Personally, I don't care where the Mini gets classed, but I thought I'd
burn a few minutes to share a different perspective.
There's regional autocrossers, and there's Nationals autocrossers. We
regional-only folks (that make up the better part of the club's income,
incidentally) bring our commute cars out on Sunday to play in the big
parking lot. Just like Nationals folks, we like trophies. They make us
feel cool too, and we like to bore our friends and coworkers with long
stories that go on and on about how we campaigned weekend after weekend,
and how it was close or how it wasn't close for this reason or that. We
don't (for a variety of reasons) modify our little cars to the fullest
extent possible under the "stock" rules with thousand dollar shocks at each
corner and exactly the right front sway bar and alignment to optimize our
cars as best as we can. We just show up and drive what we've got, and
maybe buy a set of race tires so we can see how we do against the good folks.
Then a car like the Mini comes along. It's fast, fast, fast right out of
the box for an HS car. The one I drove rocked, and it doesn't even have
the "sport" suspension. The very first time I drove it (and sadly,
probably the last) I came in 5th in PAX out of 206. That's better than
I've ever done in my own HS car, which has adjustable aftermarket shocks on
it. I would have been 1st in HS, 1st in GS, 1st in FS, 2nd in ES, 1st in
DS, 2nd in CS, 4th in BS, and 3rd in SS out of 7 recorded times. (.5
seconds behind the 1st place SS Boxter S?!) I was 5th out of 14 in STS,
1.06 seconds behind you. Give me a few more events, and watch out! :)
We HS folks joked about reclassifying that thing from the first time we saw
it. Of course, we were already jaded from getting spanked by the 1800lb
Honda Insight all the time.
Maybe it didn't place first at nationals, and maybe that's because the 318
responds better to shocks. But didn't it occupy 7 or 8 of the 10 top spots
in it's first year? That's pretty good. Look over that whole class, and
you'll see a lot of "economy car" folks displaced from their usual
spots. Anyway, for regional-only folks, basing the classes on nationals is
of limited meaning.
For a happy-go-lucky fun-on-Sunday autocrosser with a sub-optimal car for
the "slowest" class, the Mini is kind of a downer. HS is much less the
dumping ground for the mediocre economy cars and wimpy base model pigs.
If you'd claim that wanting a trophy is no reason to justify reclassifying
a car, I'd have you take a look at the floor of the next Lotus 7 you come
across, if you can see it for all the lead.
Uungh.. Politics.
Jake Hodges
HS
At 01:26 PM 10/12/2002 -0400, Smokerbros@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 10/11/02 10:52:06 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>toma@coolgamestuff.com writes:
>
>
> > Has there been any word on class changes related to the new MINI Cooper?
> > since
> > nationals is over, I thought there was discussion about moving the car into
> > another class. It was in HS.
>
>I'm curious as to why you think it would be moved. The winning HS car was a
>BMW 318i, at 103.6. Minis were 104.0, 104.2, 104.2, and the fastest Civic
>was 104.3.
>
>GS was won with a 102.1, and the fastest Mini would've been in 7th, 1.9
>seconds back. It looks like an HS car to me.
>
>Charlie Davis
>(personal opinion, not intended to represent the SEB)
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