Moto One

Matthew, just as a suggestion; You should drive a Cobra once and see that they are not that easy to handle, No power steering, No brake booster. MK2 have leaf springs.

Mark.

eric1855

I have nothing against the Cobra kit cars in the class. I don't think they necessarily fit the rules, as written, but they do help make numbers and are good competition.

I think the rules need to be cleaned up though to make it clear what kit cars are allowed, and what aren't as "on paper" a cobra, stalker, exocet, 818, etc are all the same thing.

v10climber

All of that (and more) can be pretty easily corrected in a CAM-S build.

MatthewMiller

As v10climber mentions, nothing about an original Cobra has anything to do with a legal Cobra in CAM-S. You can literally have any chassis/frame, any suspension, any ABS and traction control, any dampers, any springs, any engine, and any fiberglass body that sorta kinda resembles an original Cobra's body (which was hand-formed sheet aluminum made in England, btw, so no two are even the same). To my knowledge, the only actual, original Cobra that has ever competed in CAM is the one that Scott Fraser drives, and it's not close to stock anymore. The FFR and other kit cars have nothing to do with stock Cobras.

l98tpi

My only objection to anything that wants to run is weight and tires; anything else, bring it

mattastick

So rather than inconvenience you with having to build a better mousetrap, we should inconvenience everyone that owns anything lighter than 3k lbs by making them bolt steel/lead into their "street car". Got it... That makes 0 sense, btw.

If you want to look at results, let's consider this one: Danny Popp beat Mr. Losert by 1.4 seconds in Peru a few weeks before Nationals. If Danny had showed up and been able to keep a similar margin to Mike at the Invitational, he wins the class by .5 seconds. Also, don't forget that your future CAM-S winner at Nationals was running in CAM-C, as was the defending champ, both in cars that they had minimal seat time in, and they finished near the top. Rather than spending time bitching on the internet about a car that wins occasionally, why not focus on going to events, or just getting out and driving your car? You'd probably be a lot happier...

MatthewMiller

Huh? Are you really trying to say that having to strip a nice C4/5/6 down to a bare frame just to get close to an unreasonable minimum is an "inconvenience?" And you're really comparing it to the requirement to run ballast for kit cars that come in below a reasonable minimum weight? Ballast is a simple and useful tool that is used in a boatload of racing classes from solo all the way to F1.



I didn't bring up results. Someone else did. What Danny Popp - a truly world class driver and Evolution instructor - can do in his highly developed C5 against "regular people" is not a yardstick by which to compare the speed potential of two different cars that have to conform to two different rules. Like I said before, let's put Danny in a well built and sorted Cobra kit car and see how it goes. FWIW, there is at least one autocrosser who actually has national championship to his name and who has owned and raced a C4, C5, C6, and a very unsorted Cobra kit car. He's on the record as saying that as horrible as his Cobra was, it was still light years faster than any of the production-based Corvettes. In his words, "I can't even believe we're having this discussion" of having to convince anyone that a 90", 2450lb car with 45/55 weight distribution will be loads faster than a 105", 2900lb Corvette with a 50-50 weight bias (at best). You don't have to compare results to know that a Cobra has stupidly more potential than any Corvette or Viper - elementary physics makes that obvious. If you can't acknowledge that...well...I don't what to tell you.
Well then why have any classes for solo competition at all? We can just have one big "run what ya brung" class. Every year at nationals we'll have 1500 entrants in one class, and about 100 trophies, and everyone will be happy because driver skill is all that matters....right?

Obviously driving skill matters a ton. That's not the point of this discussion. The point is that a Cobra, and especially a kit car, doesn't fit the spirit or the explicit rules of CAM at all. The other point is that there is no valid reason to penalize the cars that comprise 90% of CAM-S entries with a huge weight penalty. Regarding driving skill, it would be nice to know that when we all compete in a certain class, it would be on a level playing field so that driver skill and car setup/build abilities really did determine how well one did in the competition.

mattastick

You're the one calling CAM a class for street cars. What happens when someone builds a Solstice, Monza, Gremlin, Pinto, or any other number of 100 different actual CAM legal cars because the Cobra is outlawed? Those guys are still going to have to bolt 500+ lbs of steel/lead in their street cars. Ballast in Solo starts in Street Mod, and becomes the norm in Prepared on up. Those cars are not street cars, regardless of their starting point as a chassis. My STU car is 180lbs over the min weight for CAM, and I haven't even tried to take weight out of it (it's got an 11lb battery and a Sparco, and otherwise is very close to stock weight). Eric's car is already in the 29xxs somewhere, IIRC, with minimal money spent on weight reduction. Just because you're starting with the wrong car doesn't mean everyone else is.

Danny could pants the entire CAM field in a shopping cart. Would you be complaining that shopping carts should be banned too? CAM-S rarely beats AS, just like CAM-C rarely beats FS. This year at Nationals, the winner in FS would have been 2nd in CAM-C. The winner in AS would have been 3rd in CAM-S. In a C5. Again, it's not the car that's the majority of the results.

When a well prepped and well driven Cobra (or any other kit car) shows up, it will kill CAM, at least for the people like you complaining about it. The people that enjoy CAM for the lack of rules, laid back style, hanging out with other car people, and shooting the **** in a parking lot will probably think it's cool (the same thing that's happened every time I've run against Danny in The Ultimate Street Car). You should probably just buy the car of the year for a Street class and have fun. That way there are no excuses. You'll still probably complain about something else though...

If you want a pure driving competition, then GTFO of a builders class. CAM is a builders class. Anything with this open of a rulebook is a builders class. Solo has plenty of drivers classes (any of the Street classes, specifically CS is a perfect example) where the car and setup are minimal. Hell, the National office is starting SSC, where there's literally no differences in cars. You don't get a simple rulebook and a drivers class unless everyone is in equal hardware (spec class).

chetly

Don't you think that a Cobra putting an additional 450lbs exactly where they want it would probably make the car easier to drive and faster?

Nokones

B-Stew, Sean Breese, and I are waiting for Scott and Bruce to bringing it on next year with their newly small block Cobra. We're not planning on losing to that Cobra because We're going to shut it down.

Nokones

Hey Tom:

I just saw the 2018 Match Tour schedule and I was wondering if San Diego is planning on combining the CAM Challenge with the Match Tour again for next year?

MatthewMiller

Some of those cars are heavier than you think (especially the Solstice). But...yeah. So? The weight isn't why I think the Cobra should be outlawed from CAM.

Do you read this stuff out loud before you post it? If you do, did these two sentences actually make sense? Exactly what point do you think you're making?

Every time this discussion happens, someone always devolves it down to this: CAM isn't for people who care about competition or winning, so this isn't the class for you. My response will always be the same: if that were true, then it wouldn't be a competition class at all! We could just have fun runs with no timers and no trophies, or maybe everyone would get a trophy for being cool. That's one way you can tell that this a BS argument. The other way to tell is by how much some people protest a sensible, single minimum weight: if you really don't care about competition, then you really shouldn't care if your Pinto or Cobra has to meet a class minimum weight of 3000lb!

It won't make it faster. Simple physics and the knowledge that tires lose grip coefficient as they get more highly loaded tells us that. It's also the reason why all pavement race cars are always run as light as possible: there are no rules for weight maximums in racing, only weight minimums!

As to it getting easier to drive, possibly. It depends on what you mean by "easier." For example, if you wanted to slow down the reactions of the car to steering inputs, you could put 225lb in the front bumper and 225lb in the rear bumper to increase the polar moment of yaw inertia. Some would perceive that as easier to drive, but it would be slower in any transition (as well as also worse for grip in all directions). If weight were an advantage, we'd see people ballasting the hell out of their cars in all classes!

Nokones

Hi Matt:

The drivers in CAM-S are the kool guys regardless. The drivers in the other classes wished they were kool like us.

MatthewMiller

Believe it or not, I hang with all the cool CAM guys at my local events, too! And next year, I really have high hopes of at least making a couple national events so I can hang with you.


ETA: Sorry, I meant "kool."

Tomswheels

I hope not. Last year it just seemed like too much for one weekend. I’d prefer to attend both events separately. Just an observation, but I believe “Mattastick” may have been dropped as a child.

Nokones

Thanks Tom. I think Mattastick is one of those Street Touring dudes.

MatthewMiller

In fairness to him, I DO think shopping carts should not be allowed in CAM-S...

Nokones

I agree with you Matt but, it's just another tube frame.

MatthewMiller

Nokones

The 2018 CAM rules are posted on the SCCA website. So far, the CAM event dates have not been posted.

The Cobra has to add 50 more pounds this year and the C7s are legal for CAM-S and the new Vipers are not.