Please explain .... Euro Sidepod & Width Rule Change

[problemchild]

In another post .... Mike Eakin commented ...
.OBTW, many letters are requests to make a rule change in order for a one-off car to be given some allowance to be more competitive. "My car is a poor design and is 2 seconds slower than the field. Could you please give all Zebra 200s a 50 pound weight break?" Those sort of letters.

Hopefully someone on some committee or board can explain who and why this crazy rule change occurred. At some point, someone slipped in a rule that FFs running the European floor rules and wide side pods had to run a 25 lb weight penalty. What? FRP and then SCCA decided to allow cars with wide pods from outside the US to race without having to totally reconfigure the cars to the SCCA rules. It was an attempt to be more inclusive, and not drive up the cost to race cars that were totally compromised with 20% more frontal area and much more compromised floor rules. I spent $1000s of dollars putting SCCA-legal narrow pods on several cars with the wide pods, as the wide pods and restricted floor rules, were clearly a performance handicap.

Whoever signed off on adding a weight penalty to these cars should be shot. It is about the most stupid competition adjustment ever in SCCA, and that is saying something! Someone with an agenda that clearly was not about fair competition managed to slide this by. Anyone who believes these big ugly pods are generating advantageous downforce has been conned.

Somebody needs to fix this mistake. We want people to spend their money going to races, not being forced to remove safety features while making their cars faster, so they can shed a 25 lb handicap.

[problemchild]

20. Weight
A. Formula F
1. Ford Cortina Engine: 1060 lbs.
2. Ford Kent and Honda Fit Engines: 1110 lbs.
3. Cars complying with the English FF rules under the Alternative Allowance Table which exceed the maximum allowable SCCA body width of 95cm add 25lbs.




Clearly, nobody in the know, had any rational explanation to explain how and why this rule change was snuck through.

I would have thought there was someone with a guilty conscience or who felt manipulated, and would have spoken up, or taken it on to rectify. I guess not. Clearly done in "spite".

[A.Dobb]

Since this is getting started up again and I am one of the victims of the rule...

I think it is entirely possible that the wide pods give some sort of down force... isn't it?

As far as I know the rules in the UK (and everywhere else) state that no bodywork can specifically add down force - But in this case down force was likely a by-product of the pods being so wide. What was the reasoning they started getting so wide in the first place? Safety or cooling?

Just curious on your thoughts...

[BorkRacing]

Since this is getting started up again and I am one of the victims of the rule...

I think it is entirely possible that the wide pods give some sort of down force... isn't it?

As far as I know the rules in the UK (and everywhere else) state that no bodywork can specifically add down force - But in this case down force was likely a by-product of the pods being so wide. What was the reasoning they started getting so wide in the first place? Safety or cooling?

Just curious on your thoughts...

I would suspect there is some validity to that point. Having seen the wide pod cars they have roughly 2x the surface area and assuming there will be rake to the car, additional downforce will occur. Also one needs to look at how much 25lbs actually affects a car.

1110lbs/120hp equals 9.25 lbs per HP
1135lbs/120hp equals 9.45 lbs per HP
So we are talking a 2% difference in power to weight. Drivers account for far more variance.
I might take the 100% additional downforce in exchange for a 2% loss of power and smile!

[problemchild]

It was introduced as a safety item. They are very regulated with honeycomb panels, rounded edges, etc. Any downforce is greatly overcome by increased drag and frontal area. The big pods are clearly a handicap. They are mandatory because car manufacturers would not run them voluntarily. SCCA is handicapping cars because they have better safety features. What sense does that make? France is the most expensive country in the world to manufacturer goods. If people in North America cannot beat cars built in France, they should work harder, not invoke artificial handicaps.

[BorkRacing]

It was introduced as a safety item. they are very regulated with rounded edges, etc. Any downforce is greatly overcome by increased drag and frontal area. The big pods are clearly a handicap.

Racing rules are a box. You fit your car in that box.

[problemchild]

Racing rules are a box. You fit your car in that box.

Yes. And SCCA changed rules that were in place and working well. The last thing any class needs is rule changes that force people to spend money to remove safety features while making their cars faster.

Andrew has found out that he cannot even buy narrow pods for his car.

[problemchild]

So the black pod is a Mygale pod that I narrowed to meet the SCCA rules.
It was done, at great expense, for performance advantage. By getting rid of the restricted Euro rules, we can now build extended undertrays, etc to create downforce, reduce drag, improve cooling, or whatever. We did run an extended tray out the back with just less than the 1" of curvature when using the narrow pods. Lots of work and expense!
The other two pics show a stock Mygale pod. to the Euro rules. No that is not the top .... it is the bottom.

Now, when compared to a car built and developed to the SCCA rules, why would anyone choose the Euro option?
Only because of increased safety, but mainly because their car came that way, and they can buy parts for it that way.

I don't want to post pics of other people's cars here, but any Americanized Van Deimen or Spectrum, Piper, or Citation, clearly has far more aero performance capability than any car with legal Euro pods and floor.

No informed person without a competitive agenda could argue otherwise.

[Bob Wright]

How many years has FRP been running FFs with both configurations in some of the closest races on the planet? If one were to read the British rules, it clearly states the configuration was designed to limit any aero advantage, and frankly, I'm not sure we ever saw one.

Anecdotally, to be confirmed by teams if they want to...when one of these cars is fitted with the narrower SCCA spec side pods, there is a noticeable increase in top end speed...

FRP is NOT adding 25 lbs...

[Jnovak]

Imo this added 25 lb rule was implemented simply because the CRB was not certain whether the european side pod rules would be an advantage or not. If it was an advantage then all the earlier cars would have to build new side pods to compete.

Just my opinion.

[Purple Frog]

its complicated.
And now years later I would have to do some research to refresh my memory.
Don't have time to do that presently.

When I was tech director for FRP we wanted to enable all the European cars enter FRP events after they were antiquated by the massive English rule change in 2011.
So we wrote some rules to allow the cars that were legal under the 2010 English rules to race with FRP F1600. The English rule document was something like 40 pages, and we had to parse it into something that fit FRP. (The English had a lot more intense safety rules, etc.)
We researched the side pod issue at that time and found it to be a non-issue in our opinion.
We also thought that those wide sidepods in the 2010 English rules were supposed to be mounted 1" higher than the bottom of the main chassis (which would negate any aero advantage). I sort of remember in meeting with Mygale we were verbally told that the sidepods were raised 1".
Then....
A few years ago SCCA got involved to see if they could add the 2010 Euro cars to FF.
During that period, doing research, no one could find anything in writing saying that those sidepods had to be 1" higher. During tech inspections they were finding the wide sidepods flush with the bottom of the main chassis. Add to that the impact of all the new 16 year old kids dominating the class... Letters came in from the disgruntled saying it was an unfair aero advantage to have wide sidepods on the same level as the main chassis floor.
SO... SCCA, listening to their membership input, did something about it.

[problemchild]

its complicated.
And now years later I would have to do some research to refresh my memory.
Don't have time to do that presently.

When I was tech director for FRP we wanted to enable all the European cars enter FRP events after they were antiquated by the massive English rule change in 2011.
So we wrote some rules to allow the cars that were legal under the 2010 English rules to race with FRP F1600. The English rule document was something like 40 pages, and we had to parse it into something that fit FRP. (The English had a lot more intense safety rules, etc.)
We researched the side pod issue at that time and found it to be a non-issue in our opinion.
We also thought that those wide sidepods in the 2010 English rules were supposed to be mounted 1" higher than the bottom of the main chassis (which would negate any aero advantage). I sort of remember in meeting with Mygale we were verbally told that the sidepods were raised 1".
Then....
A few years ago SCCA got involved to see if they could add the 2010 Euro cars to FF.
During that period, doing research, no one could find anything in writing saying that those sidepods had to be 1" higher. During tech inspections they were finding the wide sidepods flush with the bottom of the main chassis. Add to that the impact of all the new 16 year old kids dominating the class... Letters came in from the disgruntled saying it was an unfair aero advantage to have wide sidepods on the same level as the main chassis floor.
SO... SCCA, listening to their membership input, did something about it.

A bunch of us were caught off guard by this when appeared in the rule book part way through 2016. Can you please provide the link requesting input from membership.

[Purple Frog]

They never requested input from membership. They were reacting to letters sent in to the CRB through the usual website.

[problemchild]

They never requested input from membership. They were reacting to letters sent in to the CRB through the usual website.

So going back to your quote in post 1 of this thread, instead of giving people with slower cars a 50 lb weight break, it was decided to give the faster cars a 25 lb penalty. Since a car carrying the 25 lbs extra won the Runoffs this year does that mean SCCA will raise it to 50 lbs. Yellow cars won a disproportionate number of SCCA races in 2017. Why not handicap yellow cars?

This crap just stinks. Clearly a political agenda was fastracked through the SCCA process. Now some poor guy on the west coast with a trick Euro spec VD is being caught out in this gamesmanship. And people like Geoff and myself, who own multiple cars and would like to supplement our FRP racing by bringing people to SCCA races, need to invest 1000s of dollars to do so, or run our customers with additional handicaps. And that does not include people like Ken Bouquellion or Rob Albani who do more SCCA events than FRP events.

We are continually reminded how SCCA people are volunteers doing the best job for membership, but there is way too much of this crap. If people cannot beat cars built in France that are already handicapped by having the Euro rules, then they need to work harder.

Certainly my comments are not aimed specifically at Mike. I certainly appreciate that he was the only one in the process who chose to try to explain. Thanks Mike.

[Bob Wright]

To implement a rule because of some letters and an uncertainty seems a bit short sighted, especially where there is no concrete evidence to support it. If we had seen anything (and believe me- we would have heard about very quickly) we would have done something about it years ago.

[S Lathrop]

I agree with Greg that this rule change is not necessary and is actually punitive.

I was asked about allowing cars built to the English FF bodywork rules when they were first considered. I stated at that time and I still feel the same, that the English body work rules are not an advantage and in fact are a disadvantage. There is a lot more frontal area, both from the side pods and the cockpit opening rules.

My bet is that what this rules is really about is the difference in the performance of the English wide side pod cars on the Hoosier spec FF tires. Because those cars may have better suspension geometry with the spec tires, they are performing better.

There are 2 distinct sets of body work rules, the wide side pod rules which include the cockpit opening / firewall rules. And the SCCA rules with narrow side pods and much smaller and lower cockpit openings. The SCCA rules have a distinct aero dynamic advantage over the wide pod rules.

Yes, the surface area of the wide side pods is much larger but the ground clearance is much greater as well. This eliminates any potential for greater ground effects from the wide side pods. Also there are no trays behind the side pods where the high pressure from the rear tires can add to the higher pressure on top of the under trays.

[SEComposites]

If you were designing a new FF there’s no way you’d make the pods and cockpit opening to the same sizes as the U.K. regs demand and to penalize a car with a built in penalty is ridiculous.

[problemchild]

So, can we get some one in the SCCA process to take this on and get the handicap rescinded subject to further study and input?

Regarding the yellow cars, there may be some merit to penalizing them. Coming up to the Winter Olympics several of the major Nations are switching their speed skating uniforms to yellow. Apparently yellow is faster than red or blue. We really should all be painting our cars yellow. Considering the costs, and confusion to the officiating process, it would be prudent to handicap yellow cars. It certainly would make more sense than this rule.

[SEComposites]

Luca Badoer might take issue with your premise, Greg. His Forti Corse was only slightly less competitive upside down.

[R. Pare]

i do distinctly remember that when the UK FF rules mandating the wide sidepods first came in effect, the pod bottoms were to be raised 25mm in order to reduce any possible ground effects. When that rule was changed, I have no idea.

[problemchild]

Luca Badoer might take issue with your premise, Greg. His Forti Corse was only slightly less competitive upside down.

I was confused. Blue is the fastest color. My apologies for providing fake information.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/s...est-color.html

So, can we get some one in the SCCA process to take this on and get the handicap rescinded subject to further study and input?

[Purple Frog]

So, now we know why DaveW's cars have been yellow for so long.
Lathrop has been holding back that secret since '95 and now Greg has let it out.

[SEComposites]

i do distinctly remember that when the UK FF rules mandating the wide sidepods first came in effect, the pod bottoms were to be raised 25mm in order to reduce any possible ground effects. When that rule was changed, I have no idea.

Yes, you’re absolutely right. There’s a 25mm step in the Euro pod bottoms.

[problemchild]

So, now we know why DaveW's cars have been yellow for so long.
Lathrop has been holding back that secret since '95 and now Greg has let it out.

OBTW, i advised against the 25# penalty. But, I could not find the 1" / 25mm language in writing to back up my story, so I came out looking like my normally foolish self.

I am unqualified to offer expert opinion on the theoretical differences that the 1" difference makes. My "laymen" opinion would be that the 1" step would likely generate more downforce because as the chassis narrows at the rear, you are generating some kind of pressure change at the point. As commented by several people, the extra frontal area, extra surface area, and absence of co-existing floor performance, makes any theoretical benefits very hard to substantiate.I expect the Europeans revised the rule at some point to meet safety, performance, or just enforcement concerns. I expect enforcement is the driving force, and having a 1" tolerance, is much easier for the teams to adhere to, and police. That I presume is why SCCA allows maximum 1" curvature.

In the real world, the wide pods are a huge PITA. The abuse they take bouncing over curbs, and the required maintenance and repair, is brutal. As they end up scraped, patched, taped, etc, they are providing even more drag. If not after every event, they get repaired after every other event. And they pick up way more debris from the tires. We were losing a rad about every 10 sessions before going to honeycomb screen protection.

If our programs were no expense spared, I would spend the time and money putting narrow pods on all my cars. Citation style pods and floors on a Mygale would be so sweet. I looked at that several years ago but it was just too big a job. For my rental cars, running anything but the big pods is really not an option. I need to be able to go buy a pod part and change it in a couple hours. Investing in narrow pods and spares is just not feasible, just as it would not be for Andrew, Rob, or Ken.

[Purple Frog]

But... ex-Euro cars were showing up in SCCA tech sheds without the 25mm step. Just saying.

[Raceworks]

Imo this added 25 lb rule was implemented simply because the CRB was not certain whether the european side pod rules would be an advantage or not. If it was an advantage then all the earlier cars would have to build new side pods to compete.

Just my opinion.

It's politics as usual. Widebody Mygales won two Runoffs in a row, and since the crumudgeons with the dinosaur cars haven't been able to get anything done to penalize the Hondas they slipped this in. The amusing thing is the team they're targeting has more than enough money to get different sidepods made and make the rule irrelevant.

[problemchild]

The only Mygale I have seen with the 1" step was Steve Bamfords 2007 car for sale now (with very expensive narrow pods). All the other Mygales I have seen, have a totally flat floor surface including pods.

We are getting sidetracked with a very minor matter that has not proven to be an issue in the 6 years since we started running Steve's car. Remember that the recent Mygale dominance is because there is no Spectrum or other works effort. Scott Andrews won the FRP Series in 2015, which is the last year with a serious Spectrum works effort. Same tires and rules as now.

So, I would really like to move this forward. Can we get some one in the SCCA process to take this on and get the handicap rescinded subject to further study and input? It would save a bunch of time and bother to undo this change which was done without member input.

[Jim Garry]

So, I would really like to move this forward. Can we get some one in the SCCA process to take this on

That someone would be you Greg.

SCCA Rule Making Process https://www.scca.com/pages/rule-making-process

Excerpt:
STEP 1 - MEMBER INPUT
A member, be they a competitor or an official, has a concern (e.g. "My car is not fast enough" or "his/her car is too fast" or "I can't possibly wave five flags at once" or "all I do is look at other people's underwear," etc.). Thus a request is made to the Club Racing Board at www.clubracingboard.com; which will be reviewed by the appropriate advisory committee and each member of the Club Racing Board.

[problemchild]

Apparently. But I am not trying to get a new rule in place. I am trying to rescind a rule that was slipped in bypassing the normal SCCA process. With racing, starting in less than 3 weeks, I was hoping the same people that bypassed the process could just undo their action and put it through the proper process. The process, as we know takes months and years ...... and apparently is optional.

[S Lathrop]

Without a floor extension that goes beyond the side pod, having the bottom of the side pods even with the belly pan does not make the wide side pods superior to the narrow side pods and the floor pan that can extend to the rear edge of the rear tires.

Now If someone adds a floor pan full width and to the rear of the rear tires, that would be a game changer.

Just my opinion.

[Bob Wright]

I believe it would not be a rule change, rather a technical adjustment to remove the 25 lbs. weight penalty and that can be done anytime. The process starts with a letter to the CRB, or many letters to the CRB per Jim Garry's post.

I think the 25mm step is a bit of a red herring and may have disappeared from the UK rules at some point because it wasn't needed. I can't find it either right now. In any case we have seen no specific advantage with those cars.

[Jnovak]

I was confused. Blue is the fastest color. My apologies for providing fake information.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/s...est-color.html

So, can we get some one in the SCCA process to take this on and get the handicap rescinded subject to further study and input?

use the system and write a letter.to the crb.

[problemchild]

I just assumed there would be some people on committees or boards who now realize they were hoodwinked into rubberstamping this joke, and would want to expedite the resolution of the situation. Prolonging the joke by making me go through the process that was ignored just seems wrong. Sorry that I have faith that people want to do the right thing when presented with accurate information.

[Jim Garry]

Try calling the chair of the CRB.

[Jnovak]

I just assumed there would be some people on committees or boards who now realize they were hoodwinked into rubberstamping this joke, and would want to expedite the resolution of the situation. Prolonging the joke by making me go through the process that was ignored just seems wrong. Sorry that I have faith that people want to do the right thing when presented with accurate information.

seriously. You have spent hours complaining on this forum and writing a lettrr to the crb system might take 10 minites of your time.

[problemchild]

Yes. Seriously. Ten minutes of my time is just the start of months of committees and boards and whatever they do. I always prefer to let people clean up their own mistakes so I'm giving them the chance. If I have to write a letter then I will. People are racing wide pod Mygales in 13 days time, and I expect to have mine at Atlanta in March. All of a sudden .... we're back to following the process. Imagine that?

[David Locke]

All of a sudden? Bear in mind that this change was published 247 days ago, on April 20, in the May Fastrack . . .

[ken bouq]

My personal situation pertaining to this thread :

Option 1
-Run with SCCA
-Buy a new set of narrow side pods for my Mygale.
-Paint them to match my car.
-Inlet and Outlet on radiators need modifying.
-Redesign a shroud to channel the air into the radiators for max cooling.
-Need two complete sets of pods because no one will have spares .
-approximately 6 grand

Option 2
-Run with SCCA
-Add 25 lbs.
I presently have 39 lbs of lead ballast , do I really want to find space for 25 lbs. more !
-Don't need to carry spares , stock pods are usually available at the track.

Option 3
-Don't buy narrow pods or add weight.
-Run the car as it came from the factory and was homologated by the SCCA , with FRP !!!

I like the Majors , especially the Super Tour races , but this seems like an easy choice for me ...

[reidhazelton]

$6K? This is like $15k Kent rebuilds.

I'll offer a special deal where I convert any car to narrow pods for an apexspeed discount price of $4k. $2k off 'market value'.

[reidhazelton]

Whoever signed off on adding a weight penalty to these cars should be shot. It is about the most stupid competition adjustment ever in SCCA, and that is saying something! Someone with an agenda that clearly was not about fair competition managed to slide this by. Anyone who believes these big ugly pods are generating advantageous downforce has been conned.

Boy, it's a wonder why no one has offered an explanation. Between saying people should be shot and accused of a self serving agenda it's hard to imagine people aren't jumping all over this.

Just a thought, but write a letter. They get read and discussed. That's how we made the spec tire thing happen. A bunch of people wrote letters. FSRAC/CRB read said bunch of letters. Then spec tires appeared. Brilliant!

(Now I remember why I have stayed away from Apexspeed)