Originally posted by RogerB:
Originally posted by SVTfrog:
I just think the classes aren't setup perfect. It discourages people from autoxing. 90% of the time people stumble upon autox, they have already modded their cars and have something that puts them in a very uncompetive class. Things like this discourage some people from participating.




There is a class for every car, but no class is perfect for every driver all the time. That's the breaks.

I think what discourages most of the people you're talking about is attitude. They "stumbled upon" autocross, yet expect to be in the trophies the first time out. Whoops! They modded their car for fun, and now they're not competitive in the class that kicks them into. So what? Better luck next car. Meanwhile, run in "street open" or just do "fun runs" and have fun.



If you don't like the SCCA classes try NASA. They run classes in a way that seems to be more fair to the people that you are talking about.
http://nasa-tt.com/rules.php
http://www.nasaproracing.com/rules/Time-Trial-Rules.pdf
Thbey assess points based on the mods you have on your car you move up classes based on that. I have some issues with their classing but some people like it better. Both of my cars end up in the same class (Mazdaspeed Protege, Mazda Miata 1.6L) and I can tell you that they are not the same speed.

I have a friend that when he first started autox he had a turbo on his miata and that was pretty much it. He placed near the back of the class (SM2) as you would expect. That next year he worked on upgrading his car and his skills and within a year he was winning SM2 locally and this year was in the top half nationally.

Beaten - 2003 MazdaSpeed Protege 29K <- broken hearted Daily/Weekend Beater - 1990 miata 138K - AutoX every weekend = Adult driven on weekends