SCCA Weight Minimums

[Paddy O'Brien]

Paul, even though I do not agree with this rule change, I applaud you for for bringing it up for open discussion on this forum. I think that, hard to believe, the SCCA has done a good job of "equalizing" a wide varity of cars into a fairly workable class. Your weight change proposal would INCREASE the competitive advantage that the currently dominant Ralt 41,Swift 014 and 150 pound drivers already have. I would imagine that all of those guys should be for this proposal and all other cars or heavier drivers should be against this,right? The safety issue is kind of a smoke screen, after all, if the laws of physics were reversed and adding 30 pounds made you faster, I bet you are smart enough and competitive enough to find a way to mount the extra weight safely, (perhaps following some of Teds suggestions?) without ever bringing this up. If the extra weight really is a safety issue then I think we need to follow FIA guidelines and drop at least 110 kg off the weights(I want to be extra safe!). I think our favorite type of racecar has other more important issues to deal with at this time(like its exsistance!) I fear that this weight issue is going to divide our class and not help growth.

[Drivers Services]

Mark and others, the basic weight is ok it's the add on for FI, Sequential box that causes the problem. Why not junk the penalty weights then every one can run at the same weight.

Ted,


You realize if you junk the FI and Sequential penalty wieghts in effect your taking 25 lbs off injected cars, Mostly DB-4, Ralt RT 40's and Ralt RT41's. And your taking 50 lbs (FI and Sequential) off all of the 008's and 014's?



Jim Little
Drivers Services

[Paul LeCain]

Paddy,
You suggest that safety isn't my primary motivation here ("... safety issue is kind of a smoke screen..."). All I can do is assure you that it is.

As to the (I expect facetious) point that we should therefore follow the FIA and reduce the minumum by 55 kg, read my original post where I said "I'd go lower, but I don't think anyone would go for that."

Taking Ted's suggestions in order:

"How about make the valve cover to tub out of 2 inch thick steel."
Yipes! That would put a heavy chunk of flat steel plate just behind the driver's neck. In a rear crash that would make a very effective guillotine.

"How about a 1/4 inch full width and full length of the tub steel skid plate."
We already have an 1/8" plate just as described. I worry about it all the time. It's held by 10-32 screws and weighs 20-25 lb. Two things concern me. If you, during a race, scrape the heads off the screws, this thing can come loose or off or slip down in the front creating a fine vaulting pole. A 40-50 lb version of the same thing is, to me, just asking for trouble.

"How about a steel plate inserted under the fuel cell."
There is no way to put a flat, stiff anything under the fuel cell in these cars. To get the fuel cell out, you remove the foam, baffles, fuel pumps, whatever, squeeze it into as small a ball as possible and take it out though a small access hole in the cockpit bulkhead (the place where the fire bottle lives).

"Or hov about the Cosworth trick of making the oil pan out of cast bronze."
I suppose. I'll run down to my local cast-bronze store and have some made.

"Places can be found to mount balast out side of the cockpit even plates lamanated into the sidepods."
A sideways crash with something (barrier, other car) and we have 12" x 12" steel (tungsten, uranium) plates acting like heavy, sharp Frisbees flying through the air at 120 mph. Look out, corner workers. Even lead, while not sharp, will add considerable energy to whatever laminated panel material it's attached to.

"Bigger battery."
Done that. Also, when we ran FI, ran two batteries figuring that if we had to carry weight it might as well be somewhat useful weight. Still, What weight battery did the designer have in mind when he created the battery box? What will happen if your battery is too heavy for the box?

Having said all that, Paddy's right in assuming that I, like most others, will try to exploit the rules to my advantage whenever possible. This is not one of those times. The first thing that caught my attention on the FIA proposal was the safety part.

It's also true that I worry a lot about cars for which I am responsible. I don't apologize for that. It's one of the reasons why we very rarely have a mechanical DNF.

The SCCA has tried, as Paddy Says, to make older cars competitive with newer. To a large extent, equivalence is not possible. Newer designs and improved materials can create faster cars. That's the name of this game, isn't it?

I liked my RT-1, but it was slower than the RT-4 I had (overall; in a stright line it was faster). The RT-4 was slower than the DB-4. The DB-4 was slower than the RT-41, even though the DB-4, in club trim, with deeper sidepods, had more downforce.

Maybe it's naive of me to think that an across-the-board weight reduction keeps things the way they are with respect to equivalence. Can you build a 1200 lb (vs the current 1230) DB-4? I did when I had one.

The SCCA CRB will do something with this. I don't know what. I encourage everyone to have his say with them.

[Ted and Nancy]

Paul, if you are done pulling my chain lets get on with the discussion.
The weights are not excessive for the cars involved. Just look at the weights in CSR.
As to design weight that does not exist except as a general target. If you filled the cars with fuel they would exceed the "design weight". Crash testing, F1 is not crash tested with ballast in place. I have seen how it is done and know this from presonal observation. Fa cars are not crash tested by the builders, drivers may do this on there own.
In club racing the weight penalties are an attempt at competition adjustments for newer cars. 25lbs for sequential gear box is a joke in terms of lap times. 25 lbs for FI is no better than the gear box penalty. If you want to do anything remove these and race heads up. Dave Wilcocks DB4 seems to do ok.
Maybe the discussion on the DSR web would give some ideas. Weight penalty by driver skill and age would make as much sense as anything else.
So is the weight rule broken? I say no leave it alone.,

[P.W. LeCain]

Paul, if you are done pulling my chain lets get on with the discussion.
The weights are not excessive for the cars involved. Just look at the weights in CSR.
As to design weight that does not exist except as a general target. If you filled the cars with fuel they would exceed the "design weight". Crash testing, F1 is not crash tested with ballast in place. I have seen how it is done and know this from presonal observation. Fa cars are not crash tested by the builders, drivers may do this on there own.
In club racing the weight penalties are an attempt at competition adjustments for newer cars. 25lbs for sequential gear box is a joke in terms of lap times. 25 lbs for FI is no better than the gear box penalty. If you want to do anything remove these and race heads up. Dave Wilcocks DB4 seems to do ok.
Maybe the discussion on the DSR web would give some ideas. Weight penalty by driver skill and age would make as much sense as anything else.
So is the weight rule broken? I say no leave it alone.,

I don't think the lap times or competition parity is the point of the thread. It is safety. There isn't an engineer in the world that will tell you that adding 50-100 pounds by bolting deadweight somewhere is a safer alternative than to not having it at all. I personally don't feel that adding fuel as weight is a good idea. It impairs the cars handling. It is too high and moves around too much. Any weight added that does not contribute to strengthening the crash structure impairs safety. Formula One cars have added cavities molded into the composite monocoque under the driver. I guarantee you that F1 crash tests take a good look into how these ballast-cavities (as well as the rest of the tub) hold up in their tests.

I don't believe 25-50 pounds is a joke. Do you really think a 4% weight reduction is meaningless?

And, my father is far too gracious to say this but I hesitantly will, please don't preach to us about driving DB-4's against the newer faster cars. We probably had the fastest DB-4 in the country for a few years and beat every RT-40/41 we ran against save one, when we finished in second place 0.6 seconds behind one at the runoffs and the next year when we qualified less than a second behind Zacharias on the front row.

I think decent arguments can be made for and aginst a weight reduction. I enjoy the fact that we have a forum to discuss these issues. But physics is physics and we're not going to change it in here. Added dead weight may solve some competition issues. But it is more dangerous than not having it at all. You may be able to argue that the increased danger is insignificant and we would simply disagree. That is why I feel that the weights should be dropped for all FA cars. This, again, is about safety. Not gaining some unfair competitive edge.

[Dave Gomberg]

Let me briefly interrupt this discussion. If you write a letter/emai to the CRB, please do not reference the discussion here. In your letter, explain why you favor or oppose the proposal. (Just a word of advice.)

Dave

[Ted and Nancy]

Paul
The safety issue just does not fly. What is wrong with a sheet of steel properly bolted to the bottom of the tub? It adds weight low down in the car and adds strength to the tub. At least it did to our DB4 I measured it! I also used this on our RT4, RT1, March77b, and several Super V cars. Each benifited from the weight low in the chassis. One of the DSR's that I built used a 1.25 4130 belly pan rivited and bonded to the bottom of the frame.
Nancy and I have raced long enough 30+ years, that we have dealt with the ballast issue in formula and sports racers from the mid 70's. So make a factual argument on the weight, not I been here so long that I know every thing and it isn't safe.

[Mark Ishikawa]

Ted & Nancy,

The honest truth about the addition of the weight to my car is I have no idea how to secure the weight safely. We have #40 of lead bolted through the tub with a 1/2" AN bolt with a backing plate through the tub. In the event of a hard impact I don;t really know if that plate will stay fastened to th tub. There are no hard mounting points designed for the addition of lead, so I'm hoping the the carbon/honeycomb/carbon sandwich with no hard mounting point will not tear out of the tub.

Mark

[Ted and Nancy]

Mark
I am sure that Mrs Benner or Clayton would have some better ideas, if not call me 510-793-8793. The problem is not he size of the fastners but the softness of the lead. I am sure that you have seen that overtightening the fastners deforms the lead. You will also find that normal racing forces cause the lead to squish and the bolts become loose.

[RussMcB]

The weights are not excessive for the cars involved. Just look at the weights in CSR.

Different class, apples to oranges. Sure, some people have converted FA chassis to run in CSR, but that doesn't support an argument that CSR weights are as safe as lower FA weights.

The problem is not he size of the fastners but the softness of the lead. I am sure that you have seen that overtightening the fastners deforms the lead. You will also find that normal racing forces cause the lead to squish and the bolts become loose.

Hmm. Sounds like a good argument to support Paul's proposal.

[Ted and Nancy]

my question is why is he using lead. Seems like one of the laws of building race cars is "if it there it should imporve preformance". Dead weight seems like a waste of time, how about adding weight with better roll hoops, wheel teathers, tub stiffining, driver compartment intrusion improvements. Just taking the worst material and bolt in the worst place seems like a wast of time.
So if the converted CSR's are beyond design limits should we not see failures that indicate problems. I still think that a case is trying to be made that ballast is unsafe, when the problem is poor installations.

[John B]

I am opposed to decreasing the minimum weights.

I run a RT40/41 without ballast and am usually just 10lbs over. Granted, I weigh 230 lbs but I enjoy NOT running at a 50 lb weight penalty just because of my own weight as I did in S2000 for 10 years.
I think keeping the weights where they are essentially equalizes the track weights of the cars with drivers aboard thus promoting better competition.

[RussMcB]

This past weekend I raced my Swift DB-4 injected Toyota, finished the race with 3.5 gallons of fuel and was right at the min weight (1255 lb.). I weigh 170 lb. I don't have any ballast in my car to remove. If the minimum weight was lowered I don't think I would be able to meet it. I'm not sure how I could lighten the car, except maybe CF bodywork. Therefore, I would not be for a reduction in minimum weight (for selfish reasons).

[Paul LeCain]

Russ,

You are carrying ballast. It's just in the form of fuel. 3.5 gallons is about 21 lbs.

[RussMcB]

That's true.

I went back to the beginning of this thread and saw that you proposed a 25-30 lb. reduction across the board. For some reason I thought it was for 50 lb.

I'll always want to finish with at least one extra gallon of gas, so I could weigh 14 lb. less than I do now, I suppose. I'll probably want to add a radio to my car soon, which will add a little more. So, I'd still have a difficult time getting down to the minimum if it was 1225-1230 lb.

Since I'm just racing for fun at the regional level, I wouldn't put up a fight against a weight reduction. I wouldn't be thrilled, though, since it would not benefit me but could help my competitors.

[Rennie Clayton]

Lots of interesting discussion here, I suppose that as an Atlantic alum one might suspect that I have an opinion on the matter... and I do! But let me lay the groundwork first...

Some of you already know this, but in Atlantics I drive an RT-41. It has carburettors (for which I spent a considerable sum in the fall of 2001 with the intention of saving 50lbs of weight penalty, subsequently chopped to 25lbs), and therefore runs at 1255lbs minimum weight, being a carbon tub and all. The sidepods and tunnels are all second hand with dubious repair work completed on them. They are quite heavy - about 15lbs heavy, all told. Our engine cover is fiberglass, and is also quite heavy - about 5lbs heavy. I run with a radio and video camera on board - call it 5lbs. We also run unlightened CV's, granted there's not a huge weight penalty there. Our nose cones came from a Pro team whose drivers apparently used them as battering rams. For reasons best known only to them, the noses are lined with 1/2" of Bondo as a core material (no, I'm not kidding), and are quite heavy - about 10lbs heavy apiece. The first time I picked up a nose assembly that was sitting at Jacek Mucha's paddock at the Runoffs, I nearly threw it over my shoulder.

The rest of the car, well, pretty much standard: paint is paint, gearbox is gearbox, engine is engine, radiator is radiator, fuel cell is fuel cell, etc. is etc., weight-wise. Like most of the establishment, we used stainless skid plates for a long time before stumbling upon a material with superior abrasion resistance and which allows more advantageous aerodynamic setups. Plus we no longer have to worry about grinding the heads off countersunk screws in the stainless skidplates and extracting the damn things after every weekend. Good riddance.

Therefore, I'm carrying about about 30lbs of superfluous craptasticness around, just for the hell of it. Hooray for me, right? I could drop that extra weight with a single phone call to Alex Wolford or Ian Algie for a new set of bodywork, so stop whining you say? But I already have to install 45lbs of ballast into a car which was not designed to accommodate ballast to make bare-ass minimum weight as it is!

Granted, I'm one of those 140lb drivers that everybody hates (all up, including driving suit, helmet and wheel barrow), but even so - a guy at the SCCA "average driver" weight of 170lbs would still have to add 15lbs of ballast to make minimum in my heavy car. Get new bodywork, and we're right back at 45lbs of ballast for that "average" driver weight to make 1255lbs.

So I guess I could have summed it up thusly and spared everybody the diatribe: Hooray for a 25-30lb weight reduction!

Cheers,
Rennie "Of course the skinny guy wants the minimum weight reduced" Clayton