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Yes, that Conquest is awesome! I competed in the Road America event a couple years ago...you guys do put on a great, and very well run event that is a lot of fun. Personally, I think it's just hard for many people (myself included) to get a handle on the subjective portion.
Just hope that Corvette isn't banished to its own class is all. Turning to a "Corvette Challenge" would be a disappointment.
That said, I think the only "wish" that I have is that you'd eliminate the use of the large flat rear spoilers everyone went to after the elimination of the wings. I think those slabs off the back of the cars really takes on this...dare I say...Nascarish/80's Trans Am Series look that diminishes the "street car" take a lot more than anything else.
Wings limited to the height of the roof, width of the body, etc seemingly encourages cars inspired by the likes of a new ZR1, ACR, GT3, etc. to show themselves. With the strong japanese styling influences (Lib Walk, Rocket bunny, RWB), as well as this bold new abundance of factory track day cars, I feel that a large winged car has more acceptance to the eye as a modified street car, versus a car with a flat angled slab off its backside. It's also a shame to never open that door to see Lib Walk or RWB cars compete, due to the aero restriction.
Please consider, I'm just a forum talker, not a guy internally looking at, and debating the facts. I just go to SEMA nearly every year (exhibited there as well) and love seeing the evolution of the competition. I do feel strongly, that controlling the aero rules is important (GTA just let them run rampant, way too high, front wings, etc), but I think the ultimate street car effort is being defined by a lot of the OEM's with efforts like the ACR, upcoming ZR1, ZL1 1LE, GT3RS, AMG GTR, etc...and all these cars have wings. My question is, are these cars banned from participation by having the factory aero?
Anyway, just asking questions and speaking as a fan...not implying I know what's best for a series I have no active involvement with. I just know, as a 20+yr builder, who aims at the street/track styling and presentation (I built a tube chassis thing with a wing that might've ended up on Speed Channel Battle of the Supercars), I find Optimas current aero rules, in order to competitive, to also be highly unattractive from a build standpoint. From an engineering perspective, I'd rather build aero, within a set of parameters that is also visually appealing in the spirit of the standard set forth at SEMA. I'd never built a car to exhibit products, or capability, at SEMA and design it with a slab on the rear. To me, that's the element that makes the cars of Optima USCA the least "street cars" at SEMA. A Nissan GTR with a full on lib walk kit looks more street to me, than a C5Z with nothing more than poking street rubber and a slab on the rear which is pretty unattractive. Just my take.
Thanks for continuing to evolve a great event. Please consider returning to aero, more inline with what we see on ACR, 1LE, etc.
Speaking of...Mclarens new street weapon out testing at the Ring, coming off of a supposed Porsche GT2 6:48 run claim. Street cars of today have wings Optima!
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (track prepared)
C3 of Year Winner (track prepared) 2019
Originally Posted by K.I.T.T.
Speaking of...Mclarens new street weapon out testing at the Ring, coming off of a supposed Porsche GT2 6:48 run claim. Street cars of today have wings Optima!
If the car comes with it from the factory, it is allowed. The Viper ACR for example. I competed against one at NOLA with Optima, and he dusted us on the track. I was 3rd fastest overall with a 1:51.192 (2nd place ran a 1.51:074) and Al was able to put down a 1:49.377 in the ACR, basically a whole different time zone.
Just hope that Corvette isn't banished to its own class is all. Turning to a "Corvette Challenge" would be a disappointment.
That said, I think the only "wish" that I have is that you'd eliminate the use of the large flat rear spoilers everyone went to after the elimination of the wings. I think those slabs off the back of the cars really takes on this...dare I say...Nascarish/80's Trans Am Series look that diminishes the "street car" take a lot more than anything else.
Wings limited to the height of the roof, width of the body, etc seemingly encourages cars inspired by the likes of a new ZR1, ACR, GT3, etc. to show themselves. With the strong japanese styling influences (Lib Walk, Rocket bunny, RWB), as well as this bold new abundance of factory track day cars, I feel that a large winged car has more acceptance to the eye as a modified street car, versus a car with a flat angled slab off its backside. It's also a shame to never open that door to see Lib Walk or RWB cars compete, due to the aero restriction.
Please consider, I'm just a forum talker, not a guy internally looking at, and debating the facts. I just go to SEMA nearly every year (exhibited there as well) and love seeing the evolution of the competition. I do feel strongly, that controlling the aero rules is important (GTA just let them run rampant, way too high, front wings, etc), but I think the ultimate street car effort is being defined by a lot of the OEM's with efforts like the ACR, upcoming ZR1, ZL1 1LE, GT3RS, AMG GTR, etc...and all these cars have wings. My question is, are these cars banned from participation by having the factory aero?
Anyway, just asking questions and speaking as a fan...not implying I know what's best for a series I have no active involvement with. I just know, as a 20+yr builder, who aims at the street/track styling and presentation (I built a tube chassis thing with a wing that might've ended up on Speed Channel Battle of the Supercars), I find Optimas current aero rules, in order to competitive, to also be highly unattractive from a build standpoint. From an engineering perspective, I'd rather build aero, within a set of parameters that is also visually appealing in the spirit of the standard set forth at SEMA. I'd never built a car to exhibit products, or capability, at SEMA and design it with a slab on the rear. To me, that's the element that makes the cars of Optima USCA the least "street cars" at SEMA. A Nissan GTR with a full on lib walk kit looks more street to me, than a C5Z with nothing more than poking street rubber and a slab on the rear which is pretty unattractive. Just my take.
Thanks for continuing to evolve a great event. Please consider returning to aero, more inline with what we see on ACR, 1LE, etc.
micjester, D&E being a foreign concept to everyone coming into our series is not lost on us at all. We try to be as straightforward and transparent with it as we can be in explaining it in the rules, the results and gone to great lengths to discuss it on the podcasts and in the blog. Even with that effort, we still have regular competitors in the series question results and criticize judging, when the outcome that upset them was clearly related to objective elements that were either not functioning properly in their car or missing altogether. “I guess the judges didn't like X cars,” is the sentiment, when the reality is their horn and turn signals weren't working and they took the back seat out of their car to save weight.
Others think it's all about how nice someone's paint is or they start comparing their car to someone else's, which isn't what the judges are doing. After objective points are awarded at inspection, every car is evaluated subjectively in nine categories, based on what the car is now relative to what it was when it came from the factory. The thing we emphasize most with them in how they award points is consistency. On a ten-point scale, a bone-stock car starts at a five and goes up or down from there, based on what was done and the condition of the car. Perfect 10s are rare, as are very low scores.
The bonus section is where judges are allowed to award additional points at their discretion, based on their own criteria. I've watched some judges only give bonus points to a single car, while other judges award points to everyone in varying degrees. Our judges tend to come from a diverse background and will sometimes use their bonus points to focus on their area of expertise- paint, engine work, suspension work, etc... We've also had judges award bonus points, based on how legit of a street car they believe it to be- loud exhaust, touchy clutch, etc... In the end, it typically isn't bonus points that make or break anyone's score, but more often the points awarded objectively. These are the subjective elements:
Those in our series who have taken the time to really understand how D&E works and put that knowledge to work relative to their car and presentation, have proven to score very consistently at our events. D&E scores have also shown that while vintage cars have a lot of potential to capture high scores, they often struggle with objective elements. New cars, old cars, foreign and domestic all have placed high and/or won in their respective classes and overall.
K.I.T.T., at the end of the year, the Ultimate Street Car award is only handed out to one car and it doesn't matter what class it is in. We're not requiring anyone to add aero onto their cars and not everyone has, let alone going to flat slabs. Others have taken it as an opportunity to get very creative with their aero. As you've noted with Rich's spoiler, they don't all look the same and as Rich indicated, if it came from the factory with aero, we allow it.
It's ironic that you mentioned those Japanese companies specifically, because we spent years asking a lot of car owners with those parts on them at SEMA, if they'd be willing to run their cars in the OUSCI and they declined in nearly every (but not all) instance. I think they all still produce body kits that are legal in our competition and we've had a few folks running them, but the wings are not allowed. While I understand not everyone's definition of what a race car and street car look like will end up being the same, we saw trends in our competitors, that made it clear that aero modifications would get out of hand in a hurry on both the front and back of the cars. Before these rules, we literally had a guy running a spoiler the size of a cookie sheet and that doesn't even get into what people were doing with wings. For as much as some folks are upset over spoiler/wing restrictions, there are many others who know there's still a lot to be done aerodynamically to cars in our series, if someone is so inclined (and many are).
While Al Copeland Jr is one example of a fast car with factory aero, it's not like he was just some guy who decided to buy a Viper ACR and come run in our series. Al is a very seasoned and accomplished motorsports competitor and you might have a hard time finding a lot of folks with more seat time at NOLA than him. We've had other factory aero cars come out and run with us and their times were far more mundane. Andy Hollis also ran at NOLA in a K-swap Miata and put down a faster time than eight of 13 Corvettes that were there. He beat all of them and Al's Viper on the autocross.
So, question is, did Optima pull a dirty against the Corvette at this years final competition?
Can anyone weigh in?
Some would say that many of us got screwed like no other. I've calmed down some, but I was extremely upset about a few things that happened and how they were (not) handled.
I've never been a fan of D&E, but I worked with it and figured out how to typically do well, scoring pretty consistently all year. After OUSCI and the BS that happened, I am now a complete and total opponent of D&E, the subjective nature of it and the way it can be used to control people whether people do well or virtually get eliminated from being competitive for the weekend.
With the exception of one C6 that scored more than his average raw score for the season, the rest of us were significantly down in D&E. I was 32nd overall and down nearly 4 points in my raw score compared to the average from the year. It was later figured out that one judge went "rogue" on the C6 cars, admittedly scored them less do to "all of them looking alike" and labeled a couple of our cars as race cars.
If we run with Optima next year, we have a coupe choices... One is to say the hell with D&E and just come out to run the portions of the event that us as drivers can control. The other is to make more changes to the car and try one more time, only to probably be let down again.
I did a little math and even if I virtually gave up on D&E, scored mid-pack at it, came out to run the driving events and collected the points from that, I would still get into OUSCI on points without the headache associated with Design and Engineering.
Last edited by RichieRichZ06; 11-17-2017 at 10:28 AM.
It seems to me that a motorsport competition should have a set of points for each event ie.
The 1st place in the autocross gets 100 then 2nd place gets 90 and so on
That’s how the normal world works
Putting an opinion into the mix is a part that makes this the problem
It’s like saying a golfer should win because he has shiny shoes and a flashy golf club
Even if he has 4 more strokes per hole
If the opinion part of D.E goes away it would make more sense
After all there are many colors of each car and there should be no advantage to the color but as it is the opinion of this D.E leaves the color as something that might score better than others
I like yellow but Danny likes Blue and the judges are tired of seeing yellow all the time so it goes to pink as there is only 1 car sporting that
Just my opinion
I might start watching other motorsports if this continues
With NJMP off the 2018 season line up for OUSCI the closest event for someone on the east coast is >12hr one way trip. The Corvette I've been building for a couple years and hoping of competing with is isolated to SCCA CAM and track days for another year. Seeing that event dropped really sucks for some of the east coast guys on slim budgets.
09-22-2017, 01:08 PM
