Here is where to send your letters of outrage:
bod@scca.com
Don't hold back. Let'em have it!
Here is where to send your letters of outrage:
bod@scca.com
Don't hold back. Let'em have it!
This is not the case. They were presented with exact wording that would have protected the existing shifters and not allowed any of the amazing wonder shifters that people who are unfamiliar with FB seem to think will be possible. It was clear, enforcable wording.Originally Posted by Daryl DeArman
The CRB was not looking for the FSAC to draft a proposal or anything else. Their minds were made up before the member input was even in. Bob Dowie told someone at PRI (right after the request for input) that he knew what the member input was going to be. This is your CRB chairman.
I think that when you parse through all of the posts here and many other posts in many other threads here you can find that many/most problems originate at a common source: The CRB.
The CRB is just not doing an effective job of representing the members based on what I read here and I know that they have not done an effective job of representing me. I think there are a lot of reasons for this, including having far too wide of a spectrum of responsibility, ignorance of the effects of the rules they make, and personal agendas (which are going to be largely unavoidable).
You're absolutely right.
It appears this entire "members input" thing was a complete sham.
I told as many people that when I first saw it. Never believed for one second it was above board.
To test it out I sent in a "request for members input" to the CRB about open ECU a few weeks ago. Still haven't heard a thing about that.
But I believed all along I would never hear anything.
.
Last edited by Thomas Copeland; 02.24.11 at 3:40 PM.
so help me understand this Bullsh*t, is this a done deal? this smells really fishy, I suspect this has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with what the majority wants. I think someone's got the ear of right person and I suspect I know who it is. A real shame and total BS.
CRB is right. $5000 shifters were definately not in the spirit of the class, and mechanical sfifters can/ do work. If I owned an FB and did not have one, I'd feel like i was at a disadvantage to those who spent the $$.
However, changing the rule at this point is unfair to those who have already spent or planned to spend the $$.
I wrote that they should allow the shifters but at a weight penalty as Wren suggested.
Something like 1000 without, 1050 with.
Dividing the class by creating FB2 is a bad idea, and takes away form the folks who have been busting hump to grow the class. Do it, and no one goes to the runoffs. Current owners/ drivers should take advantage of the already established groups (like the F1000 Championship Series Mike organizes), decide on a FAIR compromise and present it as a group.
Otherwise 100% of the people who made the investment will want one outcome, 100% of those who do not plan on spending the money will want another outcome and who knows what will happen rule-wise. For that, the BOD or CRB cannot be blamed.
Sean O'Connell
1996 RF96 FC
1996 RF96 FB
2004 Mygale SJ04 Zetec
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Mike is one of the stumbling blocks to getting the shifters to run in the group. Last time I checked he was aganist the shifters. Not sure if he is the right person to ask for help on this issue.
I appauld Gary for designing that new shifter. Can't wait to see how it stacks up aganist the Geartronics. This is what racing is all about!
I am beginning to believe dividing the class in two is the only way out. There needs to be a place for the dozens of competitors that have just been disenfrachised by the CRB to race.
Somebody convince me otherwise. What else can we do if the CRB is going to ignore what the majority in this class desires?
I'm open to any positive suggestions.
.
Last edited by Thomas Copeland; 02.24.11 at 4:20 PM. Reason: Removed referencing series
(I'm no longer in FB, but ...) I like the 50 lb penalty approach.
Wren, you mentioned that successful wording of a good new rule was proposed. Is that published somewhere where everyone can read it? If it really is good, then I'd try to get close to 100% of the current FB competitors on board with it. The BOD would have a hard time not accepting it if it had universal support.
Maybe you could do like a wikipedia thing and fine-tune the heck out of it until you have nearly universal support.
It may be overly optimistic, but those two things might address the concerns of everyone (current competitors with and without SWOL, BOD, tech guys, people considering FB, east coast, west coast, etc.)
50 lbs. is a de facto ban. No way the shifters are worth as much as a 50 lb. penalty hurts as far as lap time on a 1000 lb. car. Might as well be 200 lbs.
Fastrack
Lets start a new thread dealing with the Fastrack proposal. Nobody is going to wade through all the posts to get decent feedback
Phil Creighton
Wren, no need to be insulting--what you seem to think is impossible may very well be just around the corner. Sometimes being too close to the issue can cloud one's perspective. Especially when one has invested much time and money on something and there is, understandably, significant emotion attached.
Not my CRB or Chairman...rather the SCCA members.
No one who has gone fast has had a mechanical shifter work well. Period. When you were running your car I don't think that anyone was seeing sustained braking over 3g's. FB braking zones are now half of an FC braking zone because you guys evidently decided that $5000 brakes were somehow a good idea.
Whoa. That is very, very much not what I said. I said to reduce the minimum weight of the class for all cars down to 950 and then people might have to make design compromises.I wrote that they should allow the shifters but at a weight penalty as Wren suggested.
Something like 1000 without, 1050 with.
Right now the only fair way to establish how much weight we would add would be to compare two good drivers in similar cars. Niki and Coop both have very similar cars except that Coop has the shifter and Niki has a mechanical linkage. Right now Niki has been faster every time they have shared the track together. The only fair decision and the only decision supported by the data is to increase the weight of mechanically shifted cars by 50 pounds.
I'm sorry, but the shifters are nowhere near a 50 pound advantage, probably not even 10 pounds. Also, as I have stated before the only cars that would actually be punished by a weight penalty would be the Citations as the RFR cars are already more than 50 pounds overweight. Let's not make an open formula class a race to the bottom, that is the opposite of formula racing.
The division will never happen.Dividing the class by creating FB2 is a bad idea, and takes away form the folks who have been busting hump to grow the class. Do it, and no one goes to the runoffs. Current owners/ drivers should take advantage of the already established groups (like the F1000 Championship Series Mike organizes), decide on a FAIR compromise and present it as a group.
That's actually not true as I know of several people with mechanical shifters who supported the open shifter rule.Otherwise 100% of the people who made the investment will want one outcome, 100% of those who do not plan on spending the money will want another outcome and who knows what will happen rule-wise. For that, the BOD or CRB cannot be blamed.
Don't be so sure that Mike is the guy causing the problems. The only problems we have right now are caused entirely by the CRB. Based on a conversation I had with Mike last night he would have supported this 4 years ago now but he currently favors rules stability foremost.
I agree. It sounds cool and I would love to see some pictures and video of it working but I would also discourage Gary from sharing. People being open about what they were doing with their cars is what brought us to this point.I appauld Gary for designing that new shifter. Can't wait to see how it stacks up aganist the Geartronics. This is what racing is all about!
Never happen. Give it up.I am beginning to believe dividing the class in two is the only way out. There needs to be a place for the dozens of competitors that have just been disenfrachised by the CRB to race.
What we can do is write to the BOD, politely, and explain the situation.Somebody convince me otherwise. What else can we do if the CRB is going to ignore what the majority in this class desires?
I'm open to any positive suggestions.
I also think that the time has come that managing all 700+ pages of the GCR is too much for the CRB to handle. They have consistently proven over the last 5 years that they are just not up to the task. It is time that the responsibilities for making rules becomes divided among several committees. The CRB needs to remain responsible for general competition things like fuel testing, protest procedures, how to structure race weekends, etc. Tasks like determining rules related to formula cars and sports racers need to fall to the FSRAC. If we had adopted this after the CRB's last 10 major **** ups, we wouldn't have to go through this **** up.
Again, that is not what I said. I said reduce overall FB minimum weight to 950 pounds. I was mostly kidding although I do think it would make the class more interesting.
The shifters are never going to be worth a 50 pound weight penalty. That is 5%!!!!!! Never.
Wren, you mentioned that successful wording of a good new rule was proposed. Is that published somewhere where everyone can read it? If it really is good, then I'd try to get close to 100% of the current FB competitors on board with it. The BOD would have a hard time not accepting it if it had universal support.
Maybe you could do like a wikipedia thing and fine-tune the heck out of it until you have nearly universal support.
It may be overly optimistic, but those two things might address the concerns of everyone (current competitors with and without SWOL, BOD, tech guys, people considering FB, east coast, west coast, etc.)
It was never made public. It was worked on by several members and submitted.
Honestly I don't think that you could put it up and have it refined until it was any better. Last week just for fun I skimmed back through the geartronics thread from the runoffs. There is some painful, willful ignorance in there. No matter how many times the knowledgeable people came in and posted how the shifters worked it was just not possible to convince certain people who are sure that they know more about it than the people who actually use the system that a driver will not be faster if he enters a braking zone randomly clicking the down shift lever as fast as he can and lets the downshift reject function determine what gear he winds up in. Trying to refine it on here will just be everyone beating their head against the wall.
The current language is actually quite adequate and I have not doubt that the geartronics is legal per the 2011 GCR. If I were king for a day I would remove the "direct acting" part of the sentence as that is language primarily used in the GCR for things like valve trains and shocks to denote a direct physical connection. I would also add a specific allowance for downshift rejection if it would overrev the engine. I might even add a clause to specifically disallow a downshift rejection if it would bog the engine just to shut up the people who don't understand bike motor powered cars or how the fast guys actually drive these things just so I don't have to listen to them talk about how someone is going to come up with a computer that can make shift decisions so much better than the driver.
There really is some good stuff in here. I would worry that we might lose something if we started a new thread.Lets start a new thread dealing with the Fastrack proposal. Nobody is going to wade through all the posts to get decent feedback
Phil Creighton
If a mod wanted to separate this out like they did with the runoffs/geartronics thread back in the day, I would be eternally grateful.
Wren, no need to be insulting--what you seem to think is impossible may very well be just around the corner. Sometimes being too close to the issue can cloud one's perspective. Especially when one has invested much time and money on something and there is, understandably, significant emotion attached.
Not my CRB or Chairman...rather the SCCA members.
Sorry, this is not F1 and I feel entirely comfortable stating that I am not worried about the future of shifting.
I meant the generic you to the SCCA members reading this thread.
New thread
Wren
Nobody is going to go through the whole thread - I know the attention span we are dealing with. Keep it focused.
Phil
busted forward button
Aparrently not so. I did let them have it and Bob Lybarger told me to send it to the CRB. I guess the interest is so limited at the BOD that his forward button to the CRB is inop.
Huh? What's the subject now?
I say we all just ignore the rule and keep track of the points ourselves through MikeB. Most of the cars right now have the systems and most of the guys that don't have our backs anyway. I'll even pay for the $10 trophy for the champ, really whats the difference? we're all doing it for fun anyway.
This just burns my as*, these guys just completely changing the rules....they could have even left it the way it was instead because of a couple of loud mouths that don't even race FB's and have a few old friends screwed a bunch of us. I've raced BMX, Motocross, karts, MC roadracing and I've never come across a bunch of old ladies....
As I said in my initial post and what other people have said now. Screw what rules SCCA passes concerning the shifters, run what you have and let the people that don't want shifters convert back to FC and mechanical shifters. The majority should not be the one's that have to form a new class when there is one that already exist for the group that does not want a pneumatic or electric shift system.
This just seems so ridiculous.
"I'm curious, was this data in the form of a sharp rpm spike or was it more of a prolonged curve. If it was a spike I would think it was caused by an excessive blip not a premature downshift. I know I had a few of these until I put on the blip system. This is certainly one benefit to any of the blip systems it produces safe rpm consistency that protects engine life.As one of the not-so-skilled people in FB, I blew a motor last year after only running it for 7.1 hours. It blew on the cool-down lap of a race, but after looking into the data we found the cause was on my previous track day I had over-revved on downshifting on three different laps (hit 13,300, 13,535, and 13,450 RPM)."
Nope, it was a shift
Unfortunately, it was a shift. The location was Miller on the West track, specifically the black rock hairpin. That corner is tough on oil pressure, but I made it tough on my engine by not driving well.
In looking at the data I zoomed in on one instance, and what I see is the gear change followed by a spike to 13313, 13574, 13544, 13515, 13333, 13168, 13333, 13516, 13537, 13515, 13370, 13193, 13031, 12904, and it drops from there. I'm unsure how many samples per second the AIM MXL Pro performs, but it looks like the engine was bouncing off the rev limiter. That's just a guess - an uneducated one at that. In all candor, I am likely the least knowledgeable person on the FB forum when it comes to our cars, but I am learning. As my friends tell me, I don't even know what I don't know. My friend and I swapped out the engine this winter, and we started the car last week!
While swapping engines is child's play for most of the forum, for me it was a whole new experience and I am thrilled we did it correctly. Moments after we fired up the engine, my lovely wife appeared in the garage and with an incredulous look on her face exclaimed, "You mean you didn't screw it up?". She was astonished.
So please forgive me if my conclusions seem dubious. This is why I rarely post as I have little of value to add most of the time. In the case of the downshifts, however, brighter minds than mine looked at the data and found the three times where I did harm to the engine.
Which explains my desire for more seat time to practice.
Thanks,
John
John, in my first drivers school I shifted in the wrong direction in a DSR at the end of the back straight at Waterford Hills. 13,700 with an 01 GSXR, this is not good. This was an enlightening event, prior to this I did not know that the heads of the valves could come out of the exhaust pipe after bouncing off of the top of the pistons.
I still have one of the valve head in the drawer of my tool box. BTW one of them was lodged into the exhaust port so well that it stayed there all the way to the scrap yard!
Don't feel bad, guys. I tried diligently to stick an LD200 in reverse instead of 1st under braking at my driver's school. Turns out you can't get it into reverse, but you can blow the reverse gear through the cover and end up backwards with the sidepods packed solid with gravel.
Mike,
Thanks so much for giving me reason to laugh aloud!
If ever I see you at an event, I will buy you a beer and we can share our, um, experiences.
Have a great evening,
John
Mike who? If you're talking about me, then you're wrong and need to figure out WTF you're talking about before spouting off your verbal diarrhea on the internet. I have exactly the same influence on the FSRAC and CRB as you do. I can send a letter just like you did. Mine is probably worded and punctuated better but carries the same weight in their decision-making as your letter does.
If you're talking about a different Mike, I apologize.
Like I've said earlier, send your letter to the BOD. Just keep it civil, logical, and coherent. That's all there is to it. For those of you that haven't bothered to read the Fastrak, please do so now before posting an emotionally-charged response to what you've read here.
Hey John, If I'm reading this correctly, it sounds like the over-revs were directly after a downshift. The rev limiter only works going UP the rev range.Unfortunately, it was a shift. The location was Miller on the West track, specifically the black rock hairpin. That corner is tough on oil pressure, but I made it tough on my engine by not driving well.
In looking at the data I zoomed in on one instance, and what I see is the gear change followed by a spike to 13313, 13574, 13544, 13515, 13333, 13168, 13333, 13516, 13537, 13515, 13370, 13193, 13031, 12904, and it drops from there. I'm unsure how many samples per second the AIM MXL Pro performs, but it looks like the engine was bouncing off the rev limiter. That's just a guess - an uneducated one at that. In all candor, I am likely the least knowledgeable person on the FB forum when it comes to our cars, but I am learning. As my friends tell me, I don't even know what I don't know. My friend and I swapped out the engine this winter, and we started the car last week!
While swapping engines is child's play for most of the forum, for me it was a whole new experience and I am thrilled we did it correctly. Moments after we fired up the engine, my lovely wife appeared in the garage and with an incredulous look on her face exclaimed, "You mean you didn't screw it up?". She was astonished.
So please forgive me if my conclusions seem dubious. This is why I rarely post as I have little of value to add most of the time. In the case of the downshifts, however, brighter minds than mine looked at the data and found the three times where I did harm to the engine.
Which explains my desire for more seat time to practice.
Thanks,
John
You may want to invest in a Geartronics - The amount of money saved, as mentioned previously in this and other threads, most likely could have paid for itself in this one instance, and that's not even counting hair loss, nausea, loss of sleep, decreased appetite, erections that last longer than 4 hou, huh?, etc...
John,
First off welcome aboard the FB ship! To bad the waters are kind of rough right now.
I'm taking a guess here at the cycling numbers but I think a little bit of wheel hop was causing this. I'm still learning the data stuff too.In looking at the data I zoomed in on one instance, and what I see is the gear change followed by a spike to 13313, 13574, 13544, 13515, 13333, 13168, 13333, 13516, 13537, 13515, 13370, 13193, 13031, 12904, and it drops from there.
Exactly what I was thinking!
Hey Glenn.
That's EXACTLY what I am going to do.
Looking forward to the other benefits you mention as well. LOL.
Mike,
Thanks so much for giving me reason to laugh aloud!
If ever I see you at an event, I will buy you a beer and we can share our, um, experiences.
Have a great evening,
John
Go ahead and keep laughing! BTW these came out of my muffler when we set in end on the bench when we were pulling the motor!
Last edited by Mike Devins; 11.23.12 at 3:32 PM.
Glenn are you suggesting this man invest in a system that will be illegal? trying to find someone to buy your system? Lol
Last edited by JohnPaul; 02.24.11 at 9:51 PM.
In the spirit of sharing
Wow, Mike, that's unreal. I didn't know the valve heads could do that, either. I'm relieved to tell you that nothing made it to the exhaust in my case.... because it blew out the sides of the block. Check out what's left of my engine:
Attachment 23768
And there's another hole just like it on the other side of the block. Almost exactly the same size and shape, too.
Oh, and to Northwind, thanks for the welcome and the observation. Makes sense, now that you mention it!
Mike, at the Dbl Natty in '07 I came out of Buttonwillow's SE corner complex (I forget it's name) in second gear, wound the Bertil's 1800cc SuperVee to 7500 and shifted into 1st instead of 3rd. Oops!
Long-stroke Vee Dubs can do 9500 RPM...who knew?
Stan Clayton
Stohr Cars
Pinto engines can too.
But they will only do it...
Mike, at the Dbl Natty in '07 I came out of Buttonwillow's SE corner complex (I forget it's name) in second gear, wound the Bertil's 1800cc SuperVee to 7500 and shifted into 1st instead of 3rd. Oops!
Long-stroke Vee Dubs can do 9500 RPM...who knew?
Once!
The whole downshift lockout "thing" is why I invested all last summer in romancing the Proshift people...and I even got to install a couple of them and program a bit! I personally feel that the system is a proper "modern" way to race. I can still heel and toe, do-si-do with the rest of ya, but I see that a major benefit of a sequential box is the ability to race F-1 style....and no BS about the costs, guys!! One motor is all it costs....and I can pretty well guarantee that everyone pukes a motor at least once from a premature downshift..
So it works; there is no denying !
It saves wear and tear on the engine $$$$
It will save a blow up $$$$
It allows the driver who is not the best at heel and toe to drive as quick as the better driver (read: tighter fields and shorter braking distances)
It has an amazing "cool factor" (read: attract new entrants into the class)
In the "spirit of the class", it encourages the tinkerer and innovator
Hmmm, no wonder everybody is lined up to kill it! Heck it's save money over the long term, make the racing tighter and more competitve, encourages innovation, is really cool, and allows drivers the opportunity to drive like a F-1 driver......
By the way the words "spirit of the class" and "in the interest of the sport"....makes me puke! Just like when was the last time somebody said to you "Hi! I'm here from Washington to make your life easier" !!!
Peace! Tom
By the way, gas prices are $1.24 a quart here in Toronto. That means gas is $5.02 a gallon up here for the cheap stuff.....premium is over $6 a gallon!
Tom Owen
Owner - Browns Lane and Racelaminates.com
Excellent post !!
Tom you are right on the money. And I agree, all this "spirit of the class" crap is bullsh*t , no one here is a mindreader, write what you mean and even then you can't be sure......doesn't it say in the current rules you can use these shift aids????? it's kind of hard to figure out the "spirit" when it actually means the opposite of what is written into the rules.....
Exactly. We are expected to believe that the rule specifically allowing air shifters meant all air shifters but this one. That could be entertaining.
I was once against these
I have to admit that early last year I was given the dog and pony show by Belling. He bragged about how nifty his Geartronics system was. I'm fairly certain this was before anyone else here knew about it.
I was totally against it from the outset. To be honest I was really a bit jealous that this punk kid had something better than me.
As the season went on I re-thought my position and how I had personally struggled somewhat with downshifting. Then I found out that Coop had be experiencing the same "gear crowding" issue coming down several gears under 2g plus braking.
Being the type of person I am where I feel I need to design and build everything...it really is a curse....I went off on my own and did an air system. Adding up all my time, effort and $$$ probably should have gone with the G-Tronics but the hard part is over at least.
I consider myself to be a pretty damn good heal and toe guy...won lots of FF and FA races back in the day. It urks me a bit when others get on here and say "well the DSR guys have done it for 2 decades why can't you". Unless you have driven one of these FB's with monster brakes where you can stop in half the distance of virtually anything on the track and have experienced the downshifting first hand I suggest you keep your views to yourself..,they don't fly with most of us.
Gary Hickman
Edge Engineering Inc
FB #76
Gary, do you plan to sell your system to others, or is it just for you?
I haven't made up my mind on this. With all this weird junk going on with the rules change I feel strange selling something that may be outlawed next season.
Gary Hickman
Edge Engineering Inc
FB #76
*sigh* As best I can throw together a post that will show my opinion in a comical matter...
21st century people. Electronics exist. Regulate them just as you would an engine control unit. Geartronics get this flash, etc etc, .... The manufacturer will understand, they want to sell product. I do admit the price is high, but for a functional system that prevents me from brain farting? I can't complain. It's a free market, cheaper systems will appear.
ALSO
A wise man once said....
"The geartronics system is not the second a lap you are looking for. Move along."
And ALSO
Coop wins for best reply.
Last edited by Brian.Novak; 02.25.11 at 3:02 AM. Reason: typo
Gary you shouldn't allow all this to interfere with selling your system. We are still selling ours.
And people are buying them, dispite the CRB.
I would prefer this matter get fastraked to a quick resolution. We need to know ASAP if they are going to "attempt" to get this rule implemented in 2012.
.
Last edited by Thomas Copeland; 02.25.11 at 9:48 AM.
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