Second Newcomers Perspective
Similar to Eric’s comment above, if the concern is potentially getting new blood in to the class, I thought it would be worth while to voice my perspective. Hopefully Matt (mboian90) who lives down the road from me will chime in as we both talked extensively about pros and cons of various classes before each buying our own Honda powered FF.
I’m not mid-20s as someone mentioned previously, but early 30s and finally have enough disposable income to go club racing without any intention or delusion of “moving up the ladder” to additional classes beyond FF, provided not being forced out with changes to the below.
The reason I chose the class and drove ~30hrs round trip to pick up my car a couple years ago:
1. Option for Honda or Kent - flexibility to balance cost and reliability with parity for the avg racer or newbie. I ultimately chose Fit for some additional cost because in my personal situation it made sense for some upfront fixed cost to allot my limited free time to solely chassis tuning/development
2. Select spec components but not a spec class- like the flexibility for certain modern aspects and room for personal development of car. Not tied specifically to Hoosier radial, but like the idea of a reasonable wear spec tire to keep costs manageable and casual racers a little more competitive.
3. Non-aero open wheel class - Coming out of FSAE program, sparked OW interest, but wanted to avoid complexity from introducing aero starting out especially now without a team
The key point is I largely picked FF because of viewing the modern engine choice as an enabler to more easily get started club racing in a non-spec OW class still with every intention of getting beat early on by more experience regardless of powerplant.
Third Newcomers Perspective
JCond and I actually discussed this tread this weekend while I was over visiting and he shamed me into posting some of my thoughts. I was initially turned off by the typical devolvement of the discussion but he is correct in that our opinions might be valuable if the concern is new blood in the class.
I was in high school when the Honda discussion first came up and followed along by reading here on apexspeed. Like JCond I participated in the SAE collegiate design series and it wasnt until I graduated college that I got into a position where I could buy a car. My reasons for deciding on an FF are basically identical to JCond however I specifically was looking for a Honda because the engine technology is something I am more comfortable working on. If nothing else I have never worked on a carbureted engine unless you count ones made by Briggs and Stratton. To me it was another skill set on the steep learning curve of open wheel racing that I could avoid.
In 2015 I ended up buying the PIper DF-2 that was converted to a Honda power by John Vlasis. I have pretty extensively autocrossed it since then which included a few season with JCond as my co-driver before he bought his DB-1. My latest excuse for not club racing it has been an inability to comply with HNR requirement. I bought a hans at the end of 2018 expecting to road race the next year but found out that with my body type the "back board" hits the harness mount bar and the fuel cell enclosure. This winter I have been working on fixing that issue (still not fully resolved) and hope to get my license in May. I need to end up club racing at some point this year just so JCond will shut up about it.
Matt Boian
CM 14