What is considered to be a club continental?

[Dennis Tapp]

As the title says- what is a club continental?

[kea]

Like Club Ford, Club (Formula) Continental )CFC) is a Regional class designation, with a year cut-off deceided by each Division. Cars of that date and older will compete against other cars of a similar age for race position, this while sharing the track with Formula Continental (and others). Just because it may be CFC legal at a Regional race, this does not mean that you must race it in that class. You could enter as a FC.
When raced at a Major, it would be classified as Formula Continental.

[Dennis Tapp]

So, you are saying it is a different year in each division. What is the year most divisions use? Also is the only engine the 2000 pinto with steel head?

[racerdad2]

Up here in the great frozen tundra in Mn. CFC has rocker suspension and FC has the new fangled push rod thingies with their shocks mounted in a very weird way

All kidding aside. Check with whoever you're going to race with as there are many different cut-off dates around the country.

[kea]

Pinto engine for sure, steel or alloy head, either, is legal around here.

[Rick Kirchner]

In VARA we went for a "FC1" and an "FC2" similar to what has been done in supervene. I hope we can straighten out SVRA, right now FC is classed with some atlantics.

FC1 is for rocker arm cars

FC2 is for pushrod cars

If it's one of the oddballs with rods on the front and rocker rear we sort of look at it on an individual basis.

We could have required FC 1 cars to have wide chord wings and no diffuser, but I thought that would require too many cars to spend a lot of money going backwards and would negatively impact the car count.

If we ever get to FC3 it will no doubt be long-wheelbase cars and Zetecs.

[SWMyers]

So, you are saying it is a different year in each division. What is the year most divisions use? Also is the only engine the 2000 pinto with steel head?

Cut off years range from 1990 to 1995, (it's 1990 in the Great Lakes division). Best to check your division's website.

[Dennis Tapp]

thanks to all for the answers

[cliff]

Dennis-long time,no see. Stop by at Hallett and catch up. Very little FC activity in our area which is too bad, FF doing pretty decent.

[Larry]

...to be completely accurate, "Club" classes are regional-only classes. Therefore, each REGION (not division) can set its own rules. Sometimes divisions adopt a common set of rules, but it's not unusual for several regions within a division to have different criteria--or to decide whether or not they will recognize "Club" classes.

Larry Oliver

[kea]

The Great Lakes Division has just changed the cut-off date for Club Formula Continental to 1995 starting this year.

[Dennis Tapp]

NEW QUESTION. Does Club FC let you make the updates to the Pinto engine. Cam, pistons, rods, etc.? Or does it have to stay the way it was built in the late 80's or early 90's?

[kea]

Engine updates are allowed.

[EYERACE]

No CFC in the SouthEastern Division - there was one years ago - for being undersubscribed, it was eliminated - virtually everyone that could have been a CFC simply continued to run as FC so with no cars, eventually, no class.

Which makes the whole ARRC thing strange........the race is in the SouthEast - maybe the SE FC simply sticks an extra C on the car and goes running

[troyt]

When did the pushrod cars become the norm in FC?

[rickb99]

When did the pushrod cars become the norm in FC?

Our 1990 Reynard was still a rocker arm car so, CFC eligible. 87 to 90 Reynard's are most excellent cars fully capable of competing head to head with early FC push/pull rod cars.

[Purple Frog]

The problem with "date of construction" based rules can be obvious when shown two great ringers:

The DB6, and DaveW's Citation, both built 1995 or before.

I found well prepared Reynards had no problem competing with 93-95 VD. But a car like Morgan's 2005 Runons entered DB6 was a world beater in CFC.

[troyt]

Good point, I guess we need to be model specific then since the common CFC/FC (or FC1/FC2) divider is rocker vs pushrod.
Did they make a pushrod Reynard in the mid-90s?
When did the DBs and VDs go pushrods?
Thanks

[Purple Frog]

Just because it's pushrod doesn't make it superior in CFC. My experience is that the 90-95 VD (pushrods) are a fair match to the 87-90 Reynards (rocker).

Chuck Moran has two rocker Crossles in his basement that would probably dominate CFC, since he was fairly competitive against newer cars even into this century.

[rickb99]

...Did they make a pushrod Reynard in the mid-90s?...

No, not in FC

[Rick Brannon]

The only Reynard with pushrods that I know of was the 1985 Reynard in both trim FF and FC. I used to race one in ICSCC back in 90 - 93 before I moved to a 90 Reynard FC which I modified to Carville spec with help from Archie Hodge. Also should mention Keith because I bought the kit from him and he provided excellent baseline data for me.

[rickb99]

...... 90 Reynard FC which I modified to Carville spec with help from Archie Hodge.......

Carville? As in James Carville? As in Clintons hack? As in the raging mouth? I didn't know he knew anything about Reynards??

[Nardi]

Lol! No Rick, Bobby, if memory serves.

[formulasuper]

The only Reynard with pushrods that I know of was the 1985 Reynard in both trim FF and FC. I used to race one in ICSCC back in 90 - 93 before I moved to a 90 Reynard FC which I modified to Carville spec with help from Archie Hodge. Also should mention Keith because I bought the kit from him and he provided excellent baseline data for me.

Back in the day I had an 85' Reynard FC (the silver bullet) with pushrod fronts/rocker rears and had to run in FC back when the SEDIV still had the CFC class.

[Rick Brannon]

No not a political hack but SCCA National Champion Bobby Carville :http://www.savannahraceengineering.com/#!bobby/c17oy

Do you remember the Export A F2000 series he was a strong Reynard runner in that Pro Series

[Rick Brannon]

Back in the day I had an 85' Reynard FC (the silver bullet) with pushrod fronts/rocker rears and had to run in FC back when the SEDIV still had the CFC class.

Hi Scott,
Interesting with rocker rears mine had pushrods front and rear, did you have to modify the rear Reynard casting to take the rockers? Also what year rockers did you use? I bought my car from Dwight Mathieson out of Los Gatos in 1990 I was the third owner first owner was Brooks Racing with Jon Beekhuis as the driver. Jon Modified the car and ran the F2000 uprights on the car (larger bearings dual angular contact bearings) same bearings used in the spindle of DeVlieg Jig bore. Before I became a software engineer I was a CNC electronic specialist for precision machining at Boeing hence my knowledge of the bearing application.

[CJD]

I curious why the typical Club Continental chassis end in 1995? I have an RF 96 Van Diemen which essentially is the same car as a RF 95 with the exception of being a little wider in the cockpit area. We use the same bell housing/engine adapter if wheel base is the issue. I running FC in the Southeast regardless, just found the year break interesting.

[CJD]

My car has the twin shock conversion if the mono-shock configuration is the issue.

[Purple Frog]

When the original CFC rules were written in the SEDIV the '96 VD was a brand new car and folks like Rossella and Chuck Cecil were running pretty quick in their 96s. At that time the SEDIV made the cutoff 1991.
As years went by the 93 - 95 VDs were moved into the class for the ARRC; they being a good match to the 87 - 90 Reynards. But, by then there was no longer a CFC class in SEDIV.

[CJD]

Thanks Frog for clearing that up.

[formulasuper]

Hi Scott,
Interesting with rocker rears mine had pushrods front and rear, did you have to modify the rear Reynard casting to take the rockers? Also what year rockers did you use? I bought my car from Dwight Mathieson out of Los Gatos in 1990 I was the third owner first owner was Brooks Racing with Jon Beekhuis as the driver. Jon Modified the car and ran the F2000 uprights on the car (larger bearings dual angular contact bearings) same bearings used in the spindle of DeVlieg Jig bore. Before I became a software engineer I was a CNC electronic specialist for precision machining at Boeing hence my knowledge of the bearing application.

My 85' had already been modified when I got it. I believe it used 94' rear rocker arms, don't remember any details about the uprights. Long time ago.