class level, be it D, C, B etc... Hopefully that makes what I'm trying to say clearer

[zhao]

My point on cells was not so much about mounting as it was about how fast the fuel escapes a stock tank once it has been breached. It doesn't matter how strong it is, if there is a hole ALL the fuel comes out all at once. A fuel cell prevents a large fuel spill and provides time to get the driver to safety.
Or in the case of our white Honda, prevents a high volume spill where there are many unprotected crew members.

RWR

Now with the rule change you want, rather then have one guy, once in a blue moon, gettoing his tank in place (I think leason learned for all that u dont getto ur tank in place) and continuing to drive around with it dragging until it ruptured (which we will probably never see again in our lifetime), you are now going to have everyone, regardless of how mechanically inclined they are, now backyard mechanicing in a fuel cell. Seems illogical to me to exchange something that has been crash tested, engineered with a budget of millions, and placed in the vehicle and secured with an army of engineers thinking it out, and exchanging it for a cube some idiot can throw in the back of his car with some feelings on where it should go or how it should go in without any engineering or testing behind such a decision. That is what I would call an increase in risk rather then risk mitigation.

I know at face value it sounds like a good idea to require everyone to have a fuel cell in your head, but I dont think you have all the facts. Fuel cells do one thing better from a safety perspective, while at the same time do several other things far worse, like deteriorate over time, leave huge wild cards in how they were installed, and where they were installed, and if they are hooked up properly. Leaving opportunities for leaks, being damaged in hits, and coming lose, because the mechanical skill and knowledge of the guy putting it in is a huge wildcard. A stock fuel tank left alone should have none of those problems if not mucked with. Like I said, I've dissected the aftermath of thousands of accidents and not one fuel tank was hit to date, let alone ruptured. That is some pretty significant data to how safe a stock fuel tank is from rupturing in an accident.

I change my injectors, i got a fuel leak, because one of the new orings i put in was either defective, or an improper ring to be used with fuel mixed in with the correct ones. I muk wiht my stock tank, and it leaked when filling it. I fixed both issues easily, but i still had issues after mucking with both things. Now you think everyone is going to install a fuel cell as good as OEM on their first try? not going to happen.

You're not really making things safer with advocating for that. What you're doing is making things different safe, aka, safer in one respect, while causing more risk and therefore less safety in another respect. And we get to pay $1000ish for that reshuffling of 'safety'. No thanks.

parting piece is what nasa has to say on it, which I'm sure put a lot more effort into researching it then you or me:

We do not subscribe to the hypothesis that “any fuel cell is better than no fuel cell.” The stock tank has been crash tested in its location and at least that’s a known factor. When someone installs a fuel cell, it’s possible to create a more dangerous situation because of the location of mounting and the other things around it. Furthermore, bladders do deteriorate. On more than one occasion old bladders have sprung leaks resulting in fires. One car was a total loss. We do not believe that the stock tank deteriorates at anywhere near the rate that a bladder deteriorates. This is not to encourage people to use the stock tank, but rather to answer some questions that have recently come up.

[Leigh2]

My first post on this forum, the discussion on the proposed change to NASA rules has been excellent.
I have been racing with NASA at Miller Motorsport Park since they went away from their local (Miller Park Racing Association) rules and adopted NASA rules in 2011. Since the change the car count has almost doubled, it has been very good for Miller to have made the switch. Miller is arguably to best road racing facility in North America but Salt Lake City is rather isolated so the car counts have been lower than you would have expected at such a facility. They are very pleased with the positive effect adopting NASA rules has had on their racing. I think it is an excellent rule set, vetted by a very large number of competitors and continually updated to keep the racing field level.
A good example of this is what's happened to the class that my car has been in up until this year. I won the national championship in 2013 in the GTS5 category. The field at the nationals was largely newer Porsche Cup cars but there were some older Porsche's as well. This year they have added an additional 0.2 lbs/hp to cars like mine with sequential transmissions which effectively punted me out of GTS5. The additional ~90 lbs I would have to add to stay at the legal post-race weight puts me over the maximum 250 lbs of ballast that I'm allowed to carry. Now I could eat more Twinkies and reduce that amount but have chosen to go up into GTSU instead, or I can move laterally into ST1 as well the car fits into both classes. I can't say I'm thrilled at the rule change but can't disagree that a sequential gearbox is a clear advantage. I think it's a good example of how closely the rules are monitored and changed to keep the classes competitive.
I think moving to NASA rules would be a very positive change for WCMA and the timing is excellent. There could be several tracks in Western Canada soon and a modern set of rules will lay the ground work for a competitive series operating at all of the tracks.

Regarding fuel cells:
Zhao yours are the best comments I have seen regarding fuel cells ever. It's very good to hear from someone with your background of seeing the actual effects of severe crashes on fuel tank integrity. I have been racing for a while and most of the problems I have seen with fuel tanks involve poorly installed cells or degraded fuel cell bladders. The Porsche Club of America experienced their first death last year after a severe crash where the fuel cell in an older 911 exploded. Porsche Cup cars that have been built since 1999 did not come with a fuel cell as standard equipment until 2011, largely due to rule changes in some series. The only fuel leak I have seen in a cup car has been due to a degraded fuel cell bladder. I agree that it's difficult to improve on the stock tank location in modern crash-tested cars. I think the example used of the white Honda where the fuel tank fell out is more indicative of a poor technical inspection than the choice of fuel tank.

[aavery]

In my defense both stock gas tank straps broke, there was no sign of fatigue, i have talk to other honda racers and it is a common occurrence just not both at the same time, i have installed 2 new straps as well as a secondary strap , and know of at least 3 others that have installed secondary straps.

might want to add this to the rules  ( back up gas tank retainer)





 

[TrentO]

From my perspective there are 3 groups of racers:

Stock cars - current IT racers
Modified cars - the tuners / tweakers
Full race cars - The GT cars, tube frame or completely stripped tub cars.

We need rules to fit all three groups, and having people race against a time bracket feels wrong.  I would be concerned about people moving around in brackets throughout a season, making for a nightmare in points calculation.

The power to weight system of NASA seems like a good solution, but after doing a lot of playing with the NASA calculator, it appears almost all GT cars would move up at least one grouping, so GT1 would become STU, GT2 to ST1, GT3 to ST2.  This seems odd.
I also think we're smashing the current STO/STU guys into an unhappy place.

As I'm obsessed with GT, I'll start there.  GT to me is all out racing, we should assume every motor is built to the maximum and making all the power it can possibly put out.  With GT1, the current rules stipulate a restrictor plate for larger V-8 engines but I don't see this as feasible to easily check (also impossible on a factory fuel injected motor).  Unless we have a safety concern we could just let everything run unrestricted.  If we have safety issues, we could stipulate a single inlet restrictor to keep the horsepower down to safe levels.  The main problem I see with GT is the displacement classing.  I think the divisions should be more along the lines of cylinders in the engines. So GT1 is for V8's and larger turbo motors, GT2 for 6 cylinder cars and smaller turbo motors and GT3 for 4 cylinders and rotaries.  If we wanted to stay displacement based this would mean moving the GT2 displacement up to 3800 cc to allow for the 370Z engines and various Porsche engines.  GTL should move up to 2500 cc.  This would allow usage of the newer 2.4 and 2.5 L four cylinder engines. This would make a home for many of the modern cars and potentially freshen up the GT field.

For STO/STU I think we need to change our perspective and focus on this as a mid-point between IT and GT racing, with the goal of graduating the ST cars into GT as they progress.  We could do a three class system like I propose for GT 1,2 and GT3 based on the same GT rules, just allowing for the cars to weigh more as they are all tub-based and still running interiors.  Just massage the weight factors the GT classes use to account for the extra 300 or more lbs of car weight which likely accompanies the displacement.

Another option for STO/STU would be to put them in with the GT cars and add a few class factors (which we could steal from NASA) to account for tub car vs tube chassis, street tires vs slicks.

I haven't had much experience with IT cars as I jumped from CC to IT/GT back in the day. So I'll avoid any discussion on IT.

Hope this makes sense to someone else.
Regards,
-Trent

[Terence Thyr]

I can understand some of your thoughts Trent but from my perspective the biggest issue that needs to be addressed is that the current ruleset is unique to the WCMA and ideally it would be nice to adopt the ruleset of a larger popular sanctioning body. I don't really see any major issues with the current rules other than some adjustment to the ST-O factors likely needs to happen. I'm not sure that what your proposing would result in an increase in competitors whereas the adoption of a much more widely used ruleset at the very least has the potential to interest more regional people who choose to go south and race if not draw some racers who would not otherwise consider coming. And certainly would interest someone like me with a NASA prepared car and others in the region who might then be able to fit in somewhere like guys with drift cars. Just my take on what the end goals behind this review are about, not trying to say your wrong or anything.

[TrentO]

Has anyone looked at the SCCA rules lately? All 889 pages of it?
http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/assets/2014%20GCR%20April1.pdf

So SCCA is not an option, although you can see the roots of most of the WCMA GT rules.
As for NASA rules, Anyone who was at the NASCC meeting saw less than 1/4 the membership supported adopting NASA rules.
Over half supported modifying the existing rules, so I'm trying to come up with ways to make the current rules more workable and actually bring out more cars by opening it up to displacements over 2L.

-Trent

[Terence Thyr]

Thanks for posting the link, it's a very descriptive ruleset. I'm personally for anything that makes more sense for larger displacements as that is exactly where I'll fit in. I just really like the flexibility of modifications that the NASA rules allow for. Although I immediately like that in American Sedan (Where I would fit in SCCA's classing) that it specifically addresses that my car can have a cold air intake which according to WCMA's current rules would force me into a GT Class whereas my car probably belongs in ST-O.

[The Radium King]

will a cold air intake push you into GT? air boxes are free in IT, so presume free in ST. you may be confusing air box with intake manifold, where I *think* they define manifold as anything downstream of the throttle body, and air box as upstream?

[Terence Thyr]

The 2014 regs clear this up for me. I was very confused by the 2012 and 2013 regs that stated that the type and style of "intake manifold" was unrestricted but then right after it stated the "intake" type and style was to be stock, I had assumed that since "intake manifold" and "intake" were mentioned seperately that "intake" must have referered to the air intake and airbox ahead of the throttle body, which made very little sense given what was allowed in IT. Thankfully I can see that I had interpreted this wrong and it is worded much differently in the 2014 regs, which makes me a happy camper. Thanks for helping to point that out to me.

[JustinL]

Has there been any news on class restructuring for next year? I think last weekends results exemplify the need for some restructuring. Those beautiful old Datsuns finished 3 laps down and looked like they were having a good race between them, but they certainly can't give Bruce in his tube framed 300zx silhouette car any kind of run. I know the argument is that they bought the wrong cars or should have read the rules before they bought their cars, but what should happen with these older race cars that don't have the hp/L of the modern stuff?

[4kruzn]

Justin.   I am not certain, but I believe both those old 240s have been severely tuned down to run in vintage, but because not enough vintage came out...   I could be wrong but I overheard one of the drivers talking about running the car on factory carbs...    Not going to make any power that way.  Cannot really consider more classes because of under prepped cars.     That is kind of the part I dislike most about nasa.    If you don't want to build the car up, simply put it in a slower class.    I guess This can be seen as a good thing too...   Hahaha. 

[Spec Volcanic]

Justin.   I am not certain, but I believe both those old 240s have been severely tuned down to run in vintage, but because not enough vintage came out...   I could be wrong but I overheard one of the drivers talking about running the car on factory carbs...    Not going to make any power that way.  Cannot really consider more classes because of under prepped cars.     That is kind of the part I dislike most about nasa.    If you don't want to build the car up, simply put it in a slower class.    I guess This can be seen as a good thing too...   Hahaha.

I think this "Cannot really consider more classes because of under prepped cars."  is a miss leading because;
1) the change suggested reduces the # of classes
2) cars will still need to be prepped to a class to be competitive, however each class is a stepping stepping stone to the next class, so you do not have to do all the prep at once.
3) no one single mod, moves you from IT to ST or ST to GT or from IT street to GT (like not having a dash)

the change would not guarantee any is competitive in a class just gives them a better chance to be.

 

[JustinL]

That is kind of the part I dislike most about nasa.    If you don't want to build the car up, simply put it in a slower class.    I guess This can be seen as a good thing too...   Hahaha.

I see this as a good thing   I think these guys could have fit right in with some of the STU/IT cars in a slower class and had a great time dicing with cars of similar speed instead of getting lapped three times by the class winner. Taking cars to the limit is a very expensive endeavor and entry level grassroots racing should allow people to slowly work their way in.