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Spirit of GTS (From: RULE PROPOSAL: Maximum Ballast)


ianacole

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Not sure what happened at SP. Engine trouble?

 

Ian, You'll be happy to know that Doug was very pointed in his discussion of compliance. So pointed in fact that I briefly wondered if I was cheating

 

Either way, the message was crystal clear.

 

At VIR everyone knew there wouldn't be a dyno so he raced and won I think. But at SP, it was made very clear that the scales AND the dyno would be used...he came in early during qualifying and didn't race...hmm.

 

You guys crack me up!!

Yes I ran at VIR and yes I did win. I didnt care about the dyno since my car was just dynoed the week before and therefore would have passed without any problem as I did with the scales.

I'll say it again, and maybe this time people will actually understand what they read, my car has (had and will have again) a bone stock 2004 3.6 in it that puts out about 310HP. Its NOT a Cup Car its a frickin street car, like most other GTS cars, that has been converted to a race car. It still has the climate control in it and yes I do have ballast in it. 100#s behind the drivers seat and 100#s on the passangers side and depending on what wheels Im using and whether Im using the cool suit I may or may not have 30#s in the trunk. All are custom made high density lead plates that are safely secured.

I appreciate all the concern about what happened to me at SP. So I'll say it again... I had, what turned out to be catostrophic clutch failure that ened up taking out the flywheel and in turn braking the crank, ie time to replace the motor (which by the way had about 250 miles on it).

 

So there you go, I hope you all can appreciate this and understand the facts.

 

Hope to see you all at Hyperfest!!!!!

 

By the way Im all for ballasting down!!!! If I didnt do it I would be at the bottom of GTS4 getting my ass kicked by The Schwarz. And like others have said there are far more cars in GTS3 so all the better to race in.

 

Thanks again,

The totally legit 996 guy,

Tim Costa

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It's interesting to me that the guy you are complaining about is driving a 996. Our season points leader in GTS-3 is driving a 996 and breaking every track record for the class by a couple of seconds - he is completely dominating.

 

If someone simply saw the results they might think he was cheating. But I was there when the car was dyno'ed and I was there when he crossed the scales, it's a legal car. What you have is a fantastic chassis as a starting point, huge tires (315 in the rear), and a professional build and set-up. Then add to that a guy who can drive better than most. The build is probably nearing $100K, but its within the rule book and no matter how good the car is you have to give credit to the driver as well.

 

I suspect you have something similar going on with the 996 in your region and having seen the one we race with, I'd bet you are losing to a legal car.

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Last year I had my rookie race with PCA at Barber (my home track). After the three practices (last of which is the qualifier), I was protested for having illegal tires (I ran R888's for the first two practices and R6's for the last). Of course the protest was baseless, but I guess someone in my class didn't like the fact that I was nearly 2 seconds faster/lap. I think that some just have to assume that if they are not winning then whoever is must be cheating to beat them. Personally I think people are innocent till proven guilty.

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It's interesting to me that the guy you are complaining about is driving a 996. Our season points leader in GTS-3 is driving a 996 and breaking every track record for the class by a couple of seconds - he is completely dominating.

 

If someone simply saw the results they might think he was cheating. But I was there when the car was dyno'ed and I was there when he crossed the scales, it's a legal car. What you have is a fantastic chassis as a starting point, huge tires (315 in the rear), and a professional build and set-up. Then add to that a guy who can drive better than most. The build is probably nearing $100K, but its within the rule book and no matter how good the car is you have to give credit to the driver as well.

 

I suspect you have something similar going on with the 996 in your region and having seen the one we race with, I'd bet you are losing to a legal car.

 

You talking about Jay Matus? Ive raced with him before. Very nice guy and great driver. Had the opportunity to dice it up w/ him at Nationals last year.

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And I won't be in GTS2 any longer either.

Where WILL you be?

 

If the build ends up where it should, and there is no reason to think it won't, I likely will be in GTS4, *possibly* GTS5. But hell I don't even have all the parts here yet so while it's fabulous plan, at this point it's still just a plan. GTS2 for this year and possibly next year. I'd consider trying GTS3 next year (though by way of adding a fair bit of power) but that is too far out right now to even think about really. Hell I couldn't even make Putnam last weekend, right now I'm focusing on Mid Ohio in mid July. I think you guys are gonna whoop me at MO but I promise to do my best. ; )

 

Cheers.

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Last year I had my rookie race with PCA at Barber (my home track). After the three practices (last of which is the qualifier), I was protested for having illegal tires (I ran R888's for the first two practices and R6's for the last). Of course the protest was baseless, but I guess someone in my class didn't like the fact that I was nearly 2 seconds faster/lap. I think that some just have to assume that if they are not winning then whoever is must be cheating to beat them. Personally I think people are innocent till proven guilty.

 

LOL, this comment reminds me of those who *think* they are fast and get beat but refuse to accept that maybe they're just not that good. Sort of the "I'm cheating and he's beating me so he MUST be cheating" type thing. Any rookie will always be a target for this too.

 

Cheers.

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You talking about Jay Matus? Ive raced with him before. Very nice guy and great driver. Had the opportunity to dice it up w/ him at Nationals last year.

 

 

Yep, and he has a new car this year that he is absolutely FLYING in. The rest of us just battle for 2nd. As I said, both car and driver are impressive and even though he kicks my butt I have great appreciation for the effort that is going into his racing this year. He is very focused on his driving and his race engineer/car builder is a talented guy who has the car dialed in right. Can't wait to see how he does at Nationals this year.

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Not sure what happened at SP. Engine trouble?

 

Ian, You'll be happy to know that Doug was very pointed in his discussion of compliance. So pointed in fact that I briefly wondered if I was cheating

 

Either way, the message was crystal clear.

 

At VIR everyone knew there wouldn't be a dyno so he raced and won I think. But at SP, it was made very clear that the scales AND the dyno would be used...he came in early during qualifying and didn't race...hmm.

 

You guys crack me up!!

Yes I ran at VIR and yes I did win. I didnt care about the dyno since my car was just dynoed the week before and therefore would have passed without any problem as I did with the scales.

I'll say it again, and maybe this time people will actually understand what they read, my car has (had and will have again) a bone stock 2004 3.6 in it that puts out about 310HP. Its NOT a Cup Car its a frickin street car, like most other GTS cars, that has been converted to a race car. It still has the climate control in it and yes I do have ballast in it. 100#s behind the drivers seat and 100#s on the passangers side and depending on what wheels Im using and whether Im using the cool suit I may or may not have 30#s in the trunk. All are custom made high density lead plates that are safely secured.

I appreciate all the concern about what happened to me at SP. So I'll say it again... I had, what turned out to be catostrophic clutch failure that ened up taking out the flywheel and in turn braking the crank, ie time to replace the motor (which by the way had about 250 miles on it).

 

So there you go, I hope you all can appreciate this and understand the facts.

 

Hope to see you all at Hyperfest!!!!!

 

By the way Im all for ballasting down!!!! If I didnt do it I would be at the bottom of GTS4 getting my ass kicked by The Schwarz. And like others have said there are far more cars in GTS3 so all the better to race in.

 

Thanks again,

The totally legit 996 guy,

Tim Costa

 

Tim - glad we can provide some humor for you and thanks for clearing things up about SP! Considering all the paddock talk, you must admit it was a bit suspicious...

 

Sorry to hear about the clutch/motor problems. I look forward to seeing the Hyperfest results. Good Luck!

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You talking about Jay Matus? Ive raced with him before. Very nice guy and great driver. Had the opportunity to dice it up w/ him at Nationals last year.

 

 

Yep, and he has a new car this year that he is absolutely FLYING in. The rest of us just battle for 2nd. As I said, both car and driver are impressive and even though he kicks my butt I have great appreciation for the effort that is going into his racing this year. He is very focused on his driving and his race engineer/car builder is a talented guy who has the car dialed in right. Can't wait to see how he does at Nationals this year.

 

Will Jay make the Hallett trip? If so, I may have to figure out a "REWARDS" system ... say, the number of times he laps me plus 1

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BTW Michael, the $200,000 car discussion was not directed at a Porsche product, it was actually referring to one of the RRT Bimmers. Just thought you should hear the rumors

 

Wow...RRT has built a $200,000 car? Do they know that? Are they referencing the Koni Challenge car? If so, that would be even more comical to complain about the perceived "cost" considering how extremely limited the Koni Challenge rules are that the car is built for. A Koni car in the GTS ruleset is similar to a knife in a gun fight.

 

I'm reading a lot of whining about a little bit of weight in a class that allows UNLIMITED MODIFICATIONS. Weight is the LEAST of your concerns if you aren't competitive. There's nothing in the rules that prevents any performance modification...UNLIMITED RULESET. This is NOT a class for the budget minded. Sure, it's a class where the budget minded have been able to be competitive to this point (as interest in the series has grown and cars have crossed over from limited ruleset classes in other organizations), but the rules, at their very basis, are designed to allow silly amounts of car development. Our car is one of the fastest and most developed chassis/suspensions in all of BMW CCA club racing, and yet it's only a small percentage of what we could do within the GTS rules. An ALMS M3 or GT3RSR is "under developed" compared to what the rules allow. If you limit the amount of weight someone can bolt into the car, they'll simply add some more bars to their cage or a larger oil tank for their dry sump system.. A weight limit solves nothing from a performance standpoint and only increases the cost of adding weight to the car.

 

For what it's worth, we now have two different tunes for our car. One produces enough horsepower to put us at the very top of GTS4 with a little bit of ballast and the other produces enough power to put us somewhere in the middle of GTS5 with ballast removed (hopelessly below some VERY powerful Porsches that we can still match laptimes with). What exactly is our car's "natural" class that so many of you seem so fond of talking about?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Since someone asked, I did some number crunching. Here are two reports:

 

1. Overall GTS Car Counts by Month: http://www.wasabiraceteam.com/DataFiles/gtsattendancebymonth.pdf

2. Regional GTS Car Counts by Month: http://www.wasabiraceteam.com/DataFiles/gtsattendancebymonthbyregion.pdf

 

These reports look are grouped by the registrant's home region, not the region holding the event. Please let me know if you have any questions.

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Ian, I applaud you for your effort, as misleading as it may be. Results, at least for the Southeast, are entries for 2 days. 3,4, or 5 cars for all of GTS is pitiful. I don't have a solution, but my personal opinion is that the costs are too high. Chuck

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Nationally the numbers are up year over year for each of the last three months. While one region or another may be having it's individual ups and downs, the series as a whole has managed to grow in a very difficult environment. I find that very encouraging.

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Nationally the numbers are up year over year for each of the last three months. While one region or another may be having it's individual ups and downs, the series as a whole has managed to grow in a very difficult environment. I find that very encouraging.

 

Indeed. But even the data presented has no possible way of being correlated to the reason they are up or down without a fair bit of properly conducted, and statistically corrected, surveys. Beyond this any speculation as to why numbers are up or down is purely opinion at best.

 

Cheers.

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Ian, I applaud you for your effort, as misleading as it may be. Results, at least for the Southeast, are entries for 2 days. 3,4, or 5 cars for all of GTS is pitiful. I don't have a solution, but my personal opinion is that the costs are too high. Chuck

 

Very nice Ian. Chuck, can you specify what is too expensive? The cost of building and running a GTS car or the track time? I'm guessing the later. Over in the SE forums I did some calculations to show that running with NASA was on around 70% greater than running with PBOC. The cost were based on $/min of track time. The actual cost of entry was not greater than PBOC, it was very little track time that jacked the per min rate up to over $3/min or the weekend.

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Ian, I applaud you for your effort, as misleading as it may be. Results, at least for the Southeast, are entries for 2 days. 3,4, or 5 cars for all of GTS is pitiful. I don't have a solution, but my personal opinion is that the costs are too high. Chuck

 

That is the number of registrants received through the online registration system. It does not speak to whether or not drivers actually attended, requested a refund, rolled entry to another event, or are out racing in a different region (it's grouped by home region of the registrant). The numbers are what they are, whether you find them misleading or not I cannot control I'd be happy share the raw data with anyone that would like to crunch the numbers in another way.

 

Can anyone guess what one of my primary roles is in my real life?

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Tim, the cost I refer to is the cost of being competitive. (Actual cost to race is certainly in line with other organizations, except for making crew pay to get in.) The cost of competitiveness is an open check book/charge card...and then you have a car that does not fit other organizations...and yes, that is very important to me: it lets me run several groups with the same setup. Only in NASA am I uncompetitive, and that is by rule, not preparation level. Chuck

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Tim, the cost I refer to is the cost of being competitive. (Actual cost to race is certainly in line with other organizations, except for making crew pay to get in.) The cost of competitiveness is an open check book/charge card...and then you have a car that does not fit other organizations...and yes, that is very important to me: it lets me run several groups with the same setup. Only in NASA am I uncompetitive, and that is by rule, not preparation level. Chuck

Chuck, have you thought about PT instead of GTS? It's ruleset is more designed to equalize cars at any level of prep, unlike GTS, for which a limited-prep car is clearly at a disadvantage. Whether PT succeeds or not is certainly worthy of conversation, but perhaps you'd be more competitive there?

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Near as I can tell, PT is more unsubscribed than GTS in the South East. You need 5 or more in class for contingency. CB

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Actually the Hoosier contingency kicks in with 3 entries. That would give 1st. place two tires. You need 5 entries for 2nd. place to receive one tire. Though as much as you say you are not competitive in your GTS class with your car that is built more towards other sanctioning bodies rule sets, are you really worried about the NASA contingencies? If your running 1st or 2nd. in the GTS class you run, then I'm not sure what the problem is ? In todays club racing world its just not possible to have one car that can run in so many different series and be competitive at the front without making major changes. You'll have to compromise somewhere, that's just reality...

 

-Scott B.

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