Re: [alfa] Racing Alfetta brakes - long - so what's new

[Richard Welty <rwelty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 14:15:55 -0700 alfacybersite <acs@domain.elided> wrote:

> It is absolutely unbelievable to me Any racing venue anywhere would ban 
> the use of ventilated brake discs if it is absolutely proven there is 
> virtually nothing which can be done to stop brake fade / brake fluid 
> boiling on a particular car - or on any car that's being raced for that 
> matter.

biba, it's probably best if you don't air opinions about how racing
rules could/should work when you don't have experience in the
racing rules environment. there are several important elements,
which i'll summarize briefly:

1) spirit & philosophy of the class. permited modifications
    in IT (which we were talking about) are under very strict
    control. if racers (who can be very creative) can fix their
    problems without special allowances, why should special
    allowances be given? i'm working hard to cure my brake
    fluid boiling problems within the spirit of the rules, because
    among other things i know that if i go to Kurt Weiss (a
    friend of mine who also happens to be chairman of the
    SCCA comp board) and ask for some rotor allowance, he'll
    want to know if i've done everything i can to cure the
    problem within the rules first. right this minute, i can't
    honestly say that i have.

2) wide variety of cars in the class -- the rules makers can't
    be experts on each individual type, so they have to be
    _extremely_ careful about what allowances they give out,
    and they have to watch like a hawk to make sure they don't
    inadvertantly create the "killer car" for the class. this is why
    the SCCA will NEVER classify the BMW E30 M3 in ITS,
    no matter how much the BMW guys whine about it.

    even if you provide the same allowance to everyone, you
    may find that the allowance favors some cars more than
    others. certain engineering features of alfas are certainly
    advantageous, certain ones are disadvantageous. some
    features of bimmers are advantageous, some are not.
    i'd love to be able to replace the soft rubber bushings on
    the castor rod in the front suspension with a spider/gtv
    style ball joint, but it requires drilling 2 holes on each side
    which the rule book does not permit me to drill. life is tough.

3) politics. yes, it's political. life is like that.

richard
   SCCA National Scrutineering license since 1995
   former SCCA NEDIv Administrator of Scrutineering
-- 
Richard Welty                                         rwelty@domain.elided
Averill Park Networking                                         518-573-7592
    Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
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