On Dec 21, 2005, at 08:15, Glenn Ellingson wrote:
> Kevin's point about paxes being driven by past results and
> therefore sometimes lagging current developments is also a good
> one. I will disagree with his STU example, though; I don't see any
> evidence that the STU pax is based on anything but wild guessing
> with a healthy dash of rally-car fear. I was watching the results
> for this class at last year's national events and I *never* saw STU
> beating STS/STX/ST2 by a full second, which is what the STU pax
> suggests should happen. Ususally STU was _slower_ than the other ST
> classes. The STIs and EVOs do have lots of power but in STU they
> are resticted to tiny little street tires (245s) and they carry an
> extra 1000 pounds of weight (that's a 50% weight penalty over the
> civics and miatas!). I think the M3 and RX-8 and other non-AWD STU
> cars can run 275s so they may yet justify the pax. But I don't
> think they have done so yet.
I'm not saying I agree with the PAX for STU, just describing the
factors I believe went under consideration. That being said, since
I've got my Evo fairly well sorted I've usually been around the top
20 PAX here in San Diego, with a best of 2nd, and consider it a bad
day if I don't beat STS, so I don't think it's too far off the mark -
I'm not complaining, anyway.
I like the STU ruleset, the one thing I wish we had was an
aftermarket clutch allowance, perhaps with a "weight and diameter
must be no less than stock" clause to avoid unstreetable triple-
plates and the like.
KeS
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