Losing the Arms Race - Page 3

greglepore · 07-27-2019, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Bit of a ridiculous thread no? 20 years ago you smoked everybody on the track. Fast forward and the box stock plane Jane 991 will smoke your car around the track. Seems like things have come full circle, I’m not sure why the animosity? Technology never stops, sounds like it’s time to evolve or find another venue. This is why vintage racing exists, eventually vintage cars can’t hang in the context of modern racing.

But it ISN'T RACING. Its trackdays. In racing you either pony up or go home. Problem is that for a long time the trackday ecosystem was such that on a normal man's budget you could go out, learn something, have some fun, and if you dinged the car it wasn't the end of the world. The newer cars are where full on prototypes were 15 years ago, plus they have driver aids, so the average speed is well beyond the normal participants ability to cope with errors of judgement. Consequences for all concerned are on a different level entirely.

And I disagree that open passing is the answer. In a racing environment, sure. You have a cage, nomex, and fire suppression and a different level of risk acceptance. In streetish vehicles with a 50-70 mph speed differential the consequences for folks making an amateur mistake become lethal consequences. In racing, you accept that. The entire point of trackdays is a lower level of risk acceptance.

I don't think there are enough older cars and drivers to support a "vintage only" trackday environment, and I sure as hell know I don't want to be on the track with
novice drivers closing on me at those rates expecting a waveby that may or may not come. So, I'm not sure there is a solution other than the country club type environment where you can run pretty much at whim. Unaffordable for the majority here.

ian c2 · 07-27-2019, 07:53 PM

stop the world , I’m getting off ...

onewhippedpuppy · 07-27-2019, 08:12 PM

Here’s the other problem guys, in today’s dollars a well sorted air cooled 911 can be had for the same price as a 991. From the standpoint of financial parity you are pretty well screwed.

ian c2 · 07-27-2019, 08:18 PM

And more importantly most see the aircooled cars as an investment so don’t REALLY want to drive them

Jeff Higgins · 07-28-2019, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Bit of a ridiculous thread no? 20 years ago you smoked everybody on the track. Fast forward and the box stock plane Jane 991 will smoke your car around the track. Seems like things have come full circle, I’m not sure why the animosity? Technology never stops, sounds like it’s time to evolve or find another venue. This is why vintage racing exists, eventually vintage cars can’t hang in the context of modern racing.

There has not even been a hint of "animosity" expressed anywhere in this thread. Where on earth did you come up with that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by greglepore

But it ISN'T RACING. Its trackdays. In racing you either pony up or go home. Problem is that for a long time the trackday ecosystem was such that on a normal man's budget you could go out, learn something, have some fun, and if you dinged the car it wasn't the end of the world. The newer cars are where full on prototypes were 15 years ago, plus they have driver aids, so the average speed is well beyond the normal participants ability to cope with errors of judgement. Consequences for all concerned are on a different level entirely.

And I disagree that open passing is the answer. In a racing environment, sure. You have a cage, nomex, and fire suppression and a different level of risk acceptance. In streetish vehicles with a 50-70 mph speed differential the consequences for folks making an amateur mistake become lethal consequences. In racing, you accept that. The entire point of trackdays is a lower level of risk acceptance.

I don't think there are enough older cars and drivers to support a "vintage only" trackday environment, and I sure as hell know I don't want to be on the track with
novice drivers closing on me at those rates expecting a waveby that may or may not come. So, I'm not sure there is a solution other than the country club type environment where you can run pretty much at whim. Unaffordable for the majority here.

Spot on. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Here’s the other problem guys, in today’s dollars a well sorted air cooled 911 can be had for the same price as a 991. From the standpoint of financial parity you are pretty well screwed.

Exactly. I could sell my car tomorrow, buy a 991, and have money left over. The problem is that I have no interest in those cars, at least as a track day car. Wonderful street cars, GT cars, these new water pumpers (and like I've said, I do own, and have tracked, a Boxster S). But, to me anyway, not nearly as much fun on a track, even though they are significantly faster. I enjoy the challenge of driving the older car close to its limits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ian c2

And more importantly most see the aircooled cars as an investment so don’t REALLY want to drive them

That is certainly a part of it, at least for some folks. There are some of us who still thoroughly enjoy driving these things, however. As a matter of fact, I'm out the door as we speak to go meet up with my Pac West chapter R Gruppe guys for our monthly "Sunday Drive". Should be about 12-15 guys there, all with hot-rodded long hoods. Many of them used to track their cars regularly. They have all, individually, started reaching the same point I've reached with regards to track days with our local PCA, and have been dropping off one by one. It's a real shame. We used to have quite a contingent of early cars out there.

petrolhead611 · 07-28-2019, 06:57 AM

Hillclimbs are an answer.You aim to improve your times (with no other car on the track to blame for the accident). Sprints ,similar.One of our local clubs actually had a pre1972 road car class, but since the original organiser died I don't think that has continued

greglepore · 07-28-2019, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by petrolhead611

Hillclimbs are an answer.You aim to improve your times (with no other car on the track to blame for the accident). Sprints ,similar.One of our local clubs actually had a pre1972 road car class, but since the original organiser died I don't think that has continued

I've done hillclimbs here in the US. Sanctioning here requires almost a race prep level for the vehicle. And, given the lack of any runoff and the presence of trees, I wouldn't think of it in a car without a full cage, including door bars. Pretty much rules out dual purpose vehicles.

petrolhead611 · 07-28-2019, 08:11 AM

Most competitors are in road cars in the UK. We try to abide by the black good, green bad , driving principle.

petrolhead611 · 07-28-2019, 08:13 AM

More runoff at sprints usually, but speeds are significantly higher.

Cajundaddy · Cajundaddy's Garage

Controlled passing, expanded passing with a point-by, or completely open passing, in a DE event we play the hand we are dealt by the rules of the day. If you don't like the rules, get on the event committee and get them changed or find a club with rules more to your liking. Alpha, VARA, and SCCA also put on good events.

If some hawt dawg jackazz GT3 is riding your bumper deep in a no passing zone at a DE he is out of line and maybe it's a good time to take a cooldown lap and wash your windshield with him on your tail. It's a DE event, not a race. With any luck he will get pissed, pass without a point, and promptly get black flagged for that controlled passing refresher course he so richly deserves.

We play the hand we are dealt.

jwasbury · 07-28-2019, 09:36 AM

If you can gather up a large enough group of like minded enthusiasts, you could rent the track for yourselves. You won't get a weekend date, but you might be surprised how affordable mid week track rental is. Then you make your own rules. I only did a few organized trackdays and I hated all of the stupid rules that seemed to squeeze the fun out of it. Next thing I found was a grass roots trackday that an old college buddy of mine was organizing about 2x per year. I ended up going in 50% on the deposit and then collecting money from the attendees prior to the event. We'd end up with 40-50 guys, and it was totally word of mouth...friends of friends network type of deal. The rules were: don't be an @$$hole and have fun. With so few guys there was never a problem and we got huge amounts of tracktime.

We would run alternating sessions throughout the day of cars, and then motorcycles (obviously not both on track at the same time). Some folks brought both a car and a motorcycle.

pwd72s · 07-28-2019, 02:44 PM

Old, slow, and obsolete...it happens. Father time is cruel...not just to cars.

Superman · 07-28-2019, 09:06 PM

This thread is disappointing. I would like to take my car to a track and have some fun, now that I have mostly sorted it out. Perhaps I will anyway. The 991s can just watch my bumper until the straight where, as many as can, will just pass. In the turns, I won't have anyone in front of me. [wink]

rattlsnak · rattlsnak's Garage

I would just like to say that not all GT3 drivers are jackwagons!!! I've been tracking 911s for 20+ years and by some of the comments on this thread, I'm now a jackwagon because I have a GT3? lol.. ( I will agree there are definitely some hard core guys out there that are boneheads)
I'm always very respectful of older/other/slower cars on the track but I will say the guys that pi$$ me off the most, are guys with newerish cars that won't point you by for 2 laps when you clearly have caught up with them 3 laps ago!

IROC · IROC's Garage

I started doing DEs six weeks after I bought my 911 in 1993. My last DE was in 2009 (?). I was first introduced to the "arms race" when the Boxsters came out. Those things made average drivers look great. The rest of us air-cooled 911 guys were sawing at the wheel trying to bring the nose in to hit the apex and they're just...turning!

Lots of good points made. In my case, the value of the car (and risk of throwing it away) along with the arms race caused me to look elsewhere. I now race in the ChampCar series (in an E36 BMW). Been racing since 2014. In the past year I've raced at Sebring, Road Atlanta, NCM and at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Almost 16 hours of seat time in those four races alone. 16 hours! And...I'm not spending much more (if any) than what I was spending doing a couple of DEs per year. If I won the lottery (not a good plan since I don't buy lottery tickets) I would go vintage racing but ChampCar is awesome. For me, W2W racing is the full track experience, where DEs are only taste. Racing at Sebring at night in the rain? Check. Crossing the "yard of bricks" at Indy at full throttle? Check. Doing full driver change/refueling pit stops at Road Atlanta? Check.

I have thought about dragging the 911 back to the track just for old time's sake. I would be a moving chicane, though.

greglepore · 07-29-2019, 04:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rattlsnak

I would just like to say that not all GT3 drivers are jackwagons!!!

Hey, sorry if my comments were taken that way. Didn't mean that. What I intended to say is that if you take a bonehead and give him a modern vehicle and put him on a track with the old aircooled car the potential for havoc is exponentially greater, due to increased closing speeds and the driver aids making the cornering speeds so high.

Certainly, there are idiots driving anything you can drive, on track and off. And certainly there are very accomplished and polite drivers in GT2/3's, cup cars etc. Apologies if that wasn't clear.

Jeff Higgins · 07-29-2019, 06:29 AM

I have absolutely no issue with the drivers of the newer cars. They are all wonderful ladies and gentlemen. I will say, however, that the car often makes them look a lot better than they really are, but that's obviously just the nature of the car. It's what they paid for, after all. I don't begrudge them that in the least.

The guys and gals I run with on the track that drive these newer cars are very "polite" about it. I've never felt like one was pushing me or being impatient with me. That's not the issue at all. As a matter of fact, I admire their patience with my "rolling chicane".

It's amazing, too, just how many of these folks will come by my pit and check out the "old car". It's a real curiosity to many of them. Even most of the instructors these days really don't have any experience with them, of knowledge of them.

Which can lead to some kind of "interesting" moments... Like getting black flagged because other drivers are reporting that my car sometimes smokes and smells like gas under acceleration. Well, um, yeah - it's a hot rod MFI motor. Most have no idea what that means. Some can't even spell "MFI"...

Dantilla · 07-29-2019, 08:13 AM

Jeff, thanks for posting this.
I rarely missed a PCA track day at Pacific Raceways until I joined Fordahl's gang of well-set-up 944s racing with the SCCA.
An absolute hoot racing nearly identical cars with open passing, on either side, no point-by required.

The 944 has been sitting unused in the corner of a hangar at the airport for a few years now, and I've been thinking at some point I'd like to wipe the dust layer off, give it a fresh timing belt and go play on the track again.
Sounds like PCA is no longer the place for a lowly 944.

The good news- I've moved, and it's a steep, gravel, one-lane road up to my house. A couple tight switchbacks.
A hillclimb every time I go home! Gotta mellow it out a bit when my wife is with me, but she's getting used to me drifting around the corners.

Deschodt · 07-29-2019, 09:15 AM

Jeff, I've had the *exact* same experience, in my case it was 5-6y ago... It's the curse of a nice active region, there were basically 50% GT3s and a few GT3RS in the fast group. Doesn't matter what you drive, if not the above you will be spending the majority of each lap doing point-bys. Which is "fine" but very distracting and takes away from the experience really (unless you enjoy being a d$ck and being shown blue flags). I'm not criticizing the situation, I'm jealous I can't afford a GT3 toy car, but it made me want to go back to the slower group (but that required riding with an instructor again, which I graduated from eons ago).

Made me wish for a different kind of track day where cars are somewhat balanced in separate groups, but I get the logistics of beginners/intermediate/advanced drivers combined with slow/ medium/weapon grade cars is impossible to squeeze in a track day. It gets even more complicated with old cars that are race prepped or 991 turbos in the hands of barely competent people. I think it could be done by time and grouping people who are within 5-10 secs of each other in a group, but PCA for one discourages timing...

I have stopped going actually - between the arms race which I was clearly losing, and getting up at 4am to drive to a track and pass tech at 7 AM only to actually get on track at 10, track days have lost much of their appeal to me.

Historics is not the solution either, a good friend of mine does that, he's already had to redo various fenders many times on his 356, they are maniacs compared to PCA DEs - it's expensive !! (and the oldies are starting to blow up more, metal fatigue I guess)

I'd like to find a group that accepts single runners (graduated from instruction) and attempts to group them by skill/car level, and also trusts that you did your homework on the maintenance and doesn't make you show up at the crack of dawn to recheck your lug nuts... Guess that's why I'm on the Xbox a lot more with a nice rig and Project Cars 2 instead...

smokintr6 · 07-29-2019, 10:13 AM

I did a track day at PittRace last year in my 3.6 swapped G50 car, and I found that I can run with well driven BRZs and Miatas, poorly driven caymans and boxsters, and I needed to stay out of the way of CTSV ZL1 Camaros and new corvettes. My 2700 lbs 944 turbo with 400 horsepower seemed to hit the mark for keeping the track day bros at bay. Somewhere around 6.5:1 lbs per HP is what it will take right now. I didn't regret getting the 911 out of retirement for a weekend, but it was nice that there were a bunch of low power cars on the track too. I would think looking for an event that attracts the BRZ / miata crowd would be great for an older 911 to play safely.