TTS Update

[cliftching]

I think not everyone know the whole story here and why a lot of guys are upset. Yes, It finally took Pat to man up and say his car is not legal. That takes guts. Did NASA put him up to it to save face? I don't know. Why it took 5 days when it could have been solve in one night by going to a dyno which was offered for Free.

 

We were one of the teams that protested the port not being sealed and also questioned the car. At first it was verbal. The Director was not going to do anything about it. But after talking to other NASA officials they said that to make it official and go file an official protest.

 

I would love to hear what Rob Fuller have to say. He was very vocal about the protest and even vouge for the car to be 100% legal.

 

Patrick was there when we talked to Greg. He did admit his port was not sealed. I suggest he be DQ'd. Greg said in the meeting that if you don't seal your port you will be DQ'd. Patrick wants transcript of the meeting which he was not in. Lucky Mark was there to vouge for it. If not there are 100 of TT competitor there that can vouge for it. Second, the suppes said drivers meeting is mandatory. If he could not make it send a representative. His port was not sealed for a 2 days!

 

Anyway, Patrick was really upset with us. We suggested looking at the car at the Dyno. Pure Tuning has an AWD Mustang Dyno. Greg said NASA will not pay dyno time. Keith offered the dyno for free! Patrick refuse to do so and said he will not let a competitor touch his car. Pure Tuning even said we won't touch the car. We will hook it up and let you guys do your thing at the dyno. Still the refusal. If he was 110% sure his car was legal He would have said yes, Lets go. I say if I was accused of cheating and know my car is 100% legal. I would park it at the middle of the paddock with the hood up and let everyone come look at it. Why it took 5 days to finally get it dynoed?

 

There was another discussion Sunday. I was there to hear what is going to happened. Greg pretty much insulted everyone by saying his car is legal and that he is just a good driver. There are a lot of things that happened behind the scene that a lot of you don't know. So don't pat him on the back for doing what he did. I did not meet the nice guy that you all say he is. I met a different Patrick.

 

So the question. What will happen now? In the other club racing. You would be put under probation. Will this happen to make it an example to make sure this don't happen next year.

 

I don't mind being beat. beat me fair and square.

this is suppose to be fun.

 

Clifton Ching

[usbikepro]

But my only comment is that the AWD cars had those little nifty GPS boxes that were supposed to allow NASA to figure out if someone was on the edge or over the edge weight/power. It would have been nice if that data would have been reviewed and any cars that were playing it too closely would have been examined prior to a protest being filed. Seems like that could have given Patrick time to add weight and saved some hard feelings.

- Mark

 

I was told by NASA officials that there is no provision in the rules to use data as a means to prove complience. I know that they did however spend 3 hours on Saturday comparing my (Motec) data to Pat's (GPS) but didn't find anything conclusive. Probably because there was no way to directly overlay them. (Side note: The NASA officials worked very hard to deal with this situation and were very fair with their rulings and I applaud their efforts)

 

ST is a new class and my guess is that Pat found some pretty major loopholes in the rules that allowed him to build a car that while still complying with ST2 rules should have been classed a class or even two higher.

 

World Challenge has similar problems with the Audi's. All wheel drive turbo cars have such a great advantage as the all wheel drive system can handle the massive amounts of torque that the turbo can put out without loosing traction. Which means big exit speeds that translate into big trap speed numbers. Pat's car has all wheel drive, is running something like 275 Hoosiers (which I think is big for that car in ST2 I was running 225's), and has more HP and torque than most (all?) cars in class and he's a good driver. That's a tough combo to beat.

 

Now I understand that NASA wants to make sure that anyone who has a car can find a place to race it, and I whole heartedly applaud that effort, but I think that you open Pandora's box when you don't seriously restrict the rules for forced induction all wheel drive cars.

 

Just to be clear I am NOT bashing on Pat or calling him a cheater. What I am saying is that the car he brought, ST2 legal or not, was so far out of range with the rest of the class that the result was a forgone conclusion. (I may not be Lewis Hamilton but I don't know of very many drivers that can put 3 seconds on me in "equal" cars) He was aware of this from at least Friday and probably as early as thursday. My idea of sportmanship would have been to work on getting the car closer to ST2 times or jumping up a class. That he pushed the limits right up until the end even though he had 3 seconds a lap to spare doesn't make any sense to me but it also doesn't click with my sense of fairplay. Just MHO

[L98Terror]

I find it kind of Ironic that the TT guys put all the pressure on Pat and NASA, yet the ST guys backed down.

 

 

For those that say letting this drop is better for TT, I say BS. If this was allowed to go uncontested and nothing was done I'd be less likely to ever run TT again & it would be seen as a Joke! It would be widely known that you can break the rules and nobody will do anything about it. Cheating would become widespread. At least now people know if they plan to stretch the rules or blatantly cheat they have a good chance of being caught and embarrassed on a National Level.

 

 

I commend the all the guys in TT that protested Pat and stood their ground, it seems that TT is no longer the stomping ground for racers who feel they need to stretch the rules and pick on the little kids so they can feel better about themselves.

[FocusTed]

As you know Robb, I respect you and your opinion a lot and since I know both you and Pat, I will not get in this middle of this or take sides. I think it’s best that you two talk and kind of clean the air.

Edited September 19, 2007 by Guest

[cosm3os]

For those that say letting this drop is better for TT, I say BS. If this was allowed to go uncontested and nothing was done I'd be less likely to ever run TT again & it would be seen as a Joke! It would be widely known that you can break the rules and nobody will do anything about it. Cheating would become widespread. At least now people know if they plan to stretch the rules or blatantly cheat they have a good chance of being caught and embarrassed on a National Level.

 

Nothing was done? The guy was DQ'd. The process worked--someone protested, the car was tested, the car failed, the driver was DQ'd.

[Falcon]

If this was allowed to go uncontested and nothing was done I'd be less likely to ever run TT again & it would be seen as a Joke!.

 

Nothing was done? The guy was DQ'd. The process worked--someone protested, the car was tested, the car failed, the driver was DQ'd.

 

Ken didn't say nothing was done.

 

Read the whole sentence.

[1LapSRT]

Read the whole sentence.

 

But it's much more fun to take things out of context and jump to illogical conclusions!

[BQuicksilver]

For those that say letting this drop is better for TT, I say BS. If this was allowed to go uncontested and nothing was done I'd be less likely to ever run TT again & it would be seen as a Joke! It would be widely known that you can break the rules and nobody will do anything about it. Cheating would become widespread. At least now people know if they plan to stretch the rules or blatantly cheat they have a good chance of being caught and embarrassed on a National Level.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. We really need to know the details of what happeded and IMO see action taken against Pat IF he was blatantly out of range/cheating.

 

TT is great in that it's one of the few places you can run just about anything. At the same time that opens a pandora's box for those who would like to cheat the system or expose loopholes in the rules, and I'm sure it will always be easier to get away with cheating that to get caught in TT. That being said, the only way to keep TT fair and honest is to be proactive and relatively harsh with punishing those who are caught cheating. Does a recent $100,000,000 F1 fine ring a bell?

 

After reading this I kinda feel like there is an atmosphere of wanting to "cover things up" here and applauding someone for taking an action that NASA would have anyway. Describing someone as honest when they showed up to nationals with an illegal car/failed to seal the data port/missed the driver meeting/resisted a free dyno/were protested in two classes/etc just seems a little perverse to me.

 

If NASA wants to maintain the integrity of the TT program and not send the message that *it's okay to cheat at our biggest event* they need to make an example of him, not support him. IF Pat was blatantly cheating (and I'm starting to believe he was), he sure as heck got off light. What message does this send to everyone who is working on their 2008 TT car? If the precedent set here is just losing your points from that weekend I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more cars cheating soon.

[GooRoo]

 

ST is a new class and my guess is that Pat found some pretty major loopholes in the rules that allowed him to build a car that while still complying with ST2 rules should have been classed a class or even two higher.

 

 

I don't think this is necessarily true. Obviously he made a mistake and went over the hp limit, and was dq'd/dq'd himself because of it. People recognized it was accelerating too fast, protested, GPS data was examined and in the end he was dyno'd and found to be over. The system worked. End of story.

 

I think the main thing he did was prep the car such that the HP was at the limit over the entire used rpm range. It would be pretty easy to do in a turbo car with a boost controller that can vary boost with RPM. Just up the boost down low and make 400hp at 3000 rpm and bleed it off at higher rpm to make 400hp up there as well. The fact that he's AWD helps him too of course, but there's already a provision in the rules to cover that.

 

I don't think that's a loophole, that's just prepping the car to the rules. The people who made the rules were told specifically about this before the year, and chose to not do anything about it. (many of the threads on the boards talk about using torque+hp/2, instead of max HP) I do know that anyone NA will have a much more difficult time doing that same thing, but we all know that different motors make different power over different rpm ranges, and others might try to maximize that useful power with different/closer gear ratios, differentials, porting, etc etc etc. This is just another way to do the same thing, so I'm not sure how you could disallow one and allow others. All these changes are trying to do one thing: Get the most power to the ground over the longest period of time.

 

Ignoring the mistake/cheating situation specifically with Pat L of going over the p/w ratio, I think the main thing to take away from this is that most people are not prepping their car to the limit of the rules. TT/ST is about competing in terms of driver AND car, otherwise we'd all be in spec classes.

 

I think the other thing to take away from this is that because of the inclusiveness and complexity of the rules, it is going to be *very* hard to enforce them, even at the nationals level, and especially at the regional level. All it takes is one hidden switch under the dash and someone can switch the programming on their ECU to unlock an extra 20 hp that is enough to get them the last .3 seconds and get a class win. NASA will do the best it can given limited resources to check compliance, but in the end we all need to have a spirit of cooperation and sportsmanship with regard to competition.

 

Last comment: I worry about contingencies because I can see where people would want to cheat if it gets them something other than a $5 trophy.

[GooRoo]

I don't think that's a loophole, that's just prepping the car to the rules. The people who made the rules were told specifically about this before the year, and chose to not do anything about it. (many of the threads on the boards talk about using torque+hp/2, instead of max HP) I do know that anyone NA will have a much more difficult time doing that same thing, but we all know that different motors make different power over different rpm ranges, and others might try to maximize that useful power with different/closer gear ratios, differentials, porting, etc etc etc. This is just another way to do the same thing, so I'm not sure how you could disallow one and allow others. All these changes are trying to do one thing: Get the most power to the ground over the longest period of time.

 

This is bad form to quote my own post, but I came up with a couple more ideas that make me think they (NASA/Greg) have it right:

 

1) Electric motors

2) Continuously Variable Transmissions

 

The rules specify the max HP to the wheels for the class (based on weight) and it's everyone's job to try to get that amount of power to the ground ALL THE TIME.

[L98Terror]

For those that say letting this drop is better for TT, I say BS. If this was allowed to go uncontested and nothing was done I'd be less likely to ever run TT again & it would be seen as a Joke! It would be widely known that you can break the rules and nobody will do anything about it. Cheating would become widespread. At least now people know if they plan to stretch the rules or blatantly cheat they have a good chance of being caught and embarrassed on a National Level.

 

Nothing was done? The guy was DQ'd. The process worked--someone protested, the car was tested, the car failed, the driver was DQ'd.

 

Talk to Clifton since he was more involved than I, the system did work but only because a few TT drivers pushed forward when they met resistance.

 

On Sunday the ST protest was officially removed and there was no need continue with the dyno plan, however, Greg and I were of the opinion that a dyno was in the best interests of my competitors and NASA. This morning we drove to the dyno and my car failed to meet the weight:power requirement for TTS/ST2...

 

This makes it sound like he dynoed the car out of the goodness of his heart yet there were multiple TT protests that were not dropped. Maybe TT protests don't matter

 

Now lastly The only reason I dropped the protest was that after talking with the officials (and giving them my data to compare against yours) they convinced me that your car was probably legal and that you had found a loophole in the ST rules (ie that you car was making massive amounts of torque and not hp) and built a car that while unreasonably fast for it classification was probably legal. Since I didn’t come to the race to be a PITA I decided that protesting was just going to take the officials away from their jobs and cause a distraction, all for something that they felt was probably legal. So I withdrew my protest, however I stated in no uncertain terms it was my professional opinion that the car did not meet class specs. Had your car not passed tech for the TT class and you either did not withdraw or were DQed for the ST class I would have been far more vocal in my protest and used really bad language in doing so.

 

The TT guys were told the same BS and if they dropped their protests nothing would have come from this.

 

 

My issue is the fact that every Corvette that was running up front got weighted and dynoed yet for some reason Pat thought he was going to be above the rules. From day one people had issues with his car and if he was the stand up guy people say he is than he would have addressed them then. He choose not to, pure and simple.

 

Not to mention how come we haven't seen the dyno numbers Anyone that had to dyno at the track the numbers were right out there, anyone could stand at the computer screen and see for themselves.

 

You would think that since this was a Cal car and the person calling the shots was from Cal also, they would be extra careful in scrutinizing the car instead of telling people he's a better driver than you and the car is with-in the rules. Talk about putting your foot in your mouth.

 

 

I guess there are two sides to this, those that defend cheats and those that are offended by cheats.

[LSInnovations]

As a side note, being in the garage stall next to Pat L. from tuesday through sunday. I spent the entire week in one of the adjacent garage mechanic'ing.

 

I was over talking to Pat and looking at the car alot during the whole week. At no point did I see anyone plug in a computer or access the OBD-II port in anyway. I kept a constant eye on it due to the discussion I heard regarding the port not being sealed.

 

Also the track times from the first two days of practice were thrown out due to being unsealed, so the fact that it was unsealed has no difference at all on the outcome.

 

 

Its the same as showing up a few days later to start running and sealing your port when you got there on thursday.

 

 

 

 

I greatly commend and applaud Pat L. He is a straight up racer who everyone is bashing....

 

Also if they want AWD cars to dyno there, then NASA should be footing the bill for loading up and traveling, paying crew to go to an outside location, fuel, wear/tear on vehicles etc and time lost at the track. If they wanted him to dyno outside during the event it should of been in the rules or let him know ahead of time before setting up camp, rig everything etc...

 

Loading up a toter and getting it out of that place would have been a bitch with everything around and fully setup, alot of work.

[EricVonHa]

Mobile AWD dynos do exist. The Whitis show brought one to the late summer VIR NASA weekend.

 

OBDII sealed port is only one of a number of things that need to be "locked down" in a turbo car. Basically, any driver intervention of boost mapping should be written out of the rules.

 

And, for the record-- all turbo cars should be in their own classes. Let them run unlimited boost in the TTTU class (turbo time trial unlimited) class.

 

TTTM- (turbo time trial modified) some weight to power limitations. Leave the n/a cars to themselves.

 

There are enough Subies and Evos out there that are competing that this is a viable solution.

 

---

 

My thought? Well, if you saw the amount of effort and $$$ put into the Lindsey racing adventures at the Nationals-- you'd wonder why somoeone would go through all of that-- to only be dq'd. The benefit of the doubt is that the car was tuned to the ragged edge of being TTS material, only to its own detriment.

 

When you're at Nationals territory, you sure as heck have dynoed and reprogrammed any turbo car a multitude of times. So, why it failed the weight/power classification after the event is news to me.

 

Pat, what's up ?

[1LapSRT]

Also if they want AWD cars to dyno there, then NASA should be footing the bill for loading up and traveling, paying crew to go to an outside location, fuel, wear/tear on vehicles etc and time lost at the track. If they wanted him to dyno outside during the event it should of been in the rules or let him know ahead of time before setting up camp, rig everything etc...

 

Loading up a toter and getting it out of that place would have been a bitch with everything around and fully setup, alot of work.

 

It is in the rules. And I believe that option was "offered" and Pat refused. An after-hours trip to the dyno was always an option and the whole crew, fuel and wear & tear payment is just a BS idea.

 

I am willing to bet someone with a pick-up and a flat trailer was parked a bit closer to the exit and would have been willing to haul the car over for nothing (or maybe a little gas money or beer).

 

I beleive NASA needs to work on getting an AWD dyno to the event to eliminate anything like this from happening in the future. One "offer" and then a DQ if refused or over spec.

 

Case Closed.

[AU N EGL]

Cant Audi ECU's have the ability to run multiple mapping programs through a factory configured switch on the steering column (aka cruise control), fact. (http://www.goapr.com)

[1LapSRT]

Cant Audi ECU's have the ability to run multiple mapping programs through a factory configured switch on the steering column (aka cruise control), fact. (http://www.goapr.com)

 

Yup!

[cosm3os]

So how about turning this into a constructive thread. Put aside the events of this case--what are the deficiencies in the rules, and what are the possible fixes?

 

Some of my thoughts:

 

Is the GPS adequate to monitor HP? Should competitors have access to everyone's GPS hp numbers?

 

If GPS is not adequate, should an AWD dyno be present? If that can't happen, who pays to get the car dynoed and when does it get done?

 

This is all stuff for changes/additions to the 08 TT rules.

[ajobrien]

Cant Audi ECU's have the ability to run multiple mapping programs through a factory configured switch on the steering column (aka cruise control), fact. (http://www.goapr.com)

 

This is only done by turning the car off and flashing threw the programs,

not on the fly.

[Piersin]

HP+TQ/2 is the only fair way to deal with turbo vs NA

[1LapSRT]

Cant Audi ECU's have the ability to run multiple mapping programs through a factory configured switch on the steering column (aka cruise control), fact. (http://www.goapr.com)

 

This is only done by turning the car off and flashing threw the programs,

not on the fly.

 

He wouldn't need to do it on the fly... just lower it inconspicuously before he pulls onto a dyno.

 

No special hidden switches under the dash for anyone to find.

[AU N EGL]

Cant Audi ECU's have the ability to run multiple mapping programs through a factory configured switch on the steering column (aka cruise control), fact. (http://www.goapr.com)

 

This is only done by turning the car off and flashing threw the programs,

not on the fly.

 

He wouldn't need to do it on the fly... just lower it inconspicuously before he pulls onto a dyno.

 

No special hidden switches under the dash for anyone to find.

That is were I was heading.

 

Not to mention, there are remote WAN programing tools available for most ECUs now. Just change the OBDII port too a Wireless + normal OBDII port. Sit 10 feet away with a lap top and make tuning adjustments. Not to say anyone would ever do this.

 

Personally I think that a team SHOULD be able to make tuning adjustments as needed. If you come from some place that has very high humidity then to low 60 degree low humidity race track, darn sure might want to change that program to get the most out of your engine.

[FlyingDutchMan]

I don't understand why all the crying that a car is outside of spec, this demonstrates a lack of familarity with the sport of auto racing on the part of some participants.

 

Stepping back, looking at the big picture and then reading some of the comments on this thread some poeple have to lost sight of the whole point of racing. How can you claim to have even the most basic knowledge of the sport if your surprised that cars are outside of spec from time to time? The whole point of racing is to push the limits requiring competitors to walk as close as possible to a very thin line as is prudent. Regardless of whether that fine line is in terms of the "racing line" or "braking points" or "class specs."

 

From time to time people are going to end up on the wrong side of the line, a normal course of events, in the form of vehicle-to-vehicle contact, passing under yellow, crashes, missed apex, or chassis dyno that is out of spec. Racing after all means pushing the limits of the drivers, machinery and rules/politics- all simultaneously. No one I know takes up racing as hobby because they are risk averse and unprepared to walk a fine line.

 

I'm sure Pats car wasn't the only car that was out of spec, it should be pointed out there were several DQ's in varoius classes. In addition there were undoubtly other cars out there walking a fine line of power to weight. The only reason those individuals remain anonymous is beceause those drivers didn't have the talent to utilize the extra advantage they had, much less attract the attention an fellow racers, officials, or the even the GPS technology in the process.

 

To characterize the DQ's of Pat's Audi, or any other car, as cheating isn't accurate and does more of disservice to the sport than the actual infraction(s) could ever do because it assumes malicious intent. It is more accurate characterize this weekend simply as competitive racing.

 

This situation speaks very well for the level of competition and preparation NASA teams are doing. It sends the message that the level of competition is continually increasing and that the NASA officials are enforcing regulations effectively and, as some people pointed out, the rules could use further fine tuning- as I understand the case is going to be moving forward.

[GooRoo]

HP+TQ/2 is the only fair way to deal with turbo vs NA

 

So that I can show up with my peripheral ported rotary that makes 400hp at 12k rpm and a max of 200 tq for a number of 300 in my 2600lb rx7 and run circles around the guy with 360 hp at 5500 rpm and a max of 360 tq for a combined number of 360 in his 3200 lb corvette? (both at about 8.7:1 to stay in TTS/ST2)

 

A TQ number is not useful in comparing POWER to weight.

 

Realistically NASA has already given us the best they can do given such a wide variety of potential setups and their limited ability to test compliance. A final hp number (based on weight) that we need to try to stay near for as long as we possibly can. To do that we can use different gearing/differentials/boost/tuning/restrictors etc etc etc.

 

Also, to keep this post constructive: I do think that they need to get a AWD dyno to next years event. Then 80% of most people's problems from this year (and last year's) events are gone.

[AU N EGL]

A TQ number is not useful in comparing POWER to weight.

 

Yes Power (HP) to wt is calculated.

 

as HP is calculated and TQ is measured

 

 

Over all I think it is a very good rule system, just a little tweaking here or there.

[Bill Marquardt]

I was unaware of some of the details involving the protest of Patrick Lindsey car even though I was one of the tech inspectors. I would like to see the results of the dyno.

 

Bill Marquardt

Midwest PT, TT & HPDE4 Director