FF or FSCCA??

[Tom Mihelich]

Hello everyone,

Well, I have come to a cross road as to which way to go. FF Van Diemen or SCCA Formula Car. I have been running FV for the past 7 years and was given the opportunity to drive an FF this year. What a hoot Well, the speed bug has bitten real hard and a choice needs to be made.
I would really like to hear from a few of you as to what you think about the new FSCCA car thus far. The one thing that I am concerned about is when will it get it's own class. 1 year 2 years?
Please give me your opinions both good and bad to help me make a somewhat intelligent choice.

Thanks,
Tom Mihelich

[Phulkrum]

"Somewhat of an intelligent choice", it's obviously too late for that.

FF's a great class but if you've been running vees for six years you'll probably be looking to move up beyond FF shortly. FSCCA, as reasonably priced as it is, will be considerably more expensive than FF for the simple reason of car and price availability. A nationally competitive FF will cost half a FSCCA, a nationally competitive FC will cost 80% of an FSCCA.

Good luck

Scott Brickey

[RacerJohn]

That's true, but in two years "todays" competitive FF and FC will both be out dated and will have lost a great amount of value. Where as the spec racer, theoretically should not.

[Tom Mihelich]

Scott,

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure where you are coming from with the comment on a national FF being half the price of an FSCCA. I have been looking into it and a top national Van Diemen roller is going for around $26,000. Add a $10,000 top engine and gears and I'm already $10,000 over the FSCCA car. That's alot of wing spares. A new Van Diemen is $28,200 right now no shocks or rims. It puts a new one around $43,000 with everything. Am I missing something?

Tom

[Tom Dalrymple]

If you have a great year of racing a FF you will probably spend $3-5000 on engine rebuilding. The engines in the FSCCA should run competetively for several seasons. When rebuild time comes around, it should be substantially less than that of a FF.
With any FF you need to carry a bunch of spares, and it will seem like you never have what you need. With FSCCA your CSR will have enough parts to build a couple of cars. The parts costs may be a bit higher but not having to carry any spares is a great savings.
With any luck, you should be able to run competitively for more than one race weekend on a set of tires with FSCCA. With FF you need to plan on a new set for each competitive weekend.
The FSCCA is a growing class that will be supported by the SCCA, FF is suffering from decline.
The buy in cost for the FSCCA will be more than that of a good used FF, but with the cost for the FSCCA increasing, and the old cars being exactly like the new ones, you shouldn't lose money when you decide to sell it.
I've raced FF for 20 years, and SRF for 10. With the FF I never considered running an engine more than one season, and rarely made a whole season on one engine. With SRF I rented the car for 4 years, and then won the division with the car in 2000 when the engine had 67 weekends and two enduros. That is not an uncommon story. The combination of modern design, tight clearances, relatively low RPM's and fuel injection do wonders for engine life. FSCCA should have a similar engine life.

[Phulkrum]

I'm one of these Spec guys that came from FC and FC, so I understand all the long term financial costs. A new VD FF will certainly put you back (although someone told me they stopped building the VD in FF configuration) but there are plenty of older Swifts and others that can be had for considerably less that are still Nationally competitive. Parts will certainly be cheaper on a FF since there are plenty of used parts and multiple manufactureres still around. Engine builds are certainly a factor as well as chasing the "latest greatest" but I believe that in FF (unlike FC) the technology has "stabilized" and there aren't many new gizmo's to make you faster. It's still a old Swift design that has won a number of recent National Championships. FF's have seem to hit "the bottom" as far as resale goes, so I don't think you'll be too bad off as long as you shop wisely. If you have a bad incident, the FF will certainly be cheaper to fix or walk away from.

But for the future of open wheel club racing, the FSCCA is definetely the way to go, for all the previously posted reasons.

Scott Brickey

[Justin_H]

Tom,

I came from FV and here's what I think about the differences from FV to Formula SCCA:
Minus:
Crash damage cost is 4-10 times what crashing an FV would cost.
You can't fabricate much to reduce that cost.
Loading/unloading the trailer is a PITA with 1" of ground clearance. So is entering or leaving my garage. I need to fabricate some transport wheels.
Re-entering the track requires much more care with 1" of ground clearance.
Doesn't ride a smooth as a Vee, and vibrates more.

Plus:
SPEED!
No brake adjustments
No valve adjustments
SPEED!
Easy to find 2nd gear.
Has a 5th gear. You need it.
SPEED!
Engines should last a long time
SPEED!
Looks like a real racecar
And don't forget SPEED!

I didn't seriously consider a Ford- the jump in speed from a Vee is too small. But these Formula SCCA cars are seriously quick, and easy to drive. My first timed lap at VIR was faster than the FF track record, and my second session ever in the car I went a few seconds faster than the FF track record at Summit Point. With the rear wings as steep as they would go. Did I mention it's fast?

Justin Huffman

[Tom Mihelich]

Thanks for the imput guys.
I took a nice 3 day vacation at Niagra Falls this past week and as I stared at he water going over the falls ( with great speed ) I decided to go for the FSCCA car. I am going to start the ordering process tommorrow.
I hope you guy's are ready for another Vee convert.

-Tom

[D.T. Benner]

Justin-I found a cure for that PITA problem with low ground clearance. Best of all it only cost me $200. If you call me I can tell you faster than i can post it. Darrell 510-742-8846 [pacific time]