NG13 AutoX Rankings

[Alan92RTTT]

Tom the average time in class 2 was 1:38 Your worst time was a 1:36

You were only 4 seconds off the 1st place car. The other FWD in class 2 was only 2 seconds off 1st place.



I plan to have a review some of the things that break down the classes but we have 5 classes right now we can't really justify adding more.

[anyonebutme]

[edit]: Disclaimer: The following post is blunt. Don't read it if your don't want my opinion.



















First thought: there were no straights in this year's autoX.


Honestly, if that was your concern on the track this year, AutoX [any motorsport] isn't the sport for you. When you show up at SCCA Nat's, sometimes you're greeted with a "miata course" and sometimes a "corvette course", but I don't think I've ever met someone who thought that it wasn't worth their time because it causes abuse on their cars. Yes I realize your car is a show car and is at a disadvantage to start with.....but I don't go complaining that we should change the car show judging criteria due to my car being a giant POS built strictly for racing. We changed the classing system due to having some classes with only 1-3 cars in them. Nobody wants guaranteed trophies, because you can't earn them. If attendance was larger and we had a larger budget to work with, I could further separate the classes, and have a separate structure for FWD vs AWD.

There were several reasons the course was laid out the way it was this year, but none of them would help here. As far as the classing structure, looking at the distribution of AWD cars to FWD cars, looks damn even for such a wide spaced class limited down to 5 groups.

I've seen your autoX vid, HP did not lose you 1st place. I highly suggest finding an experienced driver like Nate Klein, Dan Dillon, or Dave Broomfield, ect, to ride along and give tips and pointers. All the racers are a friendly bunch and are always up for ride-alongs and giving pointers. I personally rode in 4-5 different cars that day, and it was almost to the point of not removing my helmet during my entire run group. BTW, there was at least a half second if not a full second just in your line on the "back straight" section with the alternating offset gates. The section after is an easy half sec. Your entry into the slalom was delayed, ect.

[95gto]

Tom I can appreciate your frustration and we will review the classes to see if we have some better options for moving certain car setups around. That being said, this class system was designed to try and make things as competitive as possible across the board, for both modified and unmodified cars. We looked at the potential miss-matches and did our best to elminate them. And we specifically used Auto-X results from previous NG's to try address any holes in the system. The concern I have is that moving a car from one class to another will potentially create miss-matches in the other direction, and surprisingly power level isn't the main driving factor in competitive auto-x times as suspension, weight, and grip have a bigger impact on lap times.

With regard to not knowing your competition, I am fairly certain (and Alan can confirm this) that the NG registration process had the class breakdown clearly outlined, so there is no reason you didn't know exactly the range of your competitive class. And though the track layout is a surprise for the competitors, we have been making the courses more open for the last 3 years and if anything this layout was a bit tighter than last year when it comes to straight sections.

Ultimately the committee really wants to make the event fun for everyone and I personally want to make this event fun for everyone. Anyone that knows me knows I am tiny bit competitive and the potential 'knife to a gun fight' match ups are why I approached the committee about instituting more detailed class breakdowns in the first place.

So please be aware that your concern will be seriousely reviewed and we will see what we can do. Suggestions like this are why we ask for feedback every year at the banquet, so I do also want to thank you for speaking up.

[vroom4]

Once you figure the classing out, maybe you should write in to the SEB and help them figure out the SCCA classing.


This is an impossible discussion. Without a field of 100% prepped cars you can NEVER make fair classes.

[Maximal]

To narrow down the competition confusion maybe we should put the class number on the windshields/side windows during that day?

[Alan92RTTT]

I believe a letter / number was added to the car's rear window in tech

[95gto]

I believe a letter / number was added to the car's rear window in tech

Yes, we verified that their mods matched their registered class and then added the class number. The window marker was going dead so the markings weren't super bold but they were there.

[Maximal]

Sounds like you're ahead of me then. I knew in Indy that was one thing that was a bit tricky, trying to find out who you had to compete against. Of course, I was typically just trying to beat Dan so....