Lo-Buck EF

Now that grand am is bringing b spec on board, is anyone considering making the move?

-spenc.....thinking very bad things.

Simon Tibbett

Was it ever doubtful before Grand-Am made the official announcement? It's a no brainer in my head, the class will go places.

Egezzy

iTrader: (2)

$$$$$

dirty19

iTrader: (1)

Hard to say.. i remain skeptical.
Schedule takes you all over the place... only well funded teams will be able to criss cross the nation to participate.
I can see the 15K car as a good cap, but not to exceed 30K.
Hard to say what more you can put in one of these cars to make a 30K car better than a 15K car?
I just dont know.

JW racing

It is appealing aside from all the travel. All it takes is a couple good sponsors and a good team willing to travel.

Unless NASA does a spec B class regionally and nationally.....

Shinny

What about trying to get on as a driver for a well funded team?

JW racing

If you have the qualifications and the inside connections, go for it, its all who ya know. Regional races with SCCA or NASA are more reachable for most of us though.

Egezzy

iTrader: (2)

also, the speed/cost difference compared to the h2 car.

spence, why not rent a ride?

JW racing

The speed difference sucks( I passed the mazda2 spec B car about 6 times in my H1 car in one race) thats not the point of it, it is to have a spec field of even cars so the drivers can have at it. Which seems to be what most of the racers on here want. Think of it as H4 with newer cars. HPD would be eager to support as well.

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2...-february.html

Most already have a seat and safety, so you need a car and a cage, I would sell my H1 car quickly if this was the way everyone was going.

Lo-Buck EF

Because I'm too tall to fit in a car not built for me.

JW racing

Dang basketball playas;p

dirty19

iTrader: (1)

Spence have HPD make a "Spencer bubble" for you...
Just like the famous Gurney bubble on the GT-40?

Lo-Buck EF

B-speNc edition

dirty19

iTrader: (1)

Exactly!

Billy Elliot

I talked to an HPD engineer at Sno*Drift who was running the B-Spec fit. They're still trying to make some appealing contingencies that get people to show up. They are working on both a B-spec road and B-Spec rally kits that you buy where you get everything you need to turn a car into the race car for your respective series.

One suggestion was to get manufacturers to offer the car real cheap (like $5000 cheap) complete and ready to go. The only caveat, is that you NEED to run the entire season. If you don't they can buy the car back from you.

I am going to consider a rental of a B-Spec for the Belle Isle race. So I'll let you know how that goes.

Rally America just announced that they will have a B-spec sub-class for production car class as well. We'll see how that goes but it should be interesting as well. But we need competitors to bite and race.

exgr

Sounds expensive, but the potential exposure just might be worth the initial cost. Plus you're a support series for GAC and you'll be rubbing elbows with all the pro teams... really good for networking.

sanimalp

There was a great writeup in the SCCA monthly magazine about B spec. Mazda, Honda, Ford and Fiat are all pretty committed to it. They even quoted a guy from Angry Sheep Motorsport saying that most of the B spec cars could be built and raced for about $25k for a competitive car, professionally built. I was surprised to see a number that low, but it is in print..

Now if i could just come up with a spare $25k..

dirty19

iTrader: (1)

Here in lies the biggest set back getting that 25K

vtecjj

I talked to a fellow grand am ST racer during the 25hr and he said that he calculated the costs for a season of Spec B racing with grand am. To get the car built and race ready, he estimated $25k. Then he estimated another $25k throughout the season for consumables and maintenance of the car. And finally another $25k for transportation costs across the country (he owns his own rig but pays a driver. ROUND TRIP for me from california to ohio and back for NASA Nationals-towing with my duramax cost $2800-fuel alone)

Calculated total of $75k for Spec B with the grand am series as a team/car owner.

In my opinion, if I HAD $75k, I don't know if would spend it racing spec b in grand am...unless there was a HUGE purse to race for. I'd rather do a season of HC and race nationals and save $65k.

exgr

$25k per season on consumables for this class seems to be excessively high don't you think?

E-AT_me

if these are anything like a Spec Miata as far as consumables go, shouldn't be NEAR 25k. i wonder where he got that number? fresh tires every SESSION??

so if one wanted to, they could race there Spec B in Spec B class when it comes around, but i guess you'd be able to run PT with NASA? like, PTE maybe?? that way you could at least still race locally.. i guess if you got a fit you could run H4.. assuming the rules cross.

i forget what class the SCCA is going to stick these in, i don't remember if it was SSC or something or other. i threw out my mag that had it in there..

so for local competition, if there were a few spec B cars locally you'd have at least some fun competition till GA comes to town.. then you could play with the big boys.

exgr

I think the other way to look at it is this, per race, WC was getting up to $25k+ PER WEEKEND for a competitive seat. Now you can do a whole season, in front of essentially the same crowd and similar exposure and coverage. You also legitimately say you are racing at the "pro" level now. Seems to have a lot of pluses going for this series if you ask me. Lot of factory support, plus it is suppose to be highly spec. So your development time should be minimum. I see a lot of good things going here guys...

N1 Concepts has good history with Honda Fit. We are definitely going to be looking at this closely.

Billy Elliot

Doing an autotrader search I found a 95k mile Fit for $11k.

$2500 for cage
Already have a seat and harness
Already have a window net
Already have steering wheel
$60 hub
Need that center net
$100 for brake lines
$300 for brake pads
$600 for wheels
$1000 for tires
$400 for clutch/flywheel
$2500 suspension?

What else is allowed engine wise? Intake/Exhaust/Header? So maybe another $1000 being generous... That's $19460 from what I count. Not counting selling any interior bits to recoup some costs.

Unless that $25k for a season was brand new tires every session. The car won't go through brakes that hard. I did two 24 hours of LeMons races in a 1990 protege on the same set of brake pads and they still had meat left in them.

So between races is:
$1000 for new tires
$15 for brake fluid
$30 for oil change

what else am I missing?

Simon Tibbett

The only downside to running in the pro series is the spec tires and if they require you to buy a certain amount per weekend. Not sure if WC is also requiring the same in-car stuff they do the larger cars, but Grand-Am's B-Spec plans look more appealing right now anyway.

dirty19

iTrader: (1)

Unless the sponsorship money falls from the sky where is this money going to come from?
If you own a shop you can write it off thats easy enough to do, but what about the everyday run of the mill joe racer?
Even if an estimate of 75k for a season is high thats still alot of filthy green stuff for someone at the club racer level to even entertain.
Not knocking the efforts to get HPD or mazda to get more down to the grassroots level, but this is still on the very high side to be considered grassroots.