I think we all knew the Zetec was the best choice currently but us lowly little regional guys didn't know to what extent. Even with all the info here on Apex we where shocked by how much faster the blueprinted Zetec was.
Scenario
Our regional group of FC's was 100% pinto last season we all generally chase Gcoffin as he has one of those monster pintos. Group of about 20-30 cars ish sadly never at one time but that's how many are rolling around out here.
Off season Zac.B buys a Zetec and so do I.
We roll up to our first race at Gcoffin's home track (Spokane) which is very much a HP track long straights not to many turns. We all run pretty much fully trimmed out wing wise only slight differences would be gearing. Which after checking was fairly close as well.
On Grid in Video
1. Zac.B 2002 VanDiemen Zetec (Blueprint)
2. Gcoffin 1999 Mygale Pinto (Big Pinto)
3. RSS 2004 Mygale Zetec (Crate Motor) - Camera car
Here is the video of Race 1 watch the first couple laps. This is Zac.B running 2.5sec slower than his fastest laps of the weekend while Greg runs about 0.5 sec off his fastest and i am about 0.2sec of my fastest laps.
http://youtu.be/KyWM9PFrBho
Now with a new car i didn't expect to beat Greg and i am within striking distance so pretty much where i wanted to be. Zac on the other hand brought a hand grenade to a knife fight by accident and pretty much nobody has a chance to catch him without a blueprinted zetec.
So how does this effect SCCA not at all as our group generally doesn't run SCCA other than this season due to the runoffs. But for anyone thinking of getting a zetec to run at the top of your regional group you may ended up all alone out front.