http://www.sfrscca.com/solo2/Results/1998/index.html
and look at the regular season Street Tire results up through round 12.
This reflects some of the problems inherent in this whole "level the playing
field" matter. My Camaro was fully prepared to Street Prepared rules, and
running on superb street tires (Firestone SZ-50s, which are not inordinately
expensive but really rock). Even with Street Prepared classes at a
disadvantage (see below), the car typically blew the class away.
a) A lot of street tire cars aren't fully prepared. A non-fully-prepared
SP car is usually slower compared to a fully-prepared one than a
non-fully-prepared Stock car is to a fully-prepared one. Do you index for
the fully prepared cars or not?
b) I still contend that street tires or other low-traction conditions
hinder higher-performance cars more than lower-performance cars. This is
true both for preparation levels (Stock vs SP), and individual model
performance (Corvette vs Metro). You can verify this by looking at any
event results where it rained. Do you compress the R tire index before
applying it to street tire cars? If so, how much? I think you HAVE to
extrapolate from some R tire information simply because that's where all the
data is.
c) Realistically, the best way of comparing performance in a street tire
car, over the long term, is to index off of the most consistent drivers in
the same type cars - which is exactly how everyone I know does it for R
tires. That still doesn't work for individual competitions for exactly the
reasons that people complained about the Pro Solo ladies index.
d) The only way that you can find a fixed level of preparation to accurately
compare cars/classes is the *highest* level - you can ALWAYS make a car
varying degrees of slower. Therefore anyone who does not prepare their car
to the highest level will be at a disadvantage. Whatever index is used,
this factor will be an overriding consideration in street tire classes,
because as a group the cars are rarely fully selected or prepared.
KeS
> -----Original Message-----
> From: RacerRay52@aol.com [SMTP:RacerRay52@aol.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 1999 8:23 AM
> To: autox@autox.team.net
> Subject: SP vs. Stock for street tire
>
> I forgot to mention that it may be a good idea to split SP and Stock cars
> into separate street tire classes. Here in Tidewater Va they are lumped
> together and the guys in SP cars -- some of whom run fairly regularly --
> seem
> to truly be on the short end of the stick. Someone could check the results
>
> archives to see if my memory is correct, but I don't think a Street
> Prepared
> car has ever won the class. I don't recall one beating me and I don't
> think
> there have even been many events where the top half of the class has had
> any
> significant number of SP cars.
>
> Ray
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