Sebring Race Groupings

[teamwisconsin]

You are making an assumption that mixing FVs with OW cars that are 50mph faster, is safer than mixing with other non-OW classes. I don't believe mixing stock Fiat 850s with GT1 cars is safe either. With good conscience, we need to protect some of our slower classes, even if it messes up our "nice race groups".

From my view of this discussion, Greg is making excellent points from the POV of a Vee driver. I think FF and FC drivers (when they haven’t driven a FV) lump themselves in with the Vee guys as “the slower OW classes”, which if you go merely by lap time they are. But driving a Vee isn’t like driving a FF or an FC. Those classes are low powered, Vee’s by comparison are no-powered. A well driven/well setup Vee is incredibly capable thru the middle of a corner. Unless you’ve driven one you really can’t believe it, because they are so slow on the straights and whatever their min speed for the corner is what they have for about 50/60 yards down the road. FF’s and FC’s are shifter karts by comparison to a Vee. I would personally rather race a FF in the FA group than have an FC in the FV group. And I say that as someone who has driven all of the open wheel classes.

In San Francisco Region, when FC class was moved to the small OW group for regionals (around 2008/9) it killed FV. Killed it. What was a thriving class with a furiously competitive regional group of 15-20 regular competitors, has since then struggled to get more than 3 cars at a regional. FC by comparison has thrived locally in the past 10-12 years.

[DaveW]

I've driven FV, FF, and FC, and what Ethan said is absolutely the case. Lap times in a Vee are hugely dependent on minimum mid-corner speed, and that minimum speed, because of the minimal power and resultant orientation of the force vector at the rear tire contact patch at full power (aimed almost exactly at the center of the turn), is very high compared to top speed. This also means that if a Vee driver lifts in the middle of a corner (rotating the force vector away from turn center), he's going to have an interesting moment catching the rear before it spins.

That is why Vee driving skills transfer well to other types of racecars - Vees teach you how to never scrub corner speed because it takes forever to gain it back.

[Purple Frog]

To stir the pot more....

It should be pointed out that the above poster (DaveW), a 7 time SCCA national champion, has not raced in SCCA club events for like 15 years, instead he has continued to race in an environment of single class open wheel racing. He made that decision, which I am sure was most difficult, because of the types of situations we saw at Sebring. Unfortunately that type of racing is not available west of the Eastern Continental Divide.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Steve Davis]

To stir the pot more....

It should be pointed out that the above poster (DaveW), a 7 time SCCA national champion, has not raced in SCCA club events for like 15 years, instead he has continued to race in an environment of single class open wheel racing. He made that decision, which I am sure was most difficult, because of the types of situations we saw at Sebring. Unfortunately that type of racing is not available west of the Eastern Continental Divide.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

AND .. to stir it even MORE.... we MIGHT find the vee drivers forming their OWN group - outside of SCCA and inside .. FRP? (think FRCCA?) It doesn't seem to have worked very well for FRCCA but the MORE groups any sanctioning body has to consider accommodating, the more they're going to get like SCCA. WOW.. Now I'm beginning to get even more nervous about this grouping stuff.

Maybe the Vees will just have to move to the VINTAGE groups where a LOT of them already are... I truly HATE the thought of running with closed wheel cars.. but I'm guessing that it would be a LOT safer for me to run with cars with similar top speeds to mine .. which would put ME in WAY more control of the 'situations' than I am now with +40 MPH WINGS in my group.

BTW... someone posted 'FC is WAY more faster than vee in the corners' (paraphrased).. When I raced FC (late 80s early 90s), I checked my slowest speed in the BRIDGE TURN (most of you know what that was) and found my Vee to be onlyTWO MILES AN HOUR slower than my FC .. of course the 'approach to' and the 'exit from' were considerably MORE DIFFERENT. Things are probably a lot different now, since FC (and every other class in SCCA) is generally WAY faster than it used to be .. EXCEPT for FV) - we still run the same engine, suspension, tire size that we had back in the 70s.
Steve, FV80

[Matt Clark]

AND .. to stir it even MORE.... we MIGHT find the vee drivers forming their OWN group - outside of SCCA and inside .. FRP? (think FRCCA?)

I think there may already be some people who took on the CHALLENGE to have a championship CUP for us within that SERIES.

[brian styczynski]

https://youtu.be/Fc36Hn_hd6I

There is a run down of incident and lost lap data from some of last year's super tours, but not including sebring, put out yesterday. I thought it may be interesting to some watching this thread