VDCA Opens new run group fpr 2024

[Tom Fraelich]

The VDCA Board of Directors has decided to open up a new run group for next season. In addition to their existing Group 7 and Group 5 they have formed a Group 9, to include Monoposto F70 cars (thru 1979) and Formula Continental cars thru 1990. See their facebook page for the press release and schedule.

[Garey Guzman]

Curious if the FC through 1990 includes some of the FSV designed as FSV tailed off. I wasn't around then but I thought that FSV was classed with FC when FSV participation dropped. I know that Zink made at least one, the Z20 in 1982 that I thought ran FC. In fact, looking at the Runoffs results, 7 of the top 10 in 1982 were FSV cars, including a Zink, Marches and Ralts.

[Rick Kirchner]

FSV was essentially FC (the 1100cc former F3 cars long gone) when I started teching in 1982. At the time it was all FSV cars, air cooled, water cooled flat bottom, and full ground effect.

RT5s moved into FA as the F5000 cars died out and when they were given I believe the 1800, EFI, and bigger wheels and tires. By that time there were also fewer amateur FAs out there, but the pro series was thriving. Seemed to not be nearly as much trickle down as FSV to FC, although when they transitioned to the toyota there was some.

About the same time F2000 showed up in FC.

I'm always amazed at folks that come up with the rules.

First, since there hasn't been sufficient production of any FC since 2005 I'd call all FC vintage - but hey, if you wanted to be more exclusive you could say any pinto-powered car, or cutoff at 1998 when VD went to the current chassis configuration.

If you include cars up to 1990, that includes the 1990 VD, which if IRRC, was the first one to be pushrod suspension all the way around, and also the skinny wings and a diffuser. But those cars are virtually indistinguishable from the 91-96 cars from a chassis and aero perspective, so why stop at 1990?

If you wanted to be more exclusive a more logical break point would be any car with rocker arm suspension at one end, which pretty much cut off at 1990 with the exception of Reynard, who I think built a couple of rocker FCs into about 92. You might scrape up a couple of Swift DB3's in there as well.

[Purple Frog]

Get into 1990 and you bring in the the DB6. It would totally dominate. We had that happen in SEDIV CFC class years ago.

[Rick Kirchner]

are there any left as FCs? Seems like most got converted to FF, along with no small number of DB3s. Almost a unicorn, like the 97VD.

[Tom Fraelich]

Curious if the FC through 1990 includes some of the FSV designed as FSV tailed off. I wasn't around then but I thought that FSV was classed with FC when FSV participation dropped. I know that Zink made at least one, the Z20 in 1982 that I thought ran FC. In fact, looking at the Runoffs results, 7 of the top 10 in 1982 were FSV cars, including a Zink, Marches and Ralts.

Garey
I think the FSV cars are covered in the Monoposto F70 rules. They have a very clearly detailed eligibility platform that covers every air and water cooled SV up to 1979., see Monoposto .com. I think the plan here was to give the F70 cars a venue to compete as they have been largely disenfranchised in SVRA for years now. I also think the mid-year Formula Continental cars are still eligible for SCCA racing and have a venue there where they can run if they choose to.

Rick:
As I recall FA and Formula Atlantic were two different categories from two different eras. FA were 5 liter cars and the top of the SCCA food chain, FC, FB, FA. Formula Atlantic came about much later and got abbreviated to FA but was NOT a continuation of ther original FA class in SCCA. As to your "amazement" about the folks who try to write rules that work for their clubs, well no good deed goes unpunished.

[E1pix]

Duplicate post from untreated Yutzism.

[E1pix]

Yes, the last year of Formula A at the Runoffs was 1978, and interestingly won by a brother of a great American shoe whom I never had heard of before, or since; Stuart Forbes-Robinson. Last pro year of F5000 was 1976.

I think the first year SCCA used “Formula Atlantic” or “FA” instead of “Formula B” was 1979, but am not certain. That name change never made a lick of sense to me.

are there any left as FCs? Seems like most got converted to FF, along with no small number of DB3s. Almost a unicorn, like the 97VD.

Weren’t DB6s *always* Formula Fords? (1600)

Very happy to see a new place for Super Vees.

[stonebridge20]

Weren’t DB6s *always* Formula Fords? (1600)

No. All DB6's started life as 2 liter cars.

[Rick Kirchner]

Garey
I think the plan here was to give the F70 cars a venue to compete as they have been largely disenfranchised in SVRA for years now. I also think the mid-year Formula Continental cars are still eligible for SCCA racing and have a venue there where they can run if they choose to.

Rick:
As I recall FA and Formula Atlantic were two different categories from two different eras. FA were 5 liter cars and the top of the SCCA food chain, FC, FB, FA. Formula Atlantic came about much later and got abbreviated to FA but was NOT a continuation of ther original FA class in SCCA. As to your "amazement" about the folks who try to write rules that work for their clubs, well no good deed goes unpunished.

IIRC you and I were both at SVRAs Open Wheel World Challenge in 2017, and that was a great event, even if it was flawed to a large extent by SVRAs goofy grouping and classing schemes, and renting a bunch of track time to the Mustang club because they didn't think they'd get 700 entires of just formula cars....Disenfranchised indeed.

By the time I came to the SCCA F5000 as FA was gone. Never saw one in the wild from 82-90 when I was active in tech. Never saw a FB either - as in a tube framed front radiator Brabham or a sportscar nose Lola. In CENDIV, by that time FA was all Ralt RT4s, and the occasional March until the rules change that brought some FSV into FA while F2000 was starting to populate FC.

I'm sure the change in naming convention was to designate the top of the class structure as "A" for marketing. People would come to watch FBs and go "where are the A's?" Answer - we got rid of them... not a good look.

Sorry to frag you on the rules bit, but I've always found it to be more productive to go off of technology changes, rather than just years, examples above.

I brought F2000 cars to VARA in 2003. My car was 9 years old at the time, ran as exhibition for one year, then they asked me to write the rules. So we had FC1 (rocker cars) and FC2 (pushrod/pullrod cars). Nobody showed up with one of the mixed cars like an 84VD or a 89VD.

[Lastminuteracin]

Yes, the last year of Formula A at the Runoffs was 1978, and interestingly won by a brother of a great American shoe whom I never had heard of before, or since; Stuart Forbes-Robinson. Last pro year of F5000 was 1976.

I think the first year SCCA used “Formula Atlantic” or “FA” instead of “Formula B” was 1979, but am not certain. That name change never made a lick of sense to me.


Weren’t DB6s *always* Formula Fords? (1600)

Very happy to see a new place for Super Vees.

I worked with Stuart about 15 years ago when he was a service manager at the dealership I worked for. Small world. I knew he had raced but never heard any accomplishments.

[E1pix]

No. All DB6's started life as 2 liter cars.

Appreciate the correction, Mike, not sure where I got that wrong.

(Answer: in my post!)

[E1pix]

Rick, I’m also quite sure that was why SCCA changed from FB to FA, but it was still silly.

I worked with Stuart about 15 years ago when he was a service manager at the dealership I worked for. Small world. I knew he had raced but never heard any accomplishments.

Wow, that’s cool to hear!

If memory serves, as I wasn’t there that year — had media passes I couldn’t turn down at the US and Canadian GPs instead — I think Stuart drove the Lola T332 that was originally run by John Benton, who was either the Editor or the Publisher of Formula magazine, before it became Racecar, before it became On Track, before it became Racer.

Formula was the best name of all.

[Tom Fraelich]

IIRC you and I were both at SVRAs Open Wheel World Challenge in 2017, and that was a great event, even if it was flawed to a large extent by SVRAs goofy grouping and classing schemes, and renting a bunch of track time to the Mustang club because they didn't think they'd get 700 entires of just formula cars....Disenfranchised indeed.

By the time I came to the SCCA F5000 as FA was gone. Never saw one in the wild from 82-90 when I was active in tech. Never saw a FB either - as in a tube framed front radiator Brabham or a sportscar nose Lola. In CENDIV, by that time FA was all Ralt RT4s, and the occasional March until the rules change that brought some FSV into FA while F2000 was starting to populate FC.

I'm sure the change in naming convention was to designate the top of the class structure as "A" for marketing. People would come to watch FBs and go "where are the A's?" Answer - we got rid of them... not a good look.

Sorry to frag you on the rules bit, but I've always found it to be more productive to go off of technology changes, rather than just years, examples above.

I brought F2000 cars to VARA in 2003. My car was 9 years old at the time, ran as exhibition for one year, then they asked me to write the rules. So we had FC1 (rocker cars) and FC2 (pushrod/pullrod cars). Nobody showed up with one of the mixed cars like an 84VD or a 89VD.

Well marketing could be an explanation I guess. I always assumed the "A" was just an abbreviation for "Atlantic". Seemed logical to me at the time as SCCA had already abandoned the 5000 cars.

You're right, we were both at Indy in 2017 and that's about the last time we've seen any significant group of F70 cars at an SVRA event. If you review the entries for those cars in SVRA over the last 5 years I think you'd agree that "disenfranchised" is exactly what's happened.

[s800racer]

If you include cars up to 1990, that includes the 1990 VD, which if IRRC, was the first one to be pushrod suspension all the way around, and also the skinny wings and a diffuser. But those cars are virtually indistinguishable from the 91-96 cars from a chassis and aero perspective, so why stop at 1990?

If you wanted to be more exclusive a more logical break point would be any car with rocker arm suspension at one end, which pretty much cut off at 1990 with the exception of Reynard, who I think built a couple of rocker FCs into about 92. You might scrape up a couple of Swift DB3's in there as well.

Rick,

Thanks for the feedback. The rules are not yet set in stone and I may well tweak them based on feedback from folks that know more about FC chassis than I so. I like the idea of using the rocker cars as a cut-off. We've done the same thing in Formula Ford to accommodate the "tweener" cars that are not Club Ford but have similar performance.

Doug Meis - VDCA Technical Director

[s800racer]

Question: I am assuming that the Zetecs did not exist in FC prior to 1990. Does anyone here think we (VDCA) need to specify Pinto only FCs?

[s800racer]

VDCA 2024 schedule:

Feb 10-11, 2024 Roebling Road Raceway
March 29-31, 2024 Virginia International Raceway
Sept 14-15, 2024 Roebling Road Raceway
Nov 9-10, 2024 Road Atlanta

[Rick Kirchner]

Doug - if you want more entires, I suggest you include Pinto powered cars through 1996, heck, you could go to 97 for that matter - not a lot of them out there anyway. You'll probably pull in a few VDs running SCCA regionals. There are a few rocker cars still running, mostly Swifts and Reynards with the occasional 84-89 VD thrown in (the 84 was pullrod/rocker, as was the 89, the rest were "swift-ish")

I'm trying to remember when the Zetecs came in -2000-ish? as conversions. I believe it was 02 when they started making chassis for that engine - but it was well after the introduction of the new VD chassis in 1998. A lot of the folks here will state lack of Pinto longevity as the reason for the engine change, but I think that the lack of engine bay rigidity and using the engine as a semi-stressed member led to a lot of pinto failures (that same problem was the bane of stock-block engines in indy car chassis).

But '98 was the big change in chassis technology, although you could look at the 97 as a prototype for that. The bellhousing got longer, increasing the wheelbase, eventually the track got wider too. They used universal uprights. This was done on the 97 which was pretty much a 95 chassis that was narrowed in the cockpit, making them too small for most.

Drop me a PM - I have a document that details all the VD chassis changes I can e-mail you.

You may not remember, but I think we started this conversation back in 2015 when I moved to the east coast for a few years. You guys weren't ready for F2000s yet so I ran with the SCCA.

Tom - If you remember the OWWC, I think we had three groups of F2000s. There was the east coast pro guys, then there was a bunch classed as "former SCCA cars" WTF, aren't they all? and then vintage....I just remember it was a mixed bag of stupid. The following weekend, F2000's were classed with F2.... SVRA tends to class formula cars by appearance, not performance.

[Tom Fraelich]

Doug - if you want more entires, I suggest you include Pinto powered cars through 1996, heck, you could go to 97 for that matter - not a lot of them out there anyway. You'll probably pull in a few VDs running SCCA regionals. There are a few rocker cars still running, mostly Swifts and Reynards with the occasional 84-89 VD thrown in (the 84 was pullrod/rocker, as was the 89, the rest were "swift-ish")

I'm trying to remember when the Zetecs came in -2000-ish? as conversions. I believe it was 02 when they started making chassis for that engine - but it was well after the introduction of the new VD chassis in 1998. A lot of the folks here will state lack of Pinto longevity as the reason for the engine change, but I think that the lack of engine bay rigidity and using the engine as a semi-stressed member led to a lot of pinto failures (that same problem was the bane of stock-block engines in indy car chassis).

But '98 was the big change in chassis technology, although you could look at the 97 as a prototype for that. The bellhousing got longer, increasing the wheelbase, eventually the track got wider too. They used universal uprights. This was done on the 97 which was pretty much a 95 chassis that was narrowed in the cockpit, making them too small for most.

Drop me a PM - I have a document that details all the VD chassis changes I can e-mail you.

You may not remember, but I think we started this conversation back in 2015 when I moved to the east coast for a few years. You guys weren't ready for F2000s yet so I ran with the SCCA.

Tom - If you remember the OWWC, I think we had three groups of F2000s. There was the east coast pro guys, then there was a bunch classed as "former SCCA cars" WTF, aren't they all? and then vintage....I just remember it was a mixed bag of stupid. The following weekend, F2000's were classed with F2.... SVRA tends to class formula cars by appearance, not performance.

I do remember the classes for that particular event were confusing to say the least. Back when SVRA followed the Monoposto rulebook it was much clearer. Since they abandoned that and continued to allow newer and newer cars it just went "off the rails".
Now it's just a "run what you brung" situation.

[Skip Weld]

I for one, strongly agree with Rick about including the 90 through 97 Van Diemen FC cars. I know at least some other vintage organizations do. I think there are about 400 mid year Van Diemens out there.
My 97 has Vintage races in the log book from the last owner, They are not competitive with the newer cars in SCCA so many of them sit.
I know I could bring at least 2 of them to some of the VDCA races.
Just a thought from someone who has run FC since January of 85 in Reynard, Ralt RT-5 , and 93-2003 Van Diemens.

Thanks,
Skip Weld

[s800racer]

After much discussion, research and deliberation, I have decided to start with a cut off for FC/F2000 cars at 1990, i.e. "through 1989". Later cars with rockers at one end may be accepted upon application. I gave serious consideration to accepting the "mid-year" cars through 1996. I will continue to review the events and entries and whether to extend the eligibility at a later date.

Doug Meis - VDCA Technical director

[Jayeff]

After much discussion, research and deliberation, I have decided to start with a cut off for FC/F2000 cars at 1990, i.e. "through 1989". Later cars with rockers at one end may be accepted upon application. I gave serious consideration to accepting the "mid-year" cars through 1996. I will continue to review the events and entries and whether to extend the eligibility at a later date.

Doug Meis - VDCA Technical director

well my 1990 Reynard FC is identical to the 87, 88, and 89 cars. does this mean i'm out?

[s800racer]

well my 1990 Reynard FC is identical to the 87, 88, and 89 cars. does this mean i'm out?

Your car would fall under the "later cars with rocker arm suspension on at least one end" I would gladly accept your entry at our events. I may have to build a list of post '89 eligible cars, yours is definitely on that list.

[Tom Fraelich]

well my 1990 Reynard FC is identical to the 87, 88, and 89 cars. does this mean i'm out?

Looking forward to seeing you at Roebling Road in Feb. Tell your friends.