The Annual DMN Regs Discussion Thread 2010 (Split)

[joss Ronchetti]

Answer this one then Graham
Which has more time advantage on a lap??????
Putting a 400/500BHP YB Cossie Turbo motor in your car (double yr horsepower and got to be worth a min 3 secs a lap)
or
A Hewland 6 speed H Pattern Gearbox (a 10th or 2 at most a lap ????)

Imagine my surprise to see Ray beautiful MK1 Cossie Turbo in the class BELOW?????

No other Reg 'setter' in the country would try and justify that penalty
What can all that be about?????

[Stratton Mackay]

Originally Posted by graham bahr

the thing was it was only vaguely worded and as such unenforceable so we HAD to remove it,

from what i can see though no ones running off with anything, in any case and im sure plenty of others will agree its up to those behind to speed up not the winners to slow down,

keep an eye out for brief talk which will list some options for those that dont have true class A performance or budgets

Without trying to be controversial Graham and with due respect but a 4.4sec advantage to second in quali and a 15sec gap at race end is somewhat "running away with it", seeing that the cars placing 2nd and 3rd where driving the wheels off their cars. But this is and has been the situation for a while. On the most part it doesnt affect me as i am in the skint class A bracket and at best live in hope of the big motors blowing so i can grab a rare podium, or better still rain.
I did hear though the idea of a restrictor plate for cars such as mine to drop down to class B?? Still that doesnt compute as Ray Barrow is far advanced in that class and my performance is about that of Ash Hargreaves now, without the good Joss whose car he believes to be that of class B of right and not A.
All things considered though, im happy to be in class A, poverty stricken but reliable. In two weekends i have done 3 quali sessions, 6 races, finished them all and had a great laugh. How many of the big power motors can say that????

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Stratton Mackay

All things considered though, im happy to be in class A, poverty stricken but reliable. In two weekends i have done 3 quali sessions, 6 races, finished them all and had a great laugh. How many of the big power motors can say that????

Hehe. Good point. Mind you I bet that barrier at Mallory was looking a little too close for comfort at one point ... does that come under the great laugh banner?

[grichie87]

Originally Posted by Stratton Mackay

Without trying to be controversial Graham and with due respect but a 4.4sec advantage to second in quali and a 15sec gap at race end is somewhat "running away with it", seeing that the cars placing 2nd and 3rd where driving the wheels off their cars. But this is and has been the situation for a while. On the most part it doesnt affect me as i am in the skint class A bracket and at best live in hope of the big motors blowing so i can grab a rare podium, or better still rain.
I did hear though the idea of a restrictor plate for cars such as mine to drop down to class B?? Still that doesnt compute as Ray Barrow is far advanced in that class and my performance is about that of Ash Hargreaves now, without the good Joss whose car he believes to be that of class B of right and not A.
All things considered though, im happy to be in class A, poverty stricken but reliable. In two weekends i have done 3 quali sessions, 6 races, finished them all and had a great laugh. How many of the big power motors can say that????

Just cos Rod wins most races doesnt mean he wins the championship, the championship winners over the last 5 years have come from the 'lower' classes Richard, Jason ect ect POINTS MAKE PRICES not race wins. If you are consistant and score points its all up for grabs, just look at the positions this year. Turn up and finish well in class simples.... PS. just dont be in Rods class it dosnt work

[joss Ronchetti]

I normally win my class at nearly all the other championship/Series but now I find myself surronded by Turbo Big Power in the class they have placed me with which anyone can plainly see is wrong.
The classes are on the engine size/possible power.
How can you penalize a well sorted car for being quick ??
Its not meant to be on combined driver/car performance, they are meant to be around the car in general.
Otherwise we will have useless drivers in Moslers in Class A and good drivers in 2 CV's alongside in Class A.
An M3 BMW was always been in a different lower class to the Sierra Cosworth for obvious reasons.
Whats the difference with The Sunbeam Lotus, apart from the engineering and design was from 2 decades earlier at least and a turbo short of the all conquering Sierra Cossie.
Ray has a possible lighter MK! Escort with up to 650BHP available and he is in the class below me???
My Team are penalized for doing a good job/driving it hard

I will have to come out and say it......loads think it but don't want to say it on here.....
I have been green a 50% capacity increase for an H pattern gearbox that has given me 'how much advantage???
No other scruttener/Championship organiser in the country could justify that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,they would just scratch their heads.........................
derrrrrrrrrrrrrr 300BHP more or straight cut gears which is the big advatage?????????? derrrrrrrrrrrrr
Obvious bigger penalty for the gearbox........................
The Class Win Trophy is not my point,
I got shafted unfairly on purpose by the 'commitee' to put me out the running, of the Championship,....that penalty would never cross anyones minds unless they were looking for something to make an excuse,

Complete B****KS
WAS DONE SO I COULD NOT RACK UP MY CLASS WINS
SIMPLESSSSSSSSSSSS

I have had e mail correspondence with Rod today about these and other issues to try and persuade him to make some changes behind closed doors to save face and try and build some bridges with the drivers but as he insists that everything is above board and fair for everybody and it is a transparent process I am left with no other option to put my thioughts on here and say my goodbyes.
Great racing with you guys but I'm sorry to say I'm gone, its not like this in any other championship /series I race with and they won't take the p***S out of me and use me as a pawn in championship points tally!
I hope I can come back in the future when an impartial judge is doing the Regs, classes etc until then...Adios

[graham bahr]

sorry joss, you knew what class you would end up in before you entered the championship!

how many times have you been on the podium this year?

how many other class A cars have you already beaten?

the rules are the rules, they are the same rules that used to put alex ribbins pinto powered mk2 escort in class A, clearly that car wasnt even slightly competitive in class A, alex didnt even say anything to the comittee but at the end of the year the rules changed to put cars like his in a more appropriate class,

they are also the same rules that put steve nobles nova in class A last year it was basically an xe powered trackday car and totally outclassed, again without any complaints from steve the rules were changed to put cars like that in a more appropriate class, if the committee feels your cars spec puts it in the wrong class then they will change the rules at the end of the year.

you are doing class A lap times and it all rather sounds like sour grapes because your not winning outright like your clearly used to doing

[joss Ronchetti]

I will not be drawn into long drawn out arguments on this subject but you are Barking up the wrong tree there Graham as anyone who has raced closely against me knows that winning is not everything to me.
I am thrilled I have got on the podium against the monster Turbo 4WD brigade. As I am clearly outclassed in power and its impossible to achieve that sort of power with the type of normally aspirated engine fitted, NOTE NOT underdeveloped, but IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE.
I Dream to win a race on the road but would never be expected to ,
you only have to ask a kid in the Paddock and they could see my old design car is clearly outclassed underpowered compared to the rest of class A.
You and Rod have both avoided the issuse regarding the classification , you are both bright blokes so this would not just slip by you .....
When You/ Rod/or other comitee member had said
'we want a 2 class Jump for different H pattern gearbox'
but only one class jump for exchanging the ford pinto for a Sierra Cosworth Turbo Motor .....................................................
you would have p***d yourself laughing at him and vica versa if you had suggested it.
There is no logical/sensible answer that either of you can give without sounding silly.............apart from, ......................he will win class b or c because of his pace....................so if we manipulate a rule to stick him two classes into class A and get rid of the championship threat.
Hope no hard feeling Graham as you are a nice bloke, but when you are involved with racing and doing the rules it should be made very transparent, just these arn't...sorry
nite nite

[golfwidow]

Originally Posted by graham bahr

sorry joss, you knew what class you would end up in before you entered the championship!


you are doing class A lap times and it all rather sounds like sour grapes because your not winning outright like your clearly used to doing

Graham i couldnt agree more....

Joss, you have raced in DMN before for a few rounds if my memory serves me correctly last year or the year before, so you would have known that Mr Birley is quick and very often the front man, so why oh why if you wanted to beat him, which it sounds like thats all you were out for did you not build your car to do the job, if you had read the rules and regulations you would have known that your car would be in Rod's class. All you have done since Mallory is moan, its people like you moaning and slagging of a good series that you have only been in for 3 months that give Motorsport a bad name, if you dont like it, see ya. Rod does have some competition out there, the 2 skylines are very quick, hope you dont mind me saying Darren and Mark but reliaility is an issue, Craig Davies is quick also, so he does have competition and maybe we will see a couple of different race winners.

It annoys me people with sponsors and what appears disposable income that can spend loads on their cars moan coz they aint winning outright, spare a thought for those that build their cars themselves on shoestring budgets who are just glad to be competing in what is on the whole a friendly championship.

[big andy]

Originally Posted by joss Ronchetti

Answer this one then Graham
Which has more time advantage on a lap??????
Putting a 400/500BHP YB Cossie Turbo motor in your car (double yr horsepower and got to be worth a min 3 secs a lap)
or
A Hewland 6 speed H Pattern Gearbox (a 10th or 2 at most a lap ????)

Imagine my surprise to see Ray beautiful MK1 Cossie Turbo in the class BELOW?????

No other Reg 'setter' in the country would try and justify that penalty
What can all that be about?????

you no what its about joss

[Copperbottom]

In DMN (and most other championships)there is probably one car/driver in each class that is far quicker than the rest in that class,there are cars and driver combinations that can and have beaten everyone else out there,they just don't race at every round.............

[dgpearson]

Come on lads rod is head and shoulders above you [well his car is]dont take this the wrong way but to me if you get a sniff hes only playing with you i can only think of one person over the last few years whos ruffled his feathers.Joss,s in car at Mallory just showed what his car can do one straight and hes gone.

[graham bahr]

re classes every year we look at them and if there are technical reasons why a car is under or over competitive we try to amend them,

what we have to do is keep the silent majority happy

[Stratton Mackay]

Originally Posted by graham bahr

what we have to do is keep the silent majority happy

Roughly translated.............Shut up!!!!!

[Al Weyman]

As an outsider looking in who has done two races in DMN can I make a comment and also ask a question? First I found the rules at the time didnt suit me which put my pretty standard yank in with much more modified cars and I knew it was hopelessly outclassed (got lapped after 5 laps on the GP in appalling wet conditions!!) so i did the logical thing and walked as there was no real point IMHO in continuing which I think most people would respect.

The question I want to ask is about this H pattern gearbox thing, I am confused, are we talking sequential gearshifts or merely changing the pattern from the standard configuration of the more or less conventonal gearchange, i.e. if you stuck a dog leg 1st Group A gearbox in your Seirra for example that normally had a T5 conventional pattern box then you go up a class or two?

[graham bahr]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

The question I want to ask is about this H pattern gearbox thing, I am confused, are we talking sequential gearshifts or merely changing the pattern from the standard configuration of the more or less conventonal gearchange, i.e. if you stuck a dog leg 1st Group A gearbox in your Seirra for example that normally had a T5 conventional pattern box then you go up a class or two?

just to clarify things for you Al,

the whole ethos of the championship is that its a clubman championship, most of the cars in it are relatively low budget home built cars, as you know in motorsport the more money and development you put into a car the faster you will go,

it used to be that a non origonal cylinder head, gearbox or engine automatically put a car in class A, this was relaxed because it was too stiff a penalty,

what we now do is apply a 50% multiplication factor to an engines capacity if any of the above are non origonal, how many classes a car moves up depends on a cars engine capacity, by way of example i will give bill richards car with its non production 16v KAD cylinder head it the car, at 1445cc the multiplier makes it 2167cc so it jumped form an upto 1600cc class two classes to an over 2000cc, now if bill engine were infact 1320cc it would of only moved up one class, had it been 1000cc it wouldnt of moved up any classes at all. the same applies to joss's engine.

im sure you Al as a clubman racer will see we are trying to maintain a balence between cost and performance.

you yourself have written here many times that before that different cars suit different championships, you read the rules and decide where to race, we as a club are very pro active if someone someone doesnt fit on a technical basis we try to fix that.

i do sympthasise with joss that in the current structure out right wins are a tall order, on the other hand, even if we could suddenly move him down a class which we cant because the rules are set with the MSA, what do you think the reaction of the class below, would be if they were suddenly rendered uncompetitive? we have seen it before it looses us drivers, we always have and always will be most supportive of regular drivers that have have a history of regulary supporting us as a club

[Al Weyman]

I see what you are saying Graham and agree the option is to go and play elsewhere.

I still dont know what you mean by changing the H gearbox pattern. Does it mean for example if I was to build a car based on a 4th gen camaro I could use the 6 speed gearbox and all alloy LS6 engine they come with as standard and run in Class B but if I stuck same gearbox in my 3rd gen car with a cast iron block I would have to run in Class A as it was originally fitted with a 5 speed although it would be slower than a 4th gen?

[graham bahr]

on a purely technical viewpoint,

the regulation as approved by the MSA say's

whether its H pattern or not, a gearbox has to have a casing original to either the engine or the car otherwise a 50% capacity multiplier is added to the engine,

forgiive me if i dont comment any further this is getting far too messy

[Code Red Man.]

Well, if the drivers aren't voting with their feet the spectators certainly are.....
For example, when the Black cosworth escort came round paddock where I was, the crowd were very silent......but when the real racing further down the field came through they were on their feet clapping and cheering....the Sunbeam and Sierra were fantastic to watch......and when Darren went out on race two, there was a massive and collective "sigh" and feet staring.

[big andy]

he s moaning because its not fair that he s put in class A for changing the casing of is gearbox i dont believe this was the case last year?

[golfwidow]

Originally Posted by big andy

he s moaning because its not fair that he s put in class A for changing the casing of is gearbox i dont believe this was the case last year?

But the rules and regs were available at the beginning of the year, they havent changed so he would have been aware that he would be in class A

[Copperbottom]

I must say that I had two excellent races,starting from the back in race one gave me a chance to actually do some overtaking and to get up to 16th and 2nd in class by the end of the race was more than I'd hoped for and then spending most of race two defending against more powerful cars than my own (not 100% sucessfully) with no damage whatsoever and finish 15th overall is why I race in DMN.

[EvilPumpkin]

While we have no issue with classes being discussed generally - the postive and the negative (sadly, I note it's usually the negative), the "discussion" from certain posters in this thread has gone beyond anything that I consider to be either general or acceptable.

I have seen some unprofessional and childish antics on this site over the years, but I'd have to put some of the (now deleted) posts from this thread up there in my top twenty.

I'm not sure what the participants think they're going to gain from this sort of behaviour, but it stops now.

This is a motorsport discussion forum. It is not a platform for the disgruntled few to bring their racing class into disrepute and it will not be tolerated.

I trust this makes the position of the site clear. If anyone has any queries, please contact me by PM.

Apologies for the off topic post - I now return you to your subject matter and hopefully the majority of sensible and factual posters will carry things on.

[joss Ronchetti]

For those of you think I only wish to win outright ought to note the following:
In last years Classic Thunder I won 8 out of the 9 rounds outright that I entered in my Class C car, some by as much as 30 secs and won the championship.
Wanting to race people, as thats what its about in my book, I actively lobbied the organizers to get 4WD Turbo cars and non standard engine cars allowed to enter this season ( this can be confirmed by various CT sources)
So any DMN car is now eligible and welcome.

[joss Ronchetti]

The Classic Thunder and Boss Grids have now been split for the double header on Brands Indy 5th/6th June so plenty of space

[grichie87]

Originally Posted by joss Ronchetti

For those of you think I only wish to win outright ought to note the following:
In last years Classic Thunder I won 8 out of the 9 rounds outright that I entered in my Class C car, some by as much as 30 secs and won the championship.
Wanting to race people, as thats what its about in my book, I actively lobbied the organizers to get 4WD Turbo cars and non standard engine cars allowed to enter this season ( this can be confirmed by various CT sources)
So any DMN car is now eligible and welcome.

Spose its a silly question but why dont you put a turbo on the Sunbeam Lotus????