Okay, sorry to bother you guys with another class question, but my club is really frustrating me with classing. I'm not that fast of a driver yet, and really didn't expect to win today, but when I took 3rd place in CSP with a 39.7 (not as impressive when I say that there was only 4 entries in CSP) and 1st got a 35.xxx, I decided to go over and check out his car. It was an '85 CRX with a JDM EW engine, bolt in roll cage, completely gutted interior (even the dash was gone), and non-dot approved Kumho tires (sorry, I forget exactly what kind they were. they had a little tread on them, but they also had red stamps and no dot writing.)

Now, from my limited knowledge of the rules, I'm pretty sure the engine and roll cage are ok, but I know the interior needs to be there. and I'm pretty sure you have to run street tires, right?

Then again, this is from a race that let an Integra with a JDM typeR engine, full exhaust, and lowered 3" run in D-Stock, and a bone-stock 00 Subaru wagon run in OSPU. I even talked to a novice that had a 90 civic hatch with a B16A swap, lowered springs and several other mods that we didn't get into, He had no idea what to run in and asked the officials and at first they said to run in CSP, then they decided that since he was running on street tires, that he should run in STS. These are the same officials that 2 months ago tried to tell me that I needed to be in SM because I had "swapped" a '91 Civic Si engine into my '91 Civic STD.

I guess I shouldn't complain, we're lucky to even have an autocross club in our small little town. And the people that put the races together put in a lot of time and effort and try really hard. There are a lot of different things to consider in classing, but shouldn't the people who tech the cars at least have knowledge of the basics so they can catch these mistakes? Maybe i need to concentrate on learning the classes better then start volunteering to run tech.

Sorry for the midnight rant.

 

It is not the tech inspectors job to class a car. The driver is required to properly class the car. Now, I know alot of new people come out and them have no idea what class to run, so tech can help them. But it is hard to know every car and every mod rule. A rule book should be on site to allow people to be properly classed. I think you are on the right track though, when you say that you need to become more familiar with the rules and get more involved to help.

BTW, not sure about the engine or tires of the guy that won your class, but if it was an IT car, they can be fully stripped interior, but it does have to be fully IT prepped, it can not mix SP and IT rules.

Good luck

 

Improved Touring racecars can run in street prepared class.

 

JDM engine swap isn't legal for Street Prepared.

Tires MUST be DOT approved, and pretty much all of the Kumho's are (if it had tread, then it's DOT approved). You can still run race tires, but they are just not true race slicks.

The others are correct, if he has the car prepped to road race specs, then it might be legal. There is a catch though, it has to be prepped to the T, 100% of the road race rules, no interchanging of rules.

Some clubs also will allow cars to run in certain classes at the local level. Our club has extended the Honda-Challenge classes the same Street Prepared status as IT classes, but that isn't in the SCCA rule book.

Scott

 

There use to be a small local club around here that ran on a military base (they had to stop after 9/11) and they were basically there for "the fun of it". They ran a good club, but there were plenty of cars overly built for the class they said they were in. Best thing was though, no one cared. It was a nice change to go there and just race for the sake of being behind the wheel.

 

It's up to you to determine if you want to protest him or not, but I probably wouldn't worry about it.

It may also be that it was an honest mistake for the classing if they are new. He may have told someone with more experience what his mod's were and they mistakenly told him CSP. He may be more appropriately classed in UOSP (local Eugene class).

Talk to him and see why he's in the class and if he understands how the rules for mods are setup.

I hope this helps.

 

my sts car will be either lumped into g-stock or something else this fall in one of my clubs, otherwise I would be the only sts competitor there

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MaddMatt &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Improved Touring racecars can run in street prepared class.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Don't IT cars have to retain the stock dash though??

Jeff

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jasyatz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Don't IT cars have to retain the stock dash though??
Jeff</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes, it must be present but not everything needs to be functional.

 

I had a friendly chat with the guy today, he's been racing a long time and understands the rules. He says that he had to strip everything out to track down a wire short and that he plans to put it all back in when he gets the time. We accually got along fairly well and ended up helping each other out. Since I'm pretty much getting spanked by every Miata and MR2 I go up against, it's nice to see a fellow Honda on top. So all in all, I'm really glad I didn't protest.

Sorry for going off on a rant last night, I was just really tired and sore from a long day.

And, in case anyone cares, today I was dead last out of 6 entries, but I had a blast. And, I got a better time than 2 of the SM entries