This isn't meant to be a 'we don't need another class' thread. Just a open forum to collate ideas.Originally Posted by HazelNut
Perhaps there is a reason there is an overall lack of interest? Perhaps what's out there is not that attractive to potential new racers.
No, I can't "redesign" the D-S for anything like that target price. Even building a very basic car based on the Stohr chassis for that price is not possible. I recall some years ago Steve Lathrop talking about FFs back in the day priced at about the median household income, which is a shade north of $50k these days.
Could I do such a turnkey car for $50k? Yes, but only if it were very tightly spec'd based on our existing tooling, and with no competition. As soon as Jerry, Gary, or anybody else gets into the mix cost go up (not down!), and the economic viability of the concept goes out the window.
Back when I was on the CRB Erik Skirmants and I used to discuss FE periodically, and one comment he made has stuck with me ever since: the year the Club set the price under $30k they sold 50+ cars. Then the price began climbing towards the cost of production, and every time the price went up the sales went down. I don't know what the total is any more, but it's barely above 100 cars sold, and last I checked the price was north of $50k (can't find a price on their website).
Stan Clayton
Stohr Cars
Perhaps this type of formula is not aimed at you if purchase price is not that important? Obviously the car itself has to tick lots of boxes (boxes to be determined!) but I can't afford a $50k F4 car but can afford one half that price. I don't think I'm alone in that group.
Steve, I think you hit the nail on the head- its not the cost of the car, its the cost of racing: Track costs have risen steeply in the last few years. Tires, crew, Hotels, transport, time away all figure into the cost of racing. The car itself can be amortized over 3 or 4 years, then sold such that its not that big a component.
The FIA F4 platform and its future iterations (F3, BRDC F4 and other variations) may offer the best bang for open wheel racing going forward, but that's only one component of the total.
----------
In memory of Joe Stimola and Glenn Phillips
It's hard to believe the cost of racing a new F4 car could be anything less than 4x the cost of racing a Spec Miata (but I don't know that for sure).
In that case my 50k new F4 car, based on numbers I listed above should be worth 35 k in a few years & closer to the numbers you are looking at.
Can a car be built for 20 - 30 k new with all the boxes ticked asked for? I have heard many say yes but no one has stepped up to the plate and done it. Also if you are talking about a "kit" car that you can build for 20 k as some have suggested here then you are valuing your time at zero. I can't build a car as I do not have the skill set to do so, thus my 20 k will cost me 30-40 k most likely.
Steve Bamford
Maybe the problem is the perfect club racecar already exists... its just not open wheel. Spec racer ford is a single-seat, open-cockpit, purpose-built racecar that costs about as much as a miata, requires about as much maintenance as a miata, and goes about as fast as a miata. Its also the only SCCA class that can rival spec miata racing fields. Sure, its a bit ugly, but that doesn't seem to affect its popularity much. I don't know if its possible for any new open wheel class to be able to compete with that and attract all the low budget, low off track time commitment, driver skill only club racers who want a purpose-built racecar instead of a sports car. Why take a chance on something new and unproven when something already exists that has cheap old used cars available and the promise of a big field to race with forever?
The new F4 is about $57K without an engine which is leased from HPD.
Not low cost racing IMO.
Thanks ... Jay Novak
313-445-4047
On my 54th year as an SCCA member
with a special thanks to every SCCA worker (NONE OF US WOULD RACE WITHOUT THE WORKERS)
I see what your saying but of course your maths works in my favor too when a $25k car is worth $16k a few years later.
As I say I'm just interested in opinions and specs for such a car should it ever come to fruition. Obviously it may not be possible. But then again maybe it is.
Russ,
Why do you say that? Isn't track time, hotels, crew the same dollars spent as it would be with F4? As I understand the parts are cost controlled by FIA so should not be near what some other open wheel parts cost.
I have no clue what Spec Miata racing costs are per weekend either. It does obviously attract a lot of drivers & would be interesting to compete with that many cars. I am just an open wheel fan & not interested at this point of Miata or other closed roof racing.
I have a F4 car ordered, hoping the series does well but wouldn't say I huge supporter thinking it will be the class to change racing. I simply want to be part of possible growing series from the start. If there is another latest & greatest class offered & has big turn out because overall low costs I will make sure I heavily consider racing there & hope it can be done.
Steve Bamford
Because: open wheel.
Scott Woodruff
83 RT5 Ralt/Scooteria Suzuki Formula S
(former) F440/F5/FF/FC/FA
65 FFR Cobra Roadster 4.6 DOHC
A good point. No offense intended to any SRF racers but they are pretty hideous machines to look at. Yes they have reasonable grids but I see that fact as being inspite of the car. The basic recipe is sound though. Rugged reliable and cheap (ish). I don't want to race a closed wheel car though, that's my problem!
Bingo!
Our current cost for a quantity 1 build F600 Blade is right at the target price we are talking about. We could easily get a couple $K out of the cost with much simpler bodywork. A simpler Tig welded frame would also save some $$. The biggest savings would be from quantity production. Also there is the possibility of saving some $$ by using some production doner car parts and steel 13" wheels.
IMO it can be done.
Thanks ... Jay Novak
313-445-4047
On my 54th year as an SCCA member
with a special thanks to every SCCA worker (NONE OF US WOULD RACE WITHOUT THE WORKERS)
Cost I believe is a low 50's then lease for 6 k per season & after 3 seasons you own the engine and during that time the manufacture warranties the engine.
Not low cost such as 20-30 k but I still haven't seen that happen & for sure won't be a carbon tub, data, wings, paddles...not that everyone wants those options either. Keep in mind for what you are getting for the price.
Steve Bamford
Of course. What you are getting is very different from an F4 with all the whizzy bits.
The quote was $57k for a roller, no engine.
Thanks ... Jay Novak
313-445-4047
On my 54th year as an SCCA member
with a special thanks to every SCCA worker (NONE OF US WOULD RACE WITHOUT THE WORKERS)
Car is $45k for a roller.
Steve Bamford
Steve, you're probably right. I guess my main objection is the initial buy-in alone puts it far out of reach for someone like me.
$45k not $57k
Steve Bamford
There are a few nice FEs selling for low-mid 20s. Last I checked, the FEs were $37k brand new. There are around 40 FEs not being raced around the country (according to scca participation #s) so there are plenty of low-mid 20s cars available. Cendiv is where the action is at so if you like Road America, Gingerman, Black Hawk, etc... then FE is the only choice around right now that checks almost every box.
I race communist race cars.
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling, there are rules." - Walter Sobchak
Why is FE then not in the Miata league of popularity?
Ignore that comment! I don't want this thread to wander off into a class bashing affair!
That's an honest question. One that I myself asked in the FE thread (although it was more of a bash fest from others rather than a constructive conversation.)
Why has FE not become as popular in open wheel as SM has become in the tin top world? What does FE not have that we are exploring with this thread? What is any new class going to have that will bring more people
I've heard people talk about the expensive spares, but the parts are quality and you have CSR's to help you at the track. Plus you don't have to carry spares since the CSR's sell them at the track if you need them. Not to mention Steve Stadel(cendiv CSR) has the One Formula series that actually PAYS MONEY to the top 6 positions in the series. I think 1st place got $3500 last year!
Engines routinely last 4-5 seasons competitively, gearboxes are stout, the car looks good and goes fast. Dollar to value ratio is at least equal with the proposals I'm seeing in this thread if not cheaper.
I hate to sound like a walking,talking FE billboard but why reinvent the wheel if there is already a class out there that checks so many of the boxes?
I race communist race cars.
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling, there are rules." - Walter Sobchak
Open Wheel Miata
Spec Miata weekend I did at Summit Point was $1600 for the weekend rental including the extra test day, crew, tires (not new), and fuel. Add race entry for $400 or so and $60 fuel to get there from Cleveland and I was out just over $2000 total.
Access to tracks, parking lot racing (drifting) and street racing are "driving" people away from the tracks.....
There was a documentary about Compton street racing a while ago
(I think this is it)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iieD4i9-sGA
These guys tried to go legit but returned to street racing because that is where they made their money and....
Racing is a discipline - these guys have never lived with rules and many young people - not just residence of Compton - don't like rules.
Last month I went to a Speed Ventures event with my son and his friends. Over 200 cars at ChuckWalla (another discussion), 6 run groups of 30-40 cars....
It's not racing? Riiiiight. SV almost requires you rent a transponder (you're gridded at the back if you don't have one and you're gridded by time). At the end of every session they print out times and people car competing for the best times....
A lot of real race cars (sans open wheel - except for 2 FMs - in the top group at the front).
SCCA is trying to address this with their track night program which tells me they now know where the people have gone.
So, SV is the Saturday night street racing reborn.
"Run-what-you-brung" action.... no rules, minimal safety gear (seatbelt and helmet).
Open Wheel Miata
Other than having to swap the transmission on the test day due to a bad third gear which is probably been damaged by the last renter, I'm not sure they turned a wrench on any of the other seven cars under the tent that weekend
I'm a younger guy and I've got friends that drive like idiots. One buddy has two 2004 Cobras pushing 480+hp at the wheels and his DD is a 2006 wrx sti pushing 330 at the wheels. He takes the most unnecessary risks on the street that provide zero rewards. Even worse, he thinks he is Michael Andretti and has never been in a real racecar nor has he ever driven on a race track. I don't get the street scene. If they all want to emulate Paul Walker then perhaps they can end up the same way he did.
I race communist race cars.
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling, there are rules." - Walter Sobchak
How about a Yamaha VMax motor (first generation) 145HP, 90ft/lbs torque, 5 speed V4(narrow) 1200cc with a shaft drive. They take a hellava hammering (I know I have had one since 1985) and are cheap to buy. Great motor with loads of grunt. That in a formula ford style car would be a lot of fun. Sound really good unmuffled also.
Graham
What about instead of making an entirely new class, make a car that's a subclass of an existing class? You know how in local FC races there's CFC for the older cars, they race at the same time in the same field and if they went to a Majors race they'd race as regular FC, but they're maybe a second or so slower a lap than a modern FC. Or like in the NWFC series they just run with a lower minimum weight.
What about that same kind of idea but instead make it like a Super Spec FC. Spec chassis, spec tires, sealed shocks, sealed engine, all the good things about an FE but in a car that would race in FC or FF or some other existing class instead. Super Spec FC would race at the same time and in the same field as a regular FC even though it's maybe a second or so off the pace of a well-driven development FC. You could class it as a regular FC if you wanted or you could even buy fancy shocks and open up the engine yourself to just convert it to be used as a regular FC all the time.
To me its the sealed (FE) v. spec (SM) issue. <- Period.
FE is a great car (especially for arrive and drive), but if I need new rings or something simple under the seal I can't do that myself.
People keep talking about the "old days" and the size of the grids, but no one talks about WHO was on that grid.
The core of racing used to be wrenchers. The arrive and drive with the Pro built engines made better cars within the rules, but the satisfaction level has declined.
The wrencher is not as competitive and the arrive and drive guys have more money to continually up the ante. Everyone gets dissatisfied and moves on.....
FE addressed arrive and drive and then the people moved on. Cars tend to go from arrive and drive owners to wrenchers - but they don't want them because they're sealed.
The need to break the seal and open the market. SCCA won't because of their contracts.....
Jim, do they do things like fastener checks etc?
Thanks ... Jay Novak
313-445-4047
On my 54th year as an SCCA member
with a special thanks to every SCCA worker (NONE OF US WOULD RACE WITHOUT THE WORKERS)
Nope. I asked about that. They check front hubs periodically as they tend to be failure points. This was a good shop. They do that stuff as part of race prep, but at the track, that is just not a Miata thing to do. How often do you bolt check your street car?
Watch the paddock. A Miata is only worked upon when it is crashed. Otherwise, I hardly ever seen any work done. I know, "but how can they not nut/bolt check everything?" It just doesn't seem to be a closed-wheel car thing to do, especially in classes that aren't stressed highly (T2-4, SM, IT-although many IT cars could scrap heaped as much as raced).
The no new class in SCCA is a valid argument. When I drew up my design, I intended that the car be a heads up car that could be combined into FF. That way no new class.
The Idea of a detuned (restricted) 1000 cc bike engine might be a great idea to increase the longevity of the bike engines.
As to the business: my thought was that manufacturers would have a large number of parts that would be interchangeable between any car in the class. An individual manufacture could choose to build every thing themselves or build just those parts that were unique to each car design. Over time, the common parts business would gravitate to the lowest cost producer. The manufacturers would profit mostly from the sales of their cars. The profit in the car business is not in building cars but in keeping those cars on the track with spares such as suspension arms and body parts.
I think that if the car design is not too far from current FF, many cars could be built from FF tooling or salvaged cars. This would go a long way to keeping costs low. My particular design used many parts from my current cars.
When I check my design to a Zink Z10, the car was almost the same size. Track was very close and wheel base a bit longer. In short the CF from that era are smaller than current FFs.
As has been pointed out above, this is a people problem not a product problem. Right now, you can get excellent used car value in the purchase of a F600, FF (kent or Honda), FC, FE, FM, FB ....... cars from $10K-$40K. Many people reading this right now could be jumping in to these cars. They're not. We're not. And we are the "converted".
In old days you ran FV, FF, or FA. Now you have 27 different open wheel and 100+ closed wheel classes in many different organizations to choose from. If there are 50 people reading this now, you will not find 5 that would agree on any ideal choice. This magic formula to bring new people into a "magic formula car" cannot exist, certainly in any democratic process. Our community, like society in general, is just too fragmented and diverse to embrace an affordable formula car for the masses.
Greg Rice, RICERACEPREP.com
F1600 Arrive-N-Drive for FRP and SCCA, FC SCCA also. Including Runoffs
2020 & 2022 F1600 Champion, 2020 SCCA FF Champion, 2021 SCCA FC Champion,
2016 F2000 Champion, Follow RiceRacePrep on Instagram.
Hit the nail on the head.
I race communist race cars.
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling, there are rules." - Walter Sobchak
You may be right. I was planning on building a new car for myself but I think that I will build a prototype of this car and use it instead. I can still drive it in a couple of classes and have fun and it will not cost me any more than a new Blade but I am sure it will be a lot faster. I Will let you know how it goes.
Last edited by Jnovak; 12.28.15 at 7:18 PM.
Thanks ... Jay Novak
313-445-4047
On my 54th year as an SCCA member
with a special thanks to every SCCA worker (NONE OF US WOULD RACE WITHOUT THE WORKERS)
For you guys and gals with very good imaginations might get an idea from this rendering of what Jay's car could possibly resemble.
This is as far as I got with the design.
Jay and Dan beat me to it, but Greg's answer made me laugh out loud (because its so true!). Then I went back and reread the first post. The main problem with the very first post is that he doesn't list the boxes that he wanted to check off. Perhaps had he done that we could have all pointed to one (or two) classes that would have checked his boxes. Maybe not. Dan has been very passionate about why he likes FE and he's bewildered why more don't. Beer Budget summed up his reason - sealed versus spec - deal breaker. Maybe for SEC that isn't, but the variables out there are too many.
Obviously, as a CSR for FE, I would/should be pumping FE and I do to a point, but not so much on ApexSpeed. I know the open wheel community having been around it for almost 30 years. There's a lot of tinkerers out there. I would never claim to be any sort of engineer and when FE (nee FSCCA) came out, I jumped on it. Next year will be my 16th in the class. I believe it is the closest regulated spec class out there. The engines are comparable after years of use. If it doesn't check all of your boxes, so be it.
One statement that I believe to be true with FE that is not with SM. You can buy nearly any FE in the country and with the right driver (as long as his name is Scott) win the National Championship. I dare say that it would cost you more to buy that National Championship SM than the FE.
If you take Scott's name off of the finishing order in FE, you're going to see a long and diversified list of race drivers that have finished in the top 5 or 6 in FE from our first championship until now.
FE had the highest participation of any winged formula car in 2015. With the expected increase in the Northern Conference and Southeast Conference fields in 2016 I expect our participation to be a runaway from other winged formula car participation in 2016.
You can (and will
Competition One Racing
racer6@mchsi.com
But who cares what the car looks like once you are in the seat?
Can't tell from there.
But the racing is just as good as with a pretty car.
Open Wheel Miata
I can't say I love the looks, but it didn't stop me from buying one.
Brian and I were in FE for a couple of years and we had a lot of reliability issues with the transaxle that have now been fixed. At that time it was a deal breaker for us. We had several other more minor issues that I have heard are now fixed.
We talked about getting back in FE a little more than a year ago and then the FA deal came our way.
I am really surprised that some drivers who are rockets in other classes cannot make an FE go.
Just a side note Steve, wasup with that?
Thanks ... Jay Novak
313-445-4047
On my 54th year as an SCCA member
with a special thanks to every SCCA worker (NONE OF US WOULD RACE WITHOUT THE WORKERS)
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