The SCCA STAC (street touring advisory committee) has proposed making STH which stands for Street Touring Hot Hatch class for turbo hatchback cars. This, in my opinion, would place the Mini Cooper S as the leading car in the class. This is an excellent opportunity for us to ensure the Mini has a place to play for quite some time in the ST SCCA category. STH will be pretty much the same as STX with the exception that it will be an unlimited boost class. Write your letters now!!! I'll post a link in a bit.....

 

I'd like to see this happen. However it leave us non S guys with a very uncompetitive ST class. Huge underdogs for sure

 

Craig is too fast and ruined it for us all. Guess he'll have to fit 285s on 11s on his car next year.

https://dk1xgl0d43mu1.cloudfront.net...pdf?1495549751

 

OasisT is craig right?

I think oasist needs to give us some setup tips, I have a new WRX giving me fits, I was beating him then he got re71 and started beating me by a second.

I suspect he got a tune too, he's now putting down the fastest ST times, even beating the s2000's and our courses favor those

 

I guess SCCA decided to punish the Mini. Even tho STH would be the perfect class for it.

Do you know if that's final? Should we try petitioning that change?

 

Sent my letter in. Here is link if anyone else wants to https://www.crbscca.com/?page=submitLetter


Please leave the Mini Cooper S in the class that was designed to house Hot Hatches with a turbo. The only logical reason a Mini owner can find as to why SCCA is moving it to STU is to have it be slaugtered and rendered thoroughly uncompetitive in the ST class. If a Mini must be moved to STU, it should only be the GP or at most the JCW. Not just the plain S.

It fits the description of Street Touring Hot Hatch perfectly and will be competitive with other cars that Road & Track, Car & Driver and the like have compared it to in tests. These would be the Fiesta ST (which is lighter and can make about as much power), the MazdaSpeed 3 and Golf GTI.

Thank you for your consideration.

 

Just as kind of a follow up on this, I don't know if anyone noticed but Craig got 2nd in STX in Lincoln this year. More interestingly, his times were good enough for 4th in STU.

Open ECU is coming down the pipe, so there will be more power on the table in 2018. Also he could run 15x10s with the Rivals if he wanted. If he chooses to run STU, he's not going to go any slower.

With that, I'm currently looking at 15x9s and coilover sets and daydreaming of running STU next year. Not sure if it's worth abandoning a perfectly competitive DS car, but hey, it's silly season.

 

It'll be interesting to see what Solo Spec Coupe does to the class. 2/3rds drive the Toyoburu and may consider stepping down I suppose.

 

have they put ou tthe solo spec coupe PAX yet?

putting the mini's in a 15x10 wheel class is stupid, I quickly got into autocross and just as quickly lost interest

 

SSC PAX should be released with the rest of the numbers, usually it's mid-late November. I'll fathom a guess right around 0.812.

I don't know if you saw my post, but Craig would've been very competitive in STU on 15x9s and factory boost. Technically in STU on 2wd cars you can use up to 11" wide wheels and 285s. Not gonna happen on a Mini though. Note that the cars on 285s also weigh 700lb more than a Mini, so 245s on a 9" is still favorable.

I'd also like to note that historically, the R50 & R53 were favorably classed in HS & GS/DS, the R56 base has been competitive in HS continuing to today, the R56 S is still plenty competitive in DS, The R56 S *won* STX last year and got 2nd this year. I still think one could do well in STU, course dependent. I think a full tilt GP clone build could float very well in DSP.

Nobody has really run an F56 yet so we don't know if they're fast.

There are TONS of places where Minis are competitive. They're real good AX cars. No reason to get all grumpy and whine about disadvantages. Go out there and drive fast.

 

My mini stays in stx but I've already switched to hpde, one ax left and I wrap up stx first place for the season

 

Also I am going to be grumpy about sth I only autocross to compete with my coworker and he got moved there

 

Sounds like you should codrive with each other and alternate which car you bring.

 

No interest in that I'm pushing him to do more track days with me instead

 

Well, looks like the MCS is staying in STX for 2018, not going to STU. Crank up that boost and crush some Twins.

 

Where did you see that? I thought stx was not open boost only sth

 

Direct from an SEB member, didn't make print on the FastTrack that just came out.

 

If they let r56 go open boost they should let r53 go open pulley, smf is a dead class just a hand full of ancient civics now

 

I guess it's not really open boost so much as it's open ECU. One is impossible to police, which is what started this mess. Especially since modern turbo cars run to torque targets instead of boost targets.

Hardware changes are much easier to uphold a protest.

I guess EVOs gain nothing with open ECU,. STis gain almost nothing, but VWs/Audis can blow their clutches out with just tunes.

Curious to see how STH shakes out. My guess is the lightest awd VAG product ends up being quickest, and Mini goes to STH next year.

 

and crxs. If you ever driven an ef platform, you'll understand why they're fast. Lightweight and little power. The minis if anything handle similar to them but heavier. If I were to build an smf mini, I'd start with an r50/r53 and put in an f56 s motor with a supercharger and start from there.

 

The sti wrx tune turns them into animals, all under the curve gains really bumps them up without increasing peak psi same thing with the focus rs. And now they get to increase peak psi too those tunes will be even better and they are just stage tunes, a little Dyno time and they are even better

 

NASA does Solo X, which I believe is points based classing. Seems like it's kinda like communism: looks good on paper but in practice doesn't work.

Seems like a lot of your complaints are "me" and "my car" complaints. Most local regions have a "street tire anything goes" class of some sort for people who aren't interested in building a car specifically for SCCA, but still like to bring their hobby car out to play. Does your local region have one? If not, I bet you can campaign for one. You aren't the only person out there that just wants to bolt on whatever, that's why CAM has been so popular with the 'murrica crowd.

Keep in mind us srs bzns weirdos didn't write rules to fit our cars, we bought cars that were competitive to the rules. Why the heck else would I have owned 2 rx8s? Those cars are dumb.

 

not really "me" or "my car" I've switched cars 4 times in the past 2 years and have run mini's, bmw's, FS, STX, SMF all this year. it's just stupid how they pick and choose rules, effectively they are opening boost for some cars but not all. SMF the minimum weight is so low if turn out keeps dropping at the nationals it wont even exist, why would any vw or mini show up?

cam is very cool, it's really getting more popular here and so is nasa road racing. It really put a dent in SCCA roadracing and some of my hpde (scca w2w) instructors have been very very bitter about it, but for solo it's scca or nothing.

 

It's important to note the change is NOT open boost, it's open ECU. Back when you could hook up a peak hold boost gauge to check if things were legal it was easy. Turbos are computer controlled now, and that's harder to police. My DS car will peak boost anywhere between 10psi and 18psi depending on weather, engine temp, fuel quality, etc. Due to the difficulty of policing ST tunes, the rule change was inevitable.

 

have you seen WRX STU/STX legal wrx dyno plots?

nobody can look me in the face and say open ecu is different than open boost, it's the same thing now with these modern cars