Whats happening to the MX5 racing??

[plohl]

Dan - the nc has double wishbone front and 5 link rear, which is arguably as good as double wishbone.
Found you some pictures -

[JBT]

Yes the NC has much bigger better wheels and tyres........as for driving an NC...I did an NA6 vs NA8 vs NC comparo like 4 years ago when Pat had his, they have bigger better tyres. We are arguing macpherson strut with all sorts of odd angles........

Gee, soon you'll be telling us the NC is front wheel drive too.

[deviant]

The variable you have not taken into consideration there is the vast value difference of a cheap NA and an NC on which to spend the $20K.

You would be mental to use a locally sourced car to build from. If it does not need to be road legal you would buy a substantially cheaper NC overseas and import it for race use.

[Cal]

Fair point. I need my race car to be road registered.

[NitroDann]

You are right regarding the front.

My apologies. Ive been under NC's a bunch of times, and with all the factory parts on it looked like multilink rear (which it is) and macpherson front. Shows how much attention I have paid. Sorry.

Dann

[zossy1]

Well if you started turning up to race meetings, talking to people and looking at cars as Lou suggested, you'd know that.

Spending next to nothing and winning do not go hand in hand. Always been the same, always will be.

I have looked at a lot of race cars (even dríven a couple), and spoken to lots of people who should know what they're talking about. More every day (thanks for your time today Lou). I have also read every AASA and CAMS manual and supp regs I could find. I'll be down in November for sure.

The problem (in my view) remains the lack of rules (or monitoring). That is one thing everyone agrees on. Makes it difficult to build a race car to a known spec, at least with any confidence that when you turn up, you'll be racing guys in similar machinery.

[Deckspeed Racing]

For what it's worth, I thought I might contribute my thoughts on this one.

Over the years as you all know, I have built & prepared countless MX5s for racing, ranging from 2F NA and NB cars to 2B naturally aspirated NA/NB cars to NB turbo cars. I have for the past year or so moved on to developing the NC platform. We have 4 NCs in the Deckspeed stable. The well known Hydra-Wash 2.5l car (2B spec), the white Deckspeed car (used less frequently, 2L 2F spec) and then a further 2 rental cars under construction (most likely clones of Hydra-Wash car).

The quickest of our 4 cars at this stage is the 2F 2l car. In our private testing and direct comparison to the 2B car it has been the standout recently. As for the tyres that we run on the car, we only ever put new tyres on the car prior to a 1 hour race. The last time we bought new tyres was before the MSC races earlier this year. So all of the MRA meetings, test days, MX5 club days have been done on this same set of tyres (so Lou I am probably spending not a great deal more, if not in fact less than yourself on tyres).

As for the cars themselves... All the above mentioned cars are awesome cars, and I am not about to denegrate any of them as I still build and prepare numerous examples of all variations. However, the reality is that it is now 2013, technology naturally has advanced, including within the automotive industry, hence the NC being an advancement on previous models which realistically have been around for almost 25 years.

With regards to the cost of building these cars, to date a lot of the parts we have used are items that we stock (brakes, exhaust, suspension etc) and are not really any more costly than parts available for the earlier models. A lot of the speed that we have been able to get out of the car comes from applying a lot of experience over the years into making the NC handle and stop and not consume the tyre. Any advantage in the engine technology gets eaten away by the extra weight of the car to a degree, and this is probably what we are going to concentrate on in future development.

As for the MX5 Racing[b][/b]

My personal view is, that we move to a time based category system like the Winton/Wakefield 300 events. i.e. 4 categories perhaps 1.06-1.08, 1.08-1.10,1.10-1.12,1.12+. For all naturally aspirated cars, then we do not have to get worried about all of the controvercy over 2B/2F rules etc and who may be cheating, you just naturally run in the class that coincides with the pace that you run. We could do a championship like this over the 4 MRA rounds & it would mean someone could turn up with the cheapest car and potentially win the series. For fairness sake, I feel there needs to be more than 1 car per category, I would think somewhere around 4 or 5 minimum to score max points. As for the turbo cars, they are more than welcome to run but I think there needs to be 4 or 5 of those before they are classified in any championship standings. I think this would simplify the whole thing, and remove any problems associated with people accusing one another of cheating or of people trying to bring their own agenda into the series.

Daniel

[toppertee]

Well if you started turning up to race meetings, talking to people and looking at cars as Lou suggested, you'd know that.

Spending next to nothing and winning do not go hand in hand. Always been the same, always will be.

I have looked at a lot of race cars (even dríven a couple), and spoken to lots of people who should know what they're talking about. More every day (thanks for your time today Lou). I have also read every AASA and CAMS manual and supp regs I could find. I'll be down in November for sure.

The problem (in my view) remains the lack of rules (or monitoring). That is one thing everyone agrees on. Makes it difficult to build a race car to a known spec, at least with any confidence that when you turn up, you'll be racing guys in similar machinery.

You maybe in the wrong sport if you are looking for fair. You will always get the guys that have to win, who will cheat and spend big just to get a two dollar cup.
I.M.O. it's just the way it is, motor sport does seem to have it's fair amount of F'wits.
I've found a group of guys that I like running with, I'm at the back of the field but, I'm quick enough not to to get lapped. It's good enough for me now.

[Boyracer]

Zossy, all you can do is build a car to prod. sports rules and you can run at anything or you build something outside the rules and run MRA, Super TT and the 300k.

Daniel, totally agree with the time class thing, looking forward to seeing the 2F car on the track, for the record the tyres that I have been running and are still on my car I bought for the V8 races at eastern creek august last year.

[mazmad]

Big decks, Hopefully simplifying the rules will energise the cars sitting in sheds and under dust covers and get a lot more out to meets. But you would need something other than a requirement for 5 cars per class, no? I have yet to see 20 cars turn up (but I bloody well look forward to the day ;) )

How about if there are less than the quota per class, the points awarded for places are reduced. So if there's only 2 in a class they get half the points (for example) that they would for coming 1st and 2nd if there were 5 cars in the class....

[sailaholic]

How about if there are less than the quota per class, the points awarded for places are reduced. So if there's only 2 in a class they get half the points (for example) that they would for coming 1st and 2nd if there were 5 cars in the class....

Dirt sprints and auto cross at my club is like this. I forget the exact details, but if number of cars in class is below the cut of, I think, no one gets points associated with first place, first place on the day gets the points for second and so on.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[mazmad]

I'd go racing if
- it was safe for a daily driver(and I could keep a daily driver)
- it cost about the same as sprints
- there was a good team feeling about it
- there was a good social side to it

Phil reading back through this....
You can give a big tick to all but the first of these. (This gets a tick in pencil as below...)

Having done both, the costs per meet are about the same (and in fact the sprints boys probably run fresher tyres than the race crew). Initial costs are higher with additional safety gear of course, but these will stand you in good stead for sprints too.
There has been a nucleus of about 8-10 cars, and like the sprints this is a very social, and supportive (when something breaks or with pointers) group.
Within the group we have fierce - but friendly - battles, and there is plenty of support for those of us that do battle with the super TT grids too.

As for the first point - and this is probably the biggest concern for people considering it - in a year of racing I have seen 4 mx5 bingles. All cars drive able afterwards, no one anyone near hurt. 3 of these happened in super TT, 1 in an mx5 only race. My feeling is that you can absolutely minimise these if you aren't personally chasing sheep stations. My ego will survive, you want it that badly buddy go for it.

I was very impressed with the encouraging environment the club has for getting people into sprints and would like to see that same pathway into racing, which I think we will see develop.

Now we just need to get more of the mx5s currently racing - most of whom haven't come through the club - to join the club too!

[Cal]

I've found a group of guys that I like running with, I'm at the back of the field but, I'm quick enough not to to get lapped. It's good enough for me now.

Care to shed some light on the category you are now racing in?

[NitroDann]

So this is a serious question, and Id really appreciate a serious reply from someone in the know, why dont we use dyno's and weights like in the states?

It works totally fine for them and they can race 50 different models against each other no hastles.

Dann

[Cal]

We do. Read the CUE 1hr rule book?