Racing classes
I have an idea for establishing different classes for racing. Modders, racers & track owners, feel free to chime in with your opinion on the subject. I'm taking the idea directly from motorsport. The simplest class is S1 or Strictly Stock, no modifications allowed at all. Lubrication is permitted as it is not a modification to the vehicle. S2 or Super Stock only allows cosmetic modifications such as paint or decals M3, or Modified Class 3 allows cosmetic and wheel swap mods, but no additional weight. M2, Modified Class 2 will allow axle polishing, wheel swaps & 10g additional weight. M1 allows all previous mods & 25g additional weight. Unlimited is just that, no limits on mods except for a maximum of 35 g of additional weight over the vehicles base weight with no vehicle exceeding 95 grams maximum weight for the sake of safety. I've seen races with cars exceeding 100 grams. They're fast, but when things go wrong, they go VERY wrong very quickly. Just an idea I plucked out of the air. What do you all think?
Discussion
As a fellow fan of racing, I emotionally key into your thought process and the desired outcome(s) right away. Like Dutch just said, once a car is open, adjudicating what is within the rules can get fuzzy, or outright impossible.
Folks can get salty enough and throw some accusations even in stock formats. "Show me the RIVETS!" as a broad example. Where wheel sanding is allowed, I've seen a host present to us a car with "coned" wheels in a surreptitious attempt to gain advantage. Didn't call out the offending builder, only as a "No Go" example.
One more thing, some tracks are specifically tuned and paced to handle modified cars nearly exclusively, and for a certain range of weights; a stock weight event there wouldn't work, cars never finding the finish.
Hosts, experts on their home course's behaviour and tolerances, set their rules well to bring us the best shows possible.
Your heart was in the right place, Ben. The realities of racing just weren't quite gelling with the full idea
- My idea is based on IMSA & WEC racing classes. Just an idea I plucked out of the air. — Benjamin_37
In our rally series, we group Group N, which had to stay stock wheels (but could be lubed/polished) and stock weight, then Group A which was open wheel swaps etc and a max weight only. It worked pretty well and it was at elast easy enough to check if they were the stock wheels, because of the look of them.
I've also done a stock weight Mustang tournament but you could change wheels if you wanted, but it was also a single casting only tournament, so you were limited on wheels as to what would fit.
Trying to get too tight on rules, will get very hard to just the nuances in some classes, so it would definitely be easier to stick to things that you can see or measure without having to open a car, in case it isn't put together with screws.
Once a car is opened up/modified - it is pretty hard to police if the axle has been polished or not. (M3 & M2 class I'm referring to).