There's a proposal for a big shake up in the stock classes. See: http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...april-solo.pdf

The new category will be called "Street" rather than "Stock", the main changes are:

1. Street tires only, 140+ treadwear next year, 200+ from 2015 on.

2. No remote reservoirs for shocks (unless they're OEM).

3. Wheels +/-1" allowed. (But must be the same width.)

4. Camber plates allowed. (On strut cars like MINIs.)

5. Both front and rear sway bars changeable

6. Traction control, stability control, and TPMS can be disabled. (There's no restriction on how.)

Also all cars will be reclassified, with the possibility of adjustments again at the end of the year. This they could move around cars that currently dominate their class (like the JustaCooper in HS). I don't know if there's a class they could convincingly move it to though.

The wheel rules would allow 15x6.5 for HS (standard 16" less an inch). Which would make wider tires more convincing on 15" wheels. On later model years where 17" wheels were an option, you could use 16x7 (17" less an inch).

The camber allowance will be very helpful for tire wear.

Stange how all the new high performance street tires announced recently (BFG rivals, Z-II, RE-11A) are all 200 tread wear.

 

Great post - good observations, and interesting point on the tire treadwear lol..

 

Something else I just noticed:

This section is specifically crossed out under section 13.10 of the Street class - does this mean this is no longer a restriction? AKA we can run a LSD?

 

They also took out the sections about balancing and port matching. Those deletions don't make any difference. The rules say what you can do, anything not specifically allowed is not allowed.

This is actually spelled out as the first sentence of 13.1:

The sections which specifically disallowed things were basically superfluous. I'd guess they'd been added as clarifications.

 

Interesting about the tires. I know the stock tires that came on my MINI had a rating of 140, even stock...let alone a "street" car.

 

gotcha

 

We have been looking at this on some of the SCCA forums and many agree that the shocks should keep the remotes. It is not a real saving when you are forced to use more complicated adjustable shocks in place of ones with remotes. It looks like shocks are the biggest controversy.

I would like to just use update or other trim package OEM wheel sizes so you could go wider as you go larger dia.

Some folks like the bars and others don't care as much.

The tires are popular but I don't know if 140 then 200 is a good idea. Just pick one.

 

Which tires were those? I've only ever seen 280s on new MINIs with performance tires.

They'll be legal for local competition, but wouldn't be allowed in nationals. There are most likely better 200TW tires than those though.

 

Looks like the JustaCooper may get to continue its dominance, the Powers that Be already considered moving the MINI to a different class. From last month's fast track:

 

How's all this changing people's plans?

I had been planning on running in the street tire (local) class next year. Now I'm not even sure there will be a street tire class. A local guy had been trying to persuade me to move to HS, no one had been running r-comps in HS anyway. With the changes I'll probably just run in the H Street class. I've been running in the Novice class for this season, where only street tires are allowed.

I'm going to have to find a different tire. I've been running Bridgestone RE-11s., which are 180TW. Bridgestone have come up with the RE-11A with a 200TW (and are supposedly even grippier). Currently its not available in many sizes (including the ones I want). Some tires testing was going to be part of my development, now I just have some more to do.

The wheel rules give more options. I have the 16x6.5 SSR Type-C, I hadn't been planning on doing anything but run those. Now I'd have the option of going to 15x6.5, and possibly the option of 16x7 as well. We'd have to buy a new MINI to have the option for 16x7. A new MINI was already a possibility, its just on hold at the moment due to other uncertainties. 16x7 being legal would be a good thing, because I'm not totally sure the wheels are 16x6.5, they seem nearer to 16x7 when I measure them. I ordered them as 16x6.5, but mistakes could be made.

A 15x6.5 wheel would open up the tire choice a lot. 205/50-15 seems to be a very popular size, and all the good tires are made in that size (as well as a host of R-comps). There's also 225/45-15 which has a few options, which is both wide and short. In 16" there's a good crop of 205/50-16 tires, but I was looking for something short. The only alternative is 225/45-16 or 225/50-16 both of which are a bit taller than I was wanting.

Shock tuning was on the agenda for this year anyway, I wasn't planning on remote reservoir shocks. I was hoping to keep it simple, I'd be happy to find a shock which is right and doesn't have any adjustment.

I didn't know what I was going to do about sway bars, that was another topic to be decided later. Now the decision has become more complicated.

The camber is going to help a lot. By my current measured wear rate, I wasn't sure the tires were going to last the season. I'm projecting to have worn the shoulder of the tire right off after 12 events (9 to go), which is as long as the current season is. The rest of the tire could go 30 events, and the inner shoulder could go over 100, its hardly being used at all. The camber rules will make running costs much cheaper, extend the life of the tire almost 3x. It should also give a performance gain if I get more of the tire involved in cornering.

To prepare for the camber rules, I'm thinking of fitting camber plates after the season is over (August) and running the slush (winter) series in STF in preparation for next year.

If we do get a new MINI, which will have DTC and find we don't like the EDLC diff lock, we may now be able to disable it. Gives us options.

 

Not changing my plans for 2013 of course - looking forward to a year of H Stock and some serious puffing on that purple HoHo crack pipe...

Next year? Either more Hoosiers, or camber plates - depending on which way the debate goes. Everything else will stay the same.

The only tempting thing for me if the Street rules come in to play in 2014 would be to see if I could go wider than 6.5" rims.

It's STX without the coil-overs and without the ECU tune.

Not even a worry!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Local street tire classes should be pointless next year.

If I were a betting man I'd say the Rival in the 225/45/15 on a 15x6.5 (Enkei makes these, but I don't think the offset is right, can't wait to buy custom wheels!) will be the hot setup. I'd would die laughing if a shaved Rival ended up being the ticket, then we're practically back where we started with the A6!

The remote reservoir ban is stupid and I hope it doesn't go through. Double adjustables are a huge step up in price from Koni Sports or similar regardless of whether they have them or not. Either ban external adjustment (still gonna be spending $$ on custom valving), or just let us have everything.

I really hope this doesn't go through, keep it at 1. People will go nuts with custom 2" bars that will make the car completely unstreetable.

I'm happy for camber, but only because its not going to change much in HS. This could really shake up other classes.

This is opening Pandora's box. Worst idea on the list. Once you let people start digging around in the computer, only bad things will result. Save that stuff for ST.

Street tires in stock have been in the tea leaves for 2 years now and while the Hoosiers are tons of fun, I'm not going to miss their effect on my wallet. I think some of the other proposed changes are too much. Ditch the 2 bars, only allow the +/- 1 on <15 and >19 wheel sizes, and keep the current swaybar rules. I actually wouldn't even be upset if they took back the camber too, its way less of an issue on street tires.

I still have at least a year left (realistically 2) in HS since there is no way any S2000 I buy next winter will be ready for STR by spring. No changes for this season other than trying to wind down the Hoosier stockpile and tuning the new doubles on the back. This winter, add camber plates, put the tiny front bar back in (ugh), find some legal 15x6.5s, buy a set of Rivals.

 

Enkei make an RPF1 in 15x6.5 at 9.7lb. RPF1 is what we have for 17" wheels for our JCW, they're pretty nice. But its offset 41, so 1mm too much.

An alternate would be SSR Type-C again, there's a 15x6.5 offset 43 you can get at 9.3lb. I've seen them for sale at $355 each, not cheap.

Not sure what you mean by "back to where we started".

 

My +1s

But the price would be lower.

Agreed

Agreed however this could be complicated for some cars with stock springs and stock spring hats.

Well put

16s are an issue to a small degree. 13 and 14 need Rs or they need 15s. 15 and 17 are great.

 

The new category will be called "Street" rather than "Stock", the main changes are:
Like the name, because even Stock right now is no where near stock

1. Street tires only, 140+ treadwear next year, 200+ from 2015 on.
Like this also, as the Fed DOT has cracked down on the UTGG between manufacturers to create a more consistent testing criteria to allow consumers to select tires based on the UTGG rating. Also eliminates the "ringer tire"

2. No remote reservoirs for shocks (unless they're OEM).
I agree with this mostly, but if you already spent the money on them, there is NO cost savings getting them converted to non canisters. And the entire idea behind the proposal was to keep costs down. So I think you have to allow them for some cars that can't fit a quality OTS and still have a double adjustment. (I.e. in theory if you could drill a hole in the rear upper wheel well for the MINI, you'd want to run a canister to get a rebound adjuster where you could reach it and not have to remove the shock for access. Also if you did make canisters illegal, what do you do with holes? Plastic plugs or allow people to have them welded (increased cost) and then pick another . Although I've owned cars that could benefit from a triple shock, never even gave a thought to plunking down $5 grand for a good set.

3. Wheels +/-1" allowed. (But must be the same width.)
I always liked the thought of this, allows a plus one which is the most common modification (and usually the first thing ) most enthusiasts do to their street cars anyway. On some cars the minus one could result in several hundred dollars in savings on purchasing tires for the car ( whence you get up in the 18,19,20 inch fitments

4. Camber plates allowed. (On strut cars like MINIs.)
Love it anyway you slice it, but in theory not as written. Should read " Any single non factory camber device can be installed. This includes camber plates, bolts ( up to 4 ), offset ball joints, offset bushings(1 per side , upper or lower), or adjustable lower control arms ( 1 per side) when the ball joint is not a standard serviceable item on its own. The removal of material to destroy an upper strut tower by slotting it should NOT be allowed as any of the items listed above would perform the same job, but be complete reversible if/when the car was sold. Also the repair if done wrong or vehicle returned to "stock" would make the car illegal as the current rules are written. You'd have to cut the entire strut tower out to make it whole again.

5. Both front and rear sway bars changeable
As with stock rules now, pick 1 not both. This will discourage the use of tree trunk bars to gain spring rate front and rear. The poor 12 or 14mm frame mount bolts can't handle the strain and when they pull out, the repair would make the car illegal

6. Traction control, stability control, and TPMS can be disabled. (There's no restriction on how.)
I honestly don't know how you'd be able to defeat these on certain cars without a button or switch. If you remove the DSC fuse on some cars, it won't start.

Also all cars will be reclassified, with the possibility of adjustments again at the end of the year. This they could move around cars that currently dominate their class (like the JustaCooper in HS). I don't know if there's a class they could convincingly move it to though.

The wheel rules would allow 15x6.5 for HS (standard 16" less an inch). Which would make wider tires more convincing on 15" wheels. On later model years where 17" wheels were an option, you could use 16x7 (17" less an inch).

The camber allowance will be very helpful for tire wear.

Stange how all the new high performance street tires announced recently (BFG rivals, Z-II, RE-11A) are all 200 tread wear.

I don't think the 200 wear item was a coincidence. Hoosier is probably not happy with the proposals, but all the other race rubber suppliers are not worried at al since they have multiple tires that met this criteria for every car. The fun will be finding "THE tire" for "that car".

The rest of the items are usual yearly items. Cars get moved around and tire models come and go. As for the wheel item, I like being able to go a plus or minus, but remember pinching a street tire on a narrow rim is nothing like the feel of pinching a race tire on a narrow rim. The grip wont be there and all you'll get is squirm and vague input feel. 205/50/15 on a 6.5 inch rim is just about a perfect combination as putting a 225 on that same wheel would give a lot of squish before any directional change as the tire finds its shoulder squaring with the rim edge. Street tire sidewalks just aren't stiff enough to resist this. ( and some race tires also)

As for my plans. I already have the strut tower mushrooming (about 3mm right now) so I plan on installing fixed camber plates to fix that (and the camber gain is a bonus). I was already running the RTF index in HS so the only other item would be to either stay with a 16" tire fitment or run a 15" variation. 15x6.5 (45 offset wheels) were a dime a dozen 10 years ado, can't find to many of them anymore...but I'm looking just to have them on hand "if " all this come to print next year.

-Jeff

 

I was wrong, it was 140 UTQG...

Bridgestone Potenza RE050A

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....n&autoModClar=

 

Bring on the Camber up front!

 

I'm going to write a letter to the SEB as any commentary on the forums is meaningless to them. However, I am more interested in seeing how the tire war turns out throughout the year as I'll be due for a set in 2014 after getting my ZI's at the start of 2012 (getting 2 seasons out of tires is not something you could ever do with a Hoo$ier).

I had fantastic success with the car last year despite being on OEM Sport shocks and springs (no JCW stuff). On several occasions, I was within .5 seconds of guys on Hoosiers; therefore, I am anxious to see if I can carry that momentum into 2013.

 

^ ahh now that I think about it, the wheel thing is going to be a big big impact - i.e., being able to run 15x6.5 instead of 15x5.5.. and i was so set on getting holies. maybe they'll flood the market next year and i'll get them anyway

 

Oops!

 

Right, but like mentioned above - the Mini also comes in 16x6.5, which you can then "downsize" to 15x6.5 - no?

 

I was thinking of another thing - I wonder if they would also allow camber bolts as an either/or to plates - it'd be much cheaper, and for people who just need a little more camber may not be worth it to get plates.

Similarly, I wonder, with their camber plate allowance, if they will allow people to turn the camber plates sideways to get caster.. I guess time will tell

 

Updates to it:

http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...k-may-solo.pdf

 

It may well turn out that the JCW suspension is not better than the sport suspension for the HS MINI when running street tires.

 

little things to point out from this:

they are keeping camber plates, which I still kind of prefer bolts, but they added in the provision to not change the track wheelbase - ie turn the plates sideways to add caster, so at least they caught that. they also took away the ability to do both front and rear sway bars, which is another good call IMO