VB Black Ice

Hello all,
After watching another St. Pete Grand Prix and coming home to look at my "project car" '90 Corvette in the garage I am seriously considering setting it up for SCCA racing.

I have never run in a sanctioned race before and have a few questions:

• Is a 1990 Corvette competitive in road racing?
• I have a few mods done to my car (full exhaust, SS brake lines, intake manifold, performance chip). Should I revert any of these to prevent "running with the big boys"?
• What class would I be most competitive in?

I would not mind building a new engine or spending a few bucks to enter a class where I am more competitive. I guess overall my question is... where do I start?

bosco022

I have been racing in SCCA for the past 22 years, starting in I.T.S. 240 & 280 Z's moving to E Prod & GT-2 also in a Z car and the past eight years in SPO, GTA and Ocassionly GT-1. My big bore cars have been tube frame cars powered by both conventional small blocks and LS motors. I have raced mostly in regional races with some national appearances.

I have long been a fan of the big bore classes and have followed the SCCA racing closely in the South East.

My believe is that you would have to spend a lot of money to bring your C4 to a point that it would be competitive in SCCA GT-2. Last year it would have fallen in in STO. That class has been moved into GT-2. Regionally, with the right safety equipment and such you could also race in SPO, where you would be at a serious disadvantage to the tube frame, light weight, 800 HP cars.

With less prep your C4 can also fit into the regional ITO or ITE class. These are similar with different names depending on which SCCA region.

If your goal is to have fun and be reasonably competitive, I would recommend the lower prep ITO/ITE classification. You still might be running against some pretty fast C5's, ex Continental Challenge cars etc. This class does not have particularly high participation.

If you are looking to be competitive Nationally, I would suggest selling the C4 and look at getting an already built C5 racer, or a tube frame GTA with LS1. (The GTA car can be upgraded slightly to run nationally in SCCA GT2.)

A very fast, pretty competitive Ls1 powered, tube frame, 2800# with driver stock car can be bought for 20-25 K and be made to fit in SCCA GT-2.

eogel

Give serious thought to setting up your C4 for a NASA class. I ran in ITO and ITE in SCCA for several years, depending on the region. I raced a C4 in SCCA and NASA and finally just dropped SCCA when they changed the rules. It would have required me to spend too much to run in regional races in an SCCA class. As Bosco indicate above, prep levels have become even more expensive. And be VERY AWARE that ITE/ITO rules are not the same in all regions. That is specifically a regional class, meaning each region can have their own rules.

As Bosco indicated, participation is very light in the southeast in ITO/ITE. Even at their big race (the ARRC) in Atlanta, participation in ITO/ITE has been very light for years.

Since you have not raced wheel 2 wheel, you need to find out if you want to spend the time and money to do it on a regular basis. Using what you have might be a good place to start. There are C4s for sale that would allow you to get started, and would save the time and expense of altering your existing car. Having said that, the C5 is technically better than the C4 by a wide margin. Also, virtually anyone who has raced will tell you to buy a car already with a log book rather than build one. You will not save money or time building your own.

shakedown067

To get your feet wet, take that boy out to our Local autocross group, http://drivefast.org. We run in St Pete at the SPC police training facility (small but fun), and up in Brooksville at the Hernando Airport. Registration for the April 13th event in Brooksville closes on Sunday I believe.

BrianCunningham

Have you been to any track events with it yet?

HPDE (High Performance Driving Events) would be a great start.

rfn026

I would spend a year running with Chin Motorsports. They have events at Sebring and Homestead.

Keep your car stock. If you decide that you really like towing for four hours to get to Homestead, and spending more money than you ever imagined, then you're ready to go racing.

Right now a weekend of racing is almost $10,000. You can run track events in a stock car for about $1,000 a day. That includes hotels and food. Start slowly.

Richard Newton

TJM

Fact is: It as much you as what your are "IN".

By the By... if your not an old exracer, it is going to be two years and maybe $2000.00 worth HPDE experience before you need to worry about racing.

Get the car safe, [brakes, tires, an extra quart of oil when you get to the track] .. a get some experiences.


I have a C4 that started as a teenagers car project and turned into a fairly nice car... lots of fun.

$15,000 and it would be a legal TT car in NASA.

Will it catch C5's and Viper?? Depends on whose driving!!!!

cwikstro

My 2 cents would be to agree with most above regarding building your car in to a race versus buying one done, it will be cheaper and better to buy a car. That being said I think getting in with some local clubs HPDE track days is a great idea, then look for local racing club school days for more race oriented training. You may consider renting a car a few times too, (I wish someone told me this) before you decide what you want to race. Of course you want a corvette, but in reality, it may not be what you end up with. I could have a darn nice stock car for what i have in my 84 and it would be better and cheaper to run, but I have enjoyed building my own car too.
Finally, parts for C4's are getting harder to find as not much aftermarket support, so you will need to fab things that you can buy for newer cars.
Lots of options and lots of fun to be had, just take your time and be open minded. Good Luck!