>> Any car that makes you work that hard just ain't an overdog.
>
> Still. But for a single cone each for both Neal and Bob, they
> would have
> taken 1st and 2nd. Yeah, yeah, I know, "cones count". But consider how
> comparatively little time Neal and Bob have actually had to set these
> cars up for autox and how little seat time they had as well. Yes, Neal
> and Bob are both extremely talented drivers, and I don't mean
> to slight
> them in the least. But I don't think that we've seen the
> potential of a G-Stock Type-R yet.
I agree totally. Bob got sideways twice on his last run at nationals, and
still had fast scratch. Also, both Bob and Neal gave up down shifting the
first day at Nats. Even with all there cone problems, Other than Mark,
these guys still had 0.5 on the rest of the class! Another data point. I
drove a Type R for the first time at the last event of our local solo II
series, and decimated a tough local PAX class in just two runs. Once again,
no down shifting.
> I personally don't feel that the issue of the Type R is an issue about
> overdog or not, it's an issue about the late classing of the
> car. But I
> do feel that the Type R is possibly missclassed. E-Stock
> seems to me to
> be more appropriate.
Weather or not the Type R is an over dog, it still doesn't fit the GS
profile. While ES and DS are already so close in type, I'd say all the CSP
type goodies on the Type R, would put it in the faster DS class. I've yet
to see any argument so far that shows this car does not fit the DS profile!
>>> Do you really think that the potential of either the
>>> Acura or the BG was realized in such a short time??
>>> Or the A4? Or the Talon? Hell, we were running stock shocks
>>> last year, there's still lots of tuning to be done for
>>> GS Talons.
>
> Well, I believe Mark was running on custom Konis. Yes, there's more
> tuning to be done for most of the new G-Stock Blood.
Mark did an amazing amount of work during the year, and even more just
before nationals, testing and tweaking the Talon. In my mind, he had found
the setup for the Talon, which was demonstrated in his performance at
Nationals. Bob had done quite a bit of work also on the Type R, but lets
face it, he only had about a month to do so. That and he was stretched from
running back and forth from road racing. Did you know he had a noon flight
out of KC on Friday! He literally hoped in a rental car after his last run
at Nats to go to the airport to leave for a road race. I've seen him do
this before, and his solo performances usually weren't winning efforts when
he did.
Now all this is pure testimonial BS, but when you look at _all_ the info, it
points to the full potential of the Type R car is yet to be seen.
My guess GS will be much smaller this year, for the new Pro format does not
support GS well. I also predict that GS will be dominated by the Type R.
Bad guesses? Well... I also guessed the A4 would be a good GS car ;-)
---JCG
Team Butt Heat
GS Audi A4 Quattro
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