SCCA Rallycross East Coast Championships

irish44j wrote:

Jaynen wrote: Yeah I agree, which is why I still think allowing UTVs which have other uses would be good :P but thats my outsider opinion we will see how I feel after seeing the event this weekend

Ironically, UTVs are typically far more expensive than the cars that most people are running at rallycross....

Definitely the base vehicles for sure. I wonder once you cage a cheap subaru or miata or whatever, put seats harnesses in it, get suspension setup for the dirt, wheels tires etc if the gap is not as much as it starts out as. And a 60" UTV will fit in most standard truck beds no trailer needed.

My guess is if they are allowed to run in the future they will also be a lot faster than most cars out there, because much less weight, shorter wheelbase etc

But I just want MOAR local motorsport of any kind

Jaynen wrote:

irish44j wrote:

Jaynen wrote: Yeah I agree, which is why I still think allowing UTVs which have other uses would be good :P but thats my outsider opinion we will see how I feel after seeing the event this weekend

Ironically, UTVs are typically far more expensive than the cars that most people are running at rallycross....

Definitely the base vehicles for sure. I wonder once you cage a cheap subaru or miata or whatever, put seats harnesses in it, get suspension setup for the dirt, wheels tires etc if the gap is not as much as it starts out as. And a 60" UTV will fit in most standard truck beds no trailer needed. My guess is if they are allowed to run in the future they will also be a lot faster than most cars out there, because much less weight, shorter wheelbase etc But I just want MOAR local motorsport of any kind

well, sure. But most rallycross cars (even many of the top guys) have off-the-shelf suspension (my rallycross/stage car just uses regular Bilstein HDs and OEM springs in the rear). Most people don't cage a car or use harnesses for rallycross, really. Sounds like you're talking about stage rally cars, which is a whole different animal. Most rallycross cars are not all that heavily modified and virtually all of them are street legal and drive to events (our 50+ car events have maybe 5-6 cars come on trailers usually, and most or all of those cars could drive there if the owner wanted to. Hell, I drive my stage car to most events (only trailer if it's a long way or a multi-day event).

Ironically, stage rally cars HAVE to be street legal (because transits are on public roads).

MR class in most regions is full of Miatas and e30s and Volvos and RX7 that people got off CL for a couple grand. Yeah, the mod AWD classes are where the money is in most cases (modded WRXs, Evos, etc)....

The UTV that ran at our first event this year was a few seconds a lap slower than me in the Bentra. Single data point, but watching it, I don't see them being inherently faster than production cars.

That said, I'm on board with some sort of spec chassis class. It just needs to be like 5" wider and about 20" shorter than the UTVs I see running. And have the required safety gear (duh).

The easy button, is just to make a spec Exocet series.

ProDarwin wrote: The easy button, is just to make a spec Exocet series.

If you look at all of the "donor grade" Miatas that rallycross you could say it's already a "pre-exocet" spec series

Honestly though, I don't see Exocets working either- what's the cheapest you could build one, $10k and a bunch of time? You could spend less money and the same time building a stage rally car, and in the end you'd have more places to play than the Exocet. Maybe things have changed in the few years since I was actively rallycrossing, but at the time the only guys putting serious work into their cars (with a few exceptions, like Knurled/bluej/95maxrider) had the goal of eventually going stage rallying- no way in hell would any of us (myself/irish44j/Kimmett/Kramer/Carlsson) have dumped time and money into some spec racer that couldn't play elsewhere.

If they're expecting a spec class of anything more than, say, $4k karts to take off, they're banking on rich guys who don't know any better and want a "level playing field" before they even think about entering an event. berkeley it, at that point go full autocross style silly and just make a million classes and have PAX

I guess what I don't know because I haven't done it is for RallyX really whats the point in spending more money on the car?

It doesn't seem like there's a huge gap in performance for modding besides what class of tire you run.

Like you said it seems the big difference is in modded awd cars vs the others

ProDarwin wrote: The UTV that ran at our first event this year was a few seconds a lap slower than me in the Bentra. Single data point, but watching it, I don't see them being inherently faster than production cars. That said, I'm on board with some sort of spec chassis class. It just needs to be like 5" wider and about 20" shorter than the UTVs I see running. And have the required safety gear (duh). The easy button, is just to make a spec Exocet series.

Was the driver experienced at Rallycross? Or ever done a Rallycross with his UTV before?

Jaynen wrote: I guess what I don't know because I haven't done it is for RallyX really whats the point in spending more money on the car?

I've owned/built 6 rallycross/rally cars at this point, and I can honestly say for rallycross that there isn't one- get something light, make sure it isn't broken, put tires on it, go have fun. Hence why spending more on a spec car would be silly.

^agreed. Especially if 2WD. The only low hanging fruit there is if A) you have no power and B) you have no limited slip.

AWD cars, I've seen a big difference between low power and lots of power. A 2.5RS vs. an STi on the same course is usually a pretty big difference.

Jaynen wrote: Was the driver experienced at Rallycross? Or ever done a Rallycross with his UTV before?

He's a regular, but I don't know if that means much. Still only a single data point. Will probably be one or two there this weekend.

Will be interesting to see what happens. Hope the school tomorrow is great

Jaynen wrote: My guess is if they are allowed to run in the future they will also be a lot faster than most cars out there, because much less weight, shorter wheelbase etc

The weight is all in the wrong places though. Ever see a sand rail compete at a rallycross? It looks painful, lots of bouncing around and no control. Not enough sprung weight to keep the unsprung weight under control.

I'm not saying more weight is better, I'm saying you need to drop unsprung weight in proportion, and it's hard to make a strong enough suspension that is sufficiently light, and tires/wheels have a lower limit for weight that passenger cars are already very close to.

ProDarwin wrote: ^agreed. Especially if 2WD. The only low hanging fruit there is if A) you have no power and B) you have no limited slip.

I'm running an open diff in the RX-7 now and it doesn't seem to have slowed me down very much. Was 2nd overall at the last event, some guy named John something-or-other was killing me by a second a run though.

Interestingly, he doesn't have a limited slip in his Miata either.

Knurled wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: ^agreed. Especially if 2WD. The only low hanging fruit there is if A) you have no power and B) you have no limited slip.

I'm running an open diff in the RX-7 now and it doesn't seem to have slowed me down very much. Was 2nd overall at the last event, some guy named John something-or-other was killing me by a second a run though. Interestingly, he doesn't have a limited slip in his Miata either.

It doesn't seem to have slowed you down compared to what? You previously ran with one?

On a FWD car I can imagine it being more important than on RWD.

Knurled wrote: Interestingly, he doesn't have a limited slip in his Miata either.

The R package came with a Torsen, did they swap in an open diff?

Torsens are open diffs. He was complaining about this in some of the tighter corners, was getting a lot of "in lift" and couldn't power out until the chassis settled back down.

ProDarwin wrote:

Knurled wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: ^agreed. Especially if 2WD. The only low hanging fruit there is if A) you have no power and B) you have no limited slip.

I'm running an open diff in the RX-7 now and it doesn't seem to have slowed me down very much. Was 2nd overall at the last event, some guy named John something-or-other was killing me by a second a run though. Interestingly, he doesn't have a limited slip in his Miata either.

It doesn't seem to have slowed you down compared to what? You previously ran with one? On a FWD car I can imagine it being more important than on RWD.

For sure.

I've broken way more axles with the limited slip than I did with the open diff.

Limited slips help, but if the chassis makes it easy to lift a tire, a Torsen won't do much. And depending on the chassis, some cars will suffer from an open diff worse than others.

Knurled wrote:

Jaynen wrote: My guess is if they are allowed to run in the future they will also be a lot faster than most cars out there, because much less weight, shorter wheelbase etc

The weight is all in the wrong places though. Ever see a sand rail compete at a rallycross? It looks painful, lots of bouncing around and no control. Not enough sprung weight to keep the unsprung weight under control. I'm not saying more weight is better, I'm saying you need to drop unsprung weight in proportion, and it's hard to make a strong enough suspension that is sufficiently light, and tires/wheels have a lower limit for weight that passenger cars are already very close to.

I won't pretend to be an expert or know more than you about this but I do know that a national level competitor in Canada switched from his fwd rally car to a side by side and has been winning multiple stage rallies in Canada, and that some people ran some of the first California Rally Series events with them and were only beat by 300+ hp awd full stage rallycars on their first time out. However stage rally could be very different than RX and also I know nothing about the levels of preparation required.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/side-by-sides-and-rally/129680/page1/

In reply to Jaynen:

Stage rally and SCCA RallyCross do have very different driving conditions and goals. A car that does well at stage rally doesn't mean it will be a good rallycrosser, and a lot of the things that are positives for stage rally are detriments for rallycross.

That makes sense

Ability to make tight turns at low to moderate speed is much more important in rallycross. A welded or locked center diff works fine at high speed in a stage car (and is fine in high speed rallycross slaloms), but get into a tight part of the cone course and the thing pushes as if you're wrestling a bus through there...

ProDarwin wrote: ^agreed. Especially if 2WD. The only low hanging fruit there is if A) you have no power and B) you have no limited slip. AWD cars, I've seen a big difference between low power and lots of power. A 2.5RS vs. an STi on the same course is usually a pretty big difference.

Jaynen wrote: Was the driver experienced at Rallycross? Or ever done a Rallycross with his UTV before?

He's a regular, but I don't know if that means much. Still only a single data point. Will probably be one or two there this weekend.

Adam Kimmett pretty much crushes any WRX or STi that shows up in his old 2.5RS. In fact, most of the fastest guys are in GC 2.5s....not turbo subarus (with some exceptions). IIRC 2.5RC GCs usually win all three of our AWD classes...unless your car is very well setup (espeically the tune, anti-lag, etc), heavier (STi) turbo cars can be at a disadvantage in rallycross, really. Keeping things in boost is the trick..

As Chris said, especially for RWD classes, just find something fairly light with an LSD. There are a dozen different cars that are all pretty comparable based on driver and mods....Miata, e30, e36, RX7, BRZ (if you want to spend more), Volvo 240, MR2, and a handful of others. Are you gonna win in a Crown Vic in a competitive field? No....but you will still have a good time.

FWD classes same story, though the competitive cars tend to be "newer" models (i.e. not $1k craigslist beaters)....Focus, Fiesta, Civic, Celica, and the list goes on....

As to putting money in to the car, it depends on how competitive your region/competition is. In our region, the Mod RWD class has about 10 drivers that can beat each other on any given day, and events are often decided by 1-2 second total between the top 5 cars. So that's where the mods and setup and tires come in - to find that extra second. Other regions may not be so competitive.

Knurled wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: ^agreed. Especially if 2WD. The only low hanging fruit there is if A) you have no power and B) you have no limited slip.

I'm running an open diff in the RX-7 now and it doesn't seem to have slowed me down very much. Was 2nd overall at the last event, some guy named John something-or-other was killing me by a second a run though. Interestingly, he doesn't have a limited slip in his Miata either.

Andy Thomas is one of the fastest FWD guys in the country and until last month his celica didn't have an LSD either. I think he put up FTD at several events last year with it open.

Knurled wrote: In reply to Jaynen: Stage rally and SCCA RallyCross do have very different driving conditions and goals. A car that does well at stage rally doesn't mean it will be a good rallycrosser, and a lot of the things that are positives for stage rally are detriments for rallycross.

Concur with Pete. Stage rally cars and rallycross cars have very different goals and requirements. Stage car has to have a full cage (read: extra 200lbs in the car), two seats, be fully street legal (lights, bumpers, etc) and are set up to hold up to jumps and higher-speed handling. A mod class rallycross car can be a gutted shell with nothing inside other than a driver's seat, and doesn't have to be street legal.

Ex: My stage car was previously built for rallycross:

1) About ~2500 in stage rally trim (with cage, seats, fire systems, etc) 2) About 2250lbs before I caged it (and it still had a 4-point rollbar) 3) If I made it non-street-legal, gutted it, no cage, no passenger seat and just optimized it for rallycross I could probably get it down to 2000-2100lbs pretty easily. 500lbs is a lot of weight difference in a low-power car (20%).

Can you build a car that's good at both? Sure. But you have to make compromises one way or the other so rarely can you build the "ideal" car that is a top dog at both stage and rallycross, unless you do a lot of part-switching between events (like suspension) and removing/adding heavy stuff (seats, fire system, etc).

Bottom line is if you plan to just do rallycross, do not look to built stage cars for setup hints. A lot of the stuff we have to have in stage cars is worthless and/or detrimental for rallycross.

Yeah well I survived my first practice/school day and we didn't break anything on my buddies 15 WRX. There were definitely some cheap cars out there

Jaynen wrote: Yeah well I survived my first practice/school day and we didn't break anything on my buddies 15 WRX. There were definitely some cheap cars out there

Great! How was the course at the end of the day? Did you get a lot of rain? We got pounded with rain here for the last 2 hours and I just want to make sure the THSCC event is still on for tomorrow. I checked their Facebook and I don't see anything about it, but I also do not trust my Facebook skills whatsoever.