Bring Back G (H) Production

One of the wonderful things about looking from the outside inward is your vision is not clouded by personal interest, no matter how honest you are, it is almost impossible to think outside the box if you have a dog in the hunt. I recently though hard about coming back to SCCA racing, but of no control of my own, well sorta :), that was decided for me, when Fred McConnell traded his very nice MGB vintage race car for my 67 MGB GT street car. Now mind you the thought has crossed my mind to take the MG vintage car, convert the engine to LP specs, would not be that hard, head, cam, rocker arm and connecting rod swtich is all it would take engine wise, throw some flared fenders and 15x 7 wheel and slicks on it, and I think I would have killer HP car, but for now I plan on doing a more relaxed vintage shedule and try to enjoy regular life a bit more.

OK heres what I would do if I were you guys and wanted to bring back GP, look hard at the runoffs quailfying and race times for say the last 4-5 years of FP, and see what FP cars that were not ex GP cars that look to be uncompetitive, and include them in the new GP class, this would breath new life in those guys and possibly start new interest. Now this takes a bit of faith to do for you ex GP, now FP cars, because you may very well incorporate cars that could beat you, but thats what compettion adjustments are for, if you simply classify cars that stand no chance, well guess what, no one wants to race them anyway, this was well proven by many LP classifications that never stood a chance from the get-go, people don't want to build a mid pack car. Then you would have to take proactive approach to classifying new cars in GP, Ok you maybe will never race these said cars, but if you get them on the spec pages, someone is more likely to build one than if not on the spec pages, and they absolutely have to be cars that looks competitive enough on paper for some one to attempt in the first place, a field filler spec line will just be wasted words on a pages in the PCS. If you could go to the CRB with a plan like this in place you could maybe stand a much better chance.
 
Hap hits the nail on the head.

When I was formulating specs for the SARRC GP class earlier this year, I looked for popular, newer cars to bring down from FP to GP.

Some examples:

1.6 CRXs (early models). Full prep w/ smaller chokes.
1.5 CRXs (later models). Full Prep w/ smaller valve lifts.
1.8 VWs . Full Prep w/ smaller chokes.
1275 Spridget Full Prep w/ smaller carbs, compression and valve lift limit.
Toyota MR-2 . Full prep w/ compression ratio and valve lift limit.
Volvo 142 . Full prep w/ compression ratio and valve lift limit
New Mini - Full prep w/ compression ratio and valve lift limits.

I tried to think outside of the box a little bit by applying some limits to full prep specs.

Maybe this is something that could be done after GP is reinstated to jump start some growth?

Mark
 
This is something that needs to be done as part of the GP being reinstated. If we don't have a plan that makes the reinstatement of GP look viable, it will not happen. I see a plan starting to develop, keep it going.
 
For this to actually happen, the G rules and any change to the others H, F need to be anounced soon.

To get G up and going, really need letters for people that actually own a parked G car. With some level of commitment to run it next year if the class were brought back. Don't know how many those would be, but they would not take anything away from the current H car count.

Also to encourage some cars to go from H to G, need to make it simple. I would be willing to run G if I could do it without any internal engine mods. If I am building a new engine, I can set compression or cam to any new rule. But if part of the idea is to get some of the bigger cars out of H, need to make it easy.
 
I think the first step is to just get as many people as possible requesting that GP be brought back under the 2007 PCS.

Then we can start adding cars to GP. The 1st step would be to bring cars down from FP that aren't being raced there but would make good GP cars. Those letters could be written by folks who either have those cars and would like to be competitive, or are interested in building one of the said cars.

MC
 
ditto what Mark said.

Let's not get the heart before the course. (pun intended)

First revive GP.

Then add cars - I like the early Miata to SM specs with slicks and weight and maybe the IT7 RX7's with slicks - both plentiful and cheap.

Go Mark

Thanks
Keith
 
Interesting in that Ron is suggesting a move to bring back GP, but he would be staying in HP (Right Ron???), so in theory I dont think Ron would be suggesting an addition of GP if he thought HP would soon to be on the chopping block due to a participation decrease.

I think I am on track here, in my understanding that my GP "converted" HP full prep spitfire could run HP as is or go back to GP with a simple weight change giving me a choice of classes to run.

Am I missing something? Sounds reasonable to me.
 
Jay R. Creel":2xmbjued said:
Interesting in that Ron is suggesting a move to bring back GP, but he would be staying in HP (Right Ron???), so in theory I dont think Ron would be suggesting an addition of GP if he thought HP would soon to be on the chopping block due to a participation decrease.

I think I am on track here, in my understanding that my GP "converted" HP full prep spitfire could run HP as is or go back to GP with a simple weight change giving me a choice of classes to run.

Am I missing something? Sounds reasonable to me.
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Actually, the 2007 PCS doesn't include the 1147cc Spitfire in GP. It was moved to HP that year. If you'd like it to be included in GP, you'll have to 1) help us get GP back by requesting it to the CRB via the SCCA Website and 2) write a letter to have the 1147cc Spitfire reinstated to GP.

Mark
 
Mark,

Ron had referenced Sargis 1147 so I simply made the association without thinking about the timeline on the GCR/ PCS. So yes that would be true if based on 2007.

Making the assumption that 1147 was reinstated, per my previous inquiry, is this a weight variable only?
 
I've been reading this dialog with interest because I have a seldom used GP Volvo 142 gathering dust in my garage. If it had a competitive place to race my car I would certainly run it. From my perspective, it would be great to see GP reinstated.

However, I don't think there are enough current Prod racers to support another class anymore. Mismanagement of the rules has driven too many once enthusiastic prod racers to SM, vintage or other hobbies. For the reinstatement of GP to succeed the production community is going to have to get the old cars back out of storage AND. attract a lot of new drivers It will take a lot of work to make GP succeed. Much more work that it would have taken to save G a few years ago.

I'm not saying it cannot be done, but it require a level of enthusiasm from the CRB and PAC that I doubt exists. Any comment from Club Management on bringing back G?

You need the right people behind this to make it happen.

On a somewhat related topic, at this years Runoffs watched a really boring STU race. The eventual winner had such a lead that he was just coasting around the track and the only decent competition was among double dipping Spec-Miata's at the back of the field. I kept thinking how much I would have rather been watching the G Production championship race. Better yet, driving the race.
 
joecam96":v67682dn said:
Not to stir up old wounds, but why wasn't the Volvo moved up to FP?
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Well... The "Full Prep" Volvo was hopelessly classed in EP for at least 20 years. Then the LP 142 got classed in FP when a few ITB Volvo drivers wanted to do some National Prod racing. This was another frustrating and hopeless classification. Eventually the full prep car got moved to F and the LP car into G. When G was disolved, the limited prep Volvo 142 had the honor of being the only GP car NOT moved to another class. It was deemed too big for HP, even though the other ITB to prod converts were OK in H. And it couldn't be put into F because there was already an uncompetitive Volvo 142 there.

I came to conclude that the car isn't wanted in production racing.

The original request was for a limited prep classification in GP for the Volvo 142. It took 4 years for the car to get into G and it was drooped the next year. The mishandling of the car kept at least 3 very competitive Volvo drivers with with Runoffs aspirations out of the class when they were most needed.

I put a well ported head on my old G car and occasionally race it in FP, when my ITB Volvo isn't running. Unfortunately my ITB car got hit hard in it's last race and all I have left is this stupid unwanted GP 142.
 
Charlie Broring":3hlkwcd0 said:
Well... The "Full Prep" Volvo was hopelessly classed in EP for at least 20 years. Then the LP 142 got classed in FP when a few ITB Volvo drivers wanted to do some National Prod racing. This was another frustrating and hopeless classification. Eventually the full prep car got moved to F and the LP car into G. When G was disolved, the limited prep Volvo 142 had the honor of being the only GP car NOT moved to another class. It was deemed too big for HP, even though the other ITB to prod converts were OK in H. And it couldn't be put into F because there was already an uncompetitive Volvo 142 there.
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All the ITB BMWs are in FP at Prep Level 2/Limited Prep and are still there today. We did get additional compression for 2012 so we hope to be a little more competitive. With the old FP compression and weight I think the BMWs would have been close to the front of the GP grid. I do believe the 2 ltr is just to big for HP. I believe that if you are unhappy with the spec line for your car in the current class make a request for a change to the spec line. Just to point out, most of the 2012 rules are already past the AdHoc/CRB and in front of the BoD. The CRB can only change weight, tires size and choke size during the rules year. Cams and compression can only be done for the annual rules year.
 
I guess that I don't understand why STU and (Regional Only) STL cars can't fit into the Production ranks. It looks to me (from 10,000 feet as they say) that the prep rules are not all that different. Wouldn't some of those STL cars be GP "Limited Prep" eligible?
 
I am another one of the Limited Prep GP Volvo drivers.

I thought about trying to get the spec line changed again but in limited prep form the head is just not going to flow enough to be remotely competitive in FP and as Charlie said my guess is that the CRB certainly does NOT care about a car like the Volvo since to my knowledge it is the ONLY Limited Prep Production car that has ever been declassified, so much for Limited Prep being the wave of the future. I know it is a old car but it had a pretty good following until it got killed in IT and then murdered in Production. Those moves either made drivers seek other cars and or classes as well as other venues, maybe not mass numbers but in my business all my customers count.
 
Rob":118egb7c said:
I guess that I don't understand why STU and (Regional Only) STL cars can't fit into the Production ranks. It looks to me (from 10,000 feet as they say) that the prep rules are not all that different. Wouldn't some of those STL cars be GP "Limited Prep" eligible?
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All you need to do is look at 9.1.4.G.1 (Super Touring / Engine) to see why that won't work.
 
Gary Wittman":3v34b3gg said:
This is something that needs to be done as part of the GP being reinstated. If we don't have a plan that makes the reinstatement of GP look viable, it will not happen. I see a plan starting to develop, keep it going.
Click to expand...

I agree.

L
 
To All Involved with this - I am going to back out of the discussion and proposal of this as the ones that are carrying the ball on this and doing the heavy lifting, Keith and Mark, are really the ones that should pull this together. They happen to have a different approach than I do and I don't want to be in the middle of this anymore as I have probably been a disruptive influence. I personnaly think that they will need the H cars to make it happen, but that will require rule changes and will jerk a number of people around, so it is probably better to not attempt it now.

So, to answer your question Larry, no, there should only be one proposal being considered. I wish Mark, Keith and anyone else involved all the luck in getting this to happen. I will rescind my request if need be, but it does ask that G be reinstated so it is a vote FOR the basic premise. If you also want G to come back, write a letter to the CRB stating it.
 
Ron Bartell":3uge8iv9 said:
To All Involved with this - I am going to back out of the discussion and proposal of this as the ones that are carrying the ball on this and doing the heavy lifting, Keith and Mark, are really the ones that should pull this together. They happen to have a different approach than I do and I don't want to be in the middle of this anymore as I have probably been a disruptive influence. I personnaly think that they will need the H cars to make it happen, but that will require rule changes and will jerk a number of people around, so it is probably better to not attempt it now.

So, to answer your question Larry, no, there should only be one proposal being considered. I wish Mark, Keith and anyone else involved all the luck in getting this to happen. I will rescind my request if need be, but it does ask that G be reinstated so it is a vote FOR the basic premise. If you also want G to come back, write a letter to the CRB stating it.
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Ron, et al,

FWIW, I don’t think you have been a disruptive influence and your years of experience outweigh your ability to be an azzhole as you self-described.

I also think that along with reinstating G some revisions will need to happen. Exactly what they are needs to be discussed. The reinstatement will not work if all who are in favor, or are on the fence, are not heard and an agreement as to the final make up of the proposal is done.

Keith or Mark, do either of you have a draft of the proposal beyond “reinstate G per 2007 PCS”, or is it that simple?

Thank you,
Larry
 
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