Why?
So far there are 2 people that apparently got tired of driving a Miata ,
Honda, or other street car commonly available in the US. I suspect that many
more (I have seen a few at the North East Replica Challenge) have or are
preparing to build, buy or import "something completly different" to drive
on the street and or race on Sunday. The reasons I built the car I built
were two fold. First one of the sites we run in Pittsburgh (better of the
two unfortunately) has and will continue to restrict the cars that run there
to street licensed and legal vehicles. The second is that my wife insisted
that the vehicle be a street vehicle when I bought it so that she could
enjoy it to (has no desire to race). I also happened to like the shape and
design of the 550 Spyder.
If I had not built this car I might of imported an Elise as I think they are
cut of the same cloth and even sexier to look at.
A, B, and C mod are a classes for vehicles that do not belong on the street.
They have no lights, top, bumpers, windshield wipers, carpet, seats (driver
only), little instrumentation, and commonly only run for short times (A mod
60 secs) before overheat or other problems force a shutdown. These cars are
not comparable to the Elise or a Spyder or any other streetable kit or Grey
market car. They far outperform the street cars on an autocross course.
In Pittsburgh we have had a great increase (about 100% over 1995 numbers) in
volume recently mostly in the STS and SM area. Also many vehicles beyond SM
going to D and E mod. (Turbo Miata etc), and the rare and unusual recently,
(decked out 2 turbo 911,w history in junk yard). Many people like to take
vehicles way beyond the stock and SP rules and keep them street legal, but
have no competitive place to go.
Further if you look at Solo 1 rules the people that do, get beat up in
safety rules as SCCA looks at these cars as if they were built by the devil
and wants, for starters, roll cages that reduce the value and make the car
less fun to drive on the street. An open car in SP or stock is required to
have a roll bar that meets the Solo rules. An open car in mod is required
to have a roll cage that meets the GCR and all the other GCR requirements.
The value of a car like an Elise would drop from say $60K to about $30K
they moment the cage was installed and it no longer is fun to drive
(ingress/egress on the street). This sucks!! Go read the GCR on Solo1 and
the car classification section (if you can make heads or tales of it).
Ray Colbert
-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Stevens [mailto:Kevin_Stevens@pursued-with.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 12:56 PM
To: Colbert, Raymond J.; 'Pat Kelly'
Cc: autox@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Need help classing Lotus
> I have followed this thread and have asked about such cars in the recent
> past and got flamed here and on the DM list. The SCCA needs a class for
> "street" cars that either have all the nessecary stuff to drive on the
> street and are unlicensable due to the NTSB/EPA regs that keep them out,
> are street legal "Grey Market" cars or kit cars. All of said vehicles fall
Why? I understand why YOU need such a class...
KeS
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