Commodore Cup

[the man]

With commodore cup racing with the premier series and with the v8 taxis at symmonds plains i would like to know what do all you think of the championship, and what would you like to change to the championship to make it better if you think it needs it, also what is all your views about the new body shells changing from the older style bodied VB-VH to the VR-VS?

personally i don't think it needs any changes as it provides close racing at a minimal cost.

What are your views?

[Matt H]

the vr and vs look great. everything from the vb-h slots in qhich is nice. good to if able, modernise a series as such.

[Chronicle]

No offence to anybody, but I reckon the Commodore cup series lost the plot when they started putting 4.2 litre V8's in VN's, etc.

Everybody knows they came out with 5 litres.

One make series's aren't that appealing except to the people racing. Mind you if the racing is good, then it is OK, but if you have a few with a lot of money/horespower then it gets boring.

[00 XR8]

How about letting in some XD-XEs and EF-ELs?

[rdmdog]

I guess they sound pretty good, but Im not a big fan of categories that only alloy you to tune your tyre pressures.

[Onlooker]

Oh I think there is quite a bit more " tuning " going on in that class than tyre pressures.

[Woody75]

I know a good cateogry that has a strong national series atm its called Saloon Cars.

[Elwood]

Originally posted by Onlooker
Oh I think there is quite a bit more " tuning " going on in that class than tyre pressures.

Good old Onlooker - what is it you race again ?
I keep forgetting.

But yes you are right, there's plenty of tuning going on in Commodore Cup - all those things that the regs permit adjusting:

Tyre pressures
Front Camber, Caster & Toe
Track (within limits)
Wheelbase (within limits)
Weight (minimum)
Sway bars (5 to choose from)
Ride Height
Carby jets
Exhaust
Air cleaner
Cam timing
Ignition timing
Brake pads

Seems to be working too - top 4 within 3 or so tenths of pole at Mallala. (First and second separated by a hundredth).

And yes Woody, Saloon Cars (and Les) are doing a great job with big fields & close racing - but we're just not into sixes, we like our V8's.

Keep an eye out for Tuesday nights on Foxtel in October and November for the full 8 round Commodore Cup show - a full half-hour program per round being produced by Redmax Entertainment.

[rdmdog]

So what you are saying is you cant change or improve hubs, calipers, springs, shocks, gearbox ratios, final drive ratios, wheel sizes, steering ratio and brake master cylinders?

[Onlooker]

Originally posted by Elwood
Good old Onlooker - what is it you race again ?
I keep forgetting.

If my pointing out that there was more to change in the cars than tyre pressures ahs got the paranoid voices rambling in your head then i am truelly sorry , but it does beg the question why you chose to defend it. I never said i races anything, wo I am not sure you would have forgotten it ever.

Cheers

[Elwood]

Originally posted by rdmdog
So what you are saying is you cant change or improve hubs, calipers, springs, shocks, gearbox ratios, final drive ratios, wheel sizes, steering ratio and brake master cylinders?

RM - all those bits are already upgraded and everyone runs the same: full floating rear hubs, spool (mini or full), 3.70 diff, Richmond super T10 box, corvette twin piston front callipers on 330mm discs, 650lb x 60mm front coils on adjustable platforms, bilstien shocks..etc. etc.

So it's not that you have to run standard stuff, just the same controlled parts that everyone else does.

The full regs are at http://www.commodorecup.com.au

[rdmdog]

Yes thats correct, and you have proved my point. No tuning of these items.

[Elwood]

RM - spot on - no tuning of those things.

It's the whole basis of the category - 90% of all the decisions are made for you, so for entry level competitors, or those a bit less mechanically minded there's a whole lot less to think about.

Everyone who gets involved knows beforehand that those are the rules - so if they want to compete in something where they can fiddle more and do some engineering or development then they just don't get involved and get into Improved Production or Sports Sedans instead.

Each to his own.

[worried]

Originally posted by Elwood
Seems to be working too - top 4 within 3 or so tenths of pole at Mallala. (First and second separated by a hundredth).

Granted - most are within a couple of seconds of each other - but lets look at in real terms - away from qualifying and move to racing where it counts.

Race 1 at Mallala - gaps 1st to 2nd - 2 secd then 8 secs to 3rd, 2 secs, 10 secs, 1 sec, 0.4 sec, 2,5 sec, 10 sec and 0.5 sec to 10th - IOW 40 seconds between 1st and 10th - the entire field of 16 finishers (2 DNF's) spread out by 1 min 57 secs - now THAT is not good.

Race 2 not that much better - 1 min 16 covered 16 cars - again with the first 2 cars walking away from the field (by 15 seconds).

Saloon cars on the other hand - 34 finished race 1 - and yes - 1 min 43 covered the field but 15 seconds covered from 1st to 19th in race 1.

[Jake]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by worried
[B]Granted - most are within a couple of seconds of each other - but lets look at in real terms - away from qualifying and move to racing where it counts.

the entire field of 16 finishers (2 DNF's) spread out by 1 min 57 secs - now THAT is not good.


Worried
It seems you fail to see that a good lap of Mallala is around 1m 20s. So how can the leaders finish 1m57s in front?

Because the last placed driver, Bancroft, thought he had been lapped and cruised around the last lap.

The actual gap from first to last was more like 1m5s.

So maybe you should check your facts before you start putting categories other than yours down.

[worried]

Jake,

First - I have 'no category' of my own.

Second - http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/re...8/2004.MALL.R6 - they are the official results which show a 1 min 57 sec spread from first to last - all cars on 12 laps. Now -regardless of WHY the last car is so far behind, those figures are fact. Even if you want to discount the last car you STILL have a 57 second spread over 15 cars with the gap from 2nd to 3rd at nearly 12 seconds.

http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/re.../2004.MALL.R11 Race 2 has a spread of 1 min 16 but you STILL have positions 1 to 2 2.3 secs adrift and then 13.6 seconds back to 3rd.

Now - compare this to Saloon Cars (only because they were on the same program and thus any comparison between them is very relevant) - who had a field of 34 cars over the same distance (12 laps) - and the first 8 eight cars were only spread by 10 seconds ( http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/re...8/2004.MALL.R7 ).

[naughtymutt]

Originally posted by rdmdog
So what you are saying is you cant change or improve hubs, calipers, springs, shocks, gearbox ratios, final drive ratios, wheel sizes, steering ratio and brake master cylinders?

SO you in the V8SC, you can tune all those things when you like? like gearbox ratios, final drive, wheel size....

[rdmdog]

Naughty, The question at the start of the thread was what do we think of Commodore Cup, my answer was I believe there are some classes that (in my opinion) technically provide a better opportunity to learn how to make a car work. It seems Elwood understands this is just my opinion, and I was answering a question.

I never said V8SC was the best category to do this.

[Elwood]

Naughty, I hear where RM's coming from - depending on how much you want to tune and how much you want to learn about tuning & set-up, it's up to each competitor to choose the category that best suits.

If you don't want to change anything then you can give Paul Pickett a call and just show up and drive a Lotus or Daewoo, if you want to have a bit of a play, but no rocket-science the something like Commodore Cup or Saloon Cars is the go where the bulk of the design decisions are made for you, and if you want to go all out and fiddle with everything then Sports Sedans, Improved Production or V8SC is for you.

No category is any better or worse than the other in the degree of freedom allowed, they're just all different and suit different groups of people.

[Kerri]

Very well said Elwood I totally agree, CC & SC are alot more affordable than some other categories because of the restrictions, people just need to decide if they want to race 6cyl or V8's.

[bartman71]

just heard today that Adam Beechey will be racing in this class at symons plains

[rdmdog]

Hey ELWOOD, just call me Dog

[Elwood]

Dog it is.... didn't want to presume.

[Elwood]

BM71 - is Adam related to Geoff of scrutineering fame?

[Woody75]

Well said Elwood