Ex Fran-Am 2000's Classified in FA

[Stan Clayton]

See page 16 (F-56) of the Feb Fastrack Addendum on SCCA's website.

[Paul LeCain]

So much for 5 forward speeds.

[KevinFirlein]

relatively minor. Having tested one of the 1st cars imported to the states i can say for sure these cars while interesting are basically dogs. Frankly dont belong in FA; as they are no where near quick enough, but not going to loose much sleep over it.

An F3 car is far more attractive to race in the class and noone races them. I doubt there will be many guys lining up for a beating driving a fran am car.

Kevin

[Stan Clayton]

Paul, the 5-speed mold was broken when the Club classified the Pro Mazda in FA. Nothing to do with the Ex Fran-Am cars.

Kevin, while the cars are underpowered compared to a traditional FA, I wouldn't too quick to assume their owners won't be interested in running them in FA. I am told that Tatuus has sold several of their new SCCA-compliant roll hoops. Besides, there are some 50 of these cars gathering dust here in the States, basically with nowhere to run until now, so I wouldn't be surprised to see more than a few show up at an SCCA race near you.

Regards, Stan

[Paul LeCain]

Stan, You're right. I forgot about the Mazda. We've only seen a few of them.

[bill gillespie]

stan, paul, et al,

soooo....if the pro mazda is ok with the hewland ftr 6 spd, how about we retro the rt41 with an ftr.....eliminate the staffs weak link, and have gearbox parity with the mazda and the csr cars.....maybe time for a re-think on the 5 spd rule.

regards,
bill

[KevinFirlein]

both the mazda and fran am car are classed as a spec car within FA. I see no reason to open up the rules and allow basically any gearbox in any car. the staffs is hardly a weak link ( with no standing starts) and can easily go 4k miles between rebuilds.

Kevin

[Paul LeCain]

The rules don't say you have to use the Staff's gearbox. You can use any box you want, as long as it has only 5 forward speeds.

It can be standard h-pattern shifting or sequential, again with 5 speeds.

I agree with Kevin, though, that the Staff's is not necessarily a weak link. It's fairly highly stressed, but as long as you use Hewland gears and set the thing up (forks and pinion depth) correctly, it doesn't give many problems.

[D.T. Benner]

Adapting an FTR to a Ralt would cost about as much as the car is worth!

[bill gillespie]

it has already been done....at considerably less cost.

[D.T. Benner]

correct me if I'm wrong but I was told a new FTG was $20.000"?

[Paul LeCain]

An FTR is 4950 British Pounds w/Powerflo diff.

[Thom]

relatively minor. Having tested one of the 1st cars imported to the states i can say for sure these cars while interesting are basically dogs. Frankly dont belong in FA..."

Kevin

As the owner of the car in question and having gone through the trouble of getting Tatuus to design and manufacture the roll hoop, and getting it accepted by SCCA--that's harsh. This is a spec car designed to compete against itself; it is bullet-proof, sophisticated and competitive with FSCCA and Zetecs.

These cars are sitting in shops and garages, thankfully they now can be raced.

Thom

[KevinFirlein]

Its not harsh. The car was fine for what it was designed for,competing against itself. It has some nice features. Felt like drivng a video game. It is however no where near the level of car that should be in FA. Just another case of SCCA taking the easy way out and using FA as a dumping ground. See original FM, zetec cars and FSCCA as further examples. A better bet would have been a season in FS regionally so testing could be done to put the cars in FC in 07. then atleast the owners would actually be able to compete properly.

[HazelNut]

A better bet would have been a season in FS regionally so testing could be done to put the cars in FC in 07. then atleast the owners would actually be able to compete properly.

wouldn't they then just be "dumping" them into FC then? Granted the speeds are closer to an FC than a true FA but how many true FAs show up on a routine basis? Besides FA and FC are usually grouped together anyway so what would that really accomplish.

Ad on that the the pro spec for Atlantics changed this year and club FA is just infact a "dumping ground" for non competative former pro cars (that being said I'd give my left *** to run a true FA).

let the renault's play too. In truth we need ALL the formula cars we can get so we don't get pushed into obscurity by Spec Miatas.............

[KevinFirlein]

I was saying run a season in FS while the spec was changed to make them competive in FC. Not sending lambs to the slaughter in FA. Cars in FA should be the current " true" FA cars, pro mazdas, current spec F3 cars and whatever else may or may not come down the pipeline that would fit into the broad strokes of the class.. If there arent enough cars to make up a class then the class goes away. Artificially adding hopelessly outclassed cars to help numbers isnt racing.

I would worry about the spec change in the pro series if people were actually buying and racing new cars in SCCA. I have no doubt that a few new cars were bought just for club racing but its been years since that was a general practice.

I could care less what cars are in an overall run group. Has nothing to do with what cars should be in what class. As for what it would accomplish, it would create and even larger FC class with even more coimpetitive cars to race against. Sort of the plain and simple purpose of racing really.

[HazelNut]

Its a decent car and its now in FA. If there are problems with them running there will be complaints and adjustment will be made. If enough of them show they'll get thier own class, like they are trying to do with the FSCCA cars.

In theory yes I agree that with you they don't, in terms of performance specs, "belong" with true FAs but in reality they won't make difference in race outcomes. Any half way decent atlantic driver can WALK passed a renault any time he wants to. This mix of cars should produce a fairly decent back marker race among the zetecs and fscca's and renaults with the real FAs running well by themselves up front.

[jimh3063]

Kevin:
To your point about F3 cars that no one races. I hope to change that. I bought an 01 Dallara that should run well in FA. We hope to have it out at Savannah.

Jimmy Hanrahan

[Matt M.]

Soooooo
Does this mean that the lawsuit Fran-Am had with SCCA was settled?

[Stan Clayton]

Soooooo
Does this mean that the lawsuit Fran-Am had with SCCA was settled?

No, it just means the cars can run in FA. The cars were not permitted to run in any SCCA class until Tatuus produced an SCCA-comliant roll hoop. That has now been done, and a car owner applied to classify the car in FA. The Advisory Committee and the CRB reviewed all the material presented and classified the car in FA. The lawsuit is an entirely different issue which centers on 'restraint of trade', and AFAIK still scheduled to go to trial later this year.

[Jim Garry]

Soooooo
Does this mean that the lawsuit Fran-Am had with SCCA was settled?

From what I've heard, Fran Am won't accept any offers of settlement. They are apparently on good legal ground and are moving ahead.

[P.W. LeCain]

I'll bet all the FC guys are excited about this. Now, the front of the FC grid will be mixed up with all sorts of slow atlantics. Slow real atlantics, F3, Fran-Am, FSCCA, FM. I can hear the FC's lobbying for split starts already!

[D.T. Benner]

With a composit tub and sequential 5-6? speed gearbox the specs are a lot closer to FA than FC even if the performance is not.

[P.W. LeCain]

With a composit tub and sequential 5-6? speed gearbox the specs are a lot closer to FA than FC even if the performance is not.

ummmm...ok. I didn't say they should be classed with FC's. I was commenting on how the FC's will have to deal with a lot more slow FA's now.

[Agitator]

Just because a post comes after yours doesn't mean the person is directly responding to your post....it could just be a pondering on the original subject of the thread. I think LeCain's post was just a general statement about how there are certain aspects of the Fran Am that more closely resemble an Atlantic.

[Stan Clayton]

I'll bet all the FC guys are excited about this. Now, the front of the FC grid will be mixed up with all sorts of slow atlantics. Slow real atlantics, F3, Fran-Am, FSCCA, FM. I can hear the FC's lobbying for split starts already!

There isn't a legal FC on the face of the planet that can stay with an FR with equal drivers, tires, set up, etc. The FR has 8" & 10" tires, while the FC has 6" & 8". The latest spec FR has ~193hp (even the oldest ones make ~186hp), while the FC makes what, 140hp? The FR has a 6-sp sequential box with limited slip, while the FC makes do with an h-pattern 4-sp with an open diff. Okay, the FC can weigh 50 lbs less. Do you really think that makes up for all the rest?

Sure, fast FC drivers will be quicker than slow FR guys, but that's nothing new and isn't the car's fault. Heck, out here there's a well put together Swift DB-4 that's at the back end of the FC pack...

Stan

[KevinFirlein]

[size=2]I dont recall the fran am cars being much if any faster then the zetecs at sebring when they ran their winter series. we now have a restricted zetec racing in FC so why not fran am ? The same goes for the mid ohio times. I never said put an unrestricted FR in FC but why not a restricted version ?[/size]
[size=2][/size]
[size=2]the way to get cars to come out and race is to give them a place to actually be competitive. There are enough of these cars around that if they felt they had a chance the FC numbers would grow. It may be the 3rd or 4th highest class in numbers , but 9 cars average still doesnt make for a very good race. Every open wheel class needs more cars competiting and the renaults could help if they were placed properly.[/size]
[size=2][/size]
[size=2]Then we could work on getting the FR1600 added to FF[/size]
[size=2][/size]
[size=2]Kevin[/size]

[Thom]

With a composit tub and sequential 5-6? speed gearbox the specs are a lot closer to FA than FC even if the performance is not.

It's a 6 speed. Regarding performance; the SCCA homologation does not restrict tires. The performance of the Fran-Am car was severely hampered by hard compound spec Michelins. Using Cooper Series Zetec tires will help the car significantly.

[Thom]

[size=2]Formula Car Magazine has a news piece on their web site about the FRenault being homologated in FA. They mention the SCCA announcement and the Fran-Am lawsuit in the same sentence--one may get the idea that the issues are linked; they are not.[/size]

[size=2]http://www.eformulacarnews.com/news_...93315ca8ab5df0[/size]

[ALW]

I hate to be the one to correct Stan Clayton.
He is a fount of technical knowleged that I myself have gone to for information.

But his statement that: " The cars were not permitted to run in any SCCA class until Tatuus produced an SCCA-comliant roll hoop."
is not quite accurate, and implies that the roll hoop was the only issue with these cars.

The original roll hoop on the FA-2000 was SCCA compliant until June 1, 2002 when a change to GCR 18.4.5 went into effect without any member input or discussion.

Fran-Am and Tatuus were capable of changing a roll hoop if that was the only issue.
It was not.
We had been trying to get SCCA homologation for this car since the summer of 2000.

SCCA would have approved it (and the FA1600) in 2001 had they received "engine rebuild, transmission rebuild and parts distribution for North America at an acceptable margin" (see Oct 2001 Fast Track)

Five and a half years from first homologation attempts to actual approval.

Stan is correct that the trial is scheduled for later this year.
Trial starts May 1st.

Arden Weatherford
Fran-Am

[Stan Clayton]

Hi Arden...thanks for the clarification. You are certainly the one who should know!

Helping Thom get his car homologated in FA was my first task upon being appointed to the CRB in December, and it was a real pleasure. Thom was extremely proactive in getting me any info I needed and answering my thousand-and-one questions.

Best Regards, Stan Clayton