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Originally Posted by BAN SUVS
My brain hurts. I think the only thing for sure about the TT classifications is that they need to be fixed by next year. Why don't we just carry over SP and ST and SM classes next year? I mean, under the current system Tyson's uppipe puts him in the same class as a WRX with a VF34, full turboback, injectors, etc. Potentially a 100 hp difference between otherwise identical cars. Not to mention the ridiculous disparity between completely different cars. So why are we bothering to care about how closely we adhere to such silly rules? I mean, the entire range of TT classes exists solely for Solo 2 cars/drivers to come out and get their feet wet in Track Trials. Why not just carry over from there?
By the way Matt, I vote for TT-2 for you and the rest of the STis. TT-3 for WRXs.
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Welcome to road race. Classes are usually defined by a displacement and a minimum weight. You want to keep up with the competition that's got an extra 100 hp? Get an extra 100 hp in your car. Part of being fast at this level is building a fast car.
Solo2 make consessions to try to keep costs down and allow fair competition between un- or low- modified cars and puts the emphasis on driver ability. And look how complicated the rules are to try to meet those goals. In fact, this may be the very 1st time I've ever seen someone suggest "hey lets just use the Solo2 classes, they're so much easier!"
Solo2 rules suck, and at this level they'll be all screwed up because they're designed to keep cars equal at 65 mph. How well do you think a national champion quality STX Honda Si (that can hand us our asses at Solo2) would do in Club Trials vs. Dean's WRX?
One more thing to note about Trials. The laps are long, and fast. There's a lot of time to make mistakes, and those mistakes are multiplied by the length of the straights. What this means is that driver error is measured in seconds, not thousandths as they are in Solo2. Car's don't need to be classed so rigorously because they're not going to make that big of a difference, relative to the driver's error. Think of it this way: two fully tuned STi's, exactly the same, but one's got an ALK. In Solo2, that might be the difference between a National Champ, and being ouside of the trophies. In Trials, the ALK's advantage would be disguised by one of the drivers getting the car onto the longest straight at just 1 mph faster, or by one driver having just a little bit more balls and going deeper into a braking zone. My point is, as long as your car is in the ballpark, all you have to do is drive better to win. All those little nit-pick style mods don't get you a huge advantage.
Now I'll agree that the TT rules are a bit vague, and we need to get some clarification on how to apply them, but I certainly wouldn't just toss 'em out. They're a nice bridge between the Stock classes and having to crack open the GCR and pick a road race class.
Back to the topic, here's the preamble to the TT classes:
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Time Trials Production Classes - Reno TT Regional Classes only
A Time Trials Production class is defined as commonly available produced automobiles intended for street use, modified for Time Trials or Solo II competition (original frame or unibody). Cars will be classified by the engine displacement (liters) of the vehicle they are racing and shall compete in their applicable Time Trials (TT) Production class listed below. A vehicles displacement is determined by the current (factory or modified) displacement and then modified by the displacement multipliers chart to determine final car classification. Please note that more than one multiplier can apply to one car.
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Reading that carefully, we see why I wouldn't call my car 2.0L *1.5 for the engine swap. You have to use the current, actual displacement.
We also can get some insight into the way we're supposed to apply the multipliers. The "more than one multiplier can apply to one car" of course means that we don't just pick one multiplier. But it also implys by omission that we should only apply each multiplier once. If we were supposed to apply the x1.25 for the 4 valve, and again for the twin cam, and again for the VVT, the rule propably would have explicitly said "multipliers may be applied more than once", or more obviously, there would have been a seperate multiplier each for 4 valve, twin cam, and VVT.