Body panels.... Define please!

[Chris Y]

Okay, suppose you are interested in a championship, and the regs specify that "no structural components, or body panels can be lightened or modified" - what do you suppose is covered by the term 'body panels'?

Does it refer to the outer skins of doors, and not the inner skins? How about the inside of the tailgate or the boot?

[Dom]

Getting serious Chris ?!!! :-) As I understand it most of the championships also state that if a modification is not explicitly stated then you should assume you can't do it. Of course this seems to be ignored - if I followed the rules for my championship to the letter, I would still be carrying the spare wheel!

Depends if you want to follow the rules to the letter or go with the spirit of the thing, for example I would have though it OK-ish to replace panels with fibreglass or carbon fibre pattern parts - your extract of the rules would appear to apply to the standard parts being modified, not replaced!

Good luck with your interpretation though!

[Adam43]

I think that the spirit of the rules is probably against using fibreglass and certainly against carbon fibre! A lot of the rules aimed at keeping costs down and enabling the lesser budgeted runners to compete with the people with money to throw away.

Of course it depends what series you are in.

There is normally a rule concerning safety in most (presumably all?) regs. I think the spare wheel could probably be removed under this rule(?) I race in a pretty standard saloon class which requires the interior trim to be left alone (!), but of course some has to be removed due to the fire risk. In the case of the spare and the interior trim, it doesn't cost to remove either, so the man running on a budget can do this as well as the spend spend spend racers.

I would see what your competitors are doing. If everybody is doing something that is on the borderline then follow suit, but personally I wouldn't be bothered looking for that little advantage. It is, for me anyway, just fun! I'd prefer all the cars to be equal. Let the driving do the talking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[josvandeperre]

I think your interpretation is a bit out there Chris

For example in CSCC my Scirooco had to have standard metal and glass to replace plastic and fibreglass to meet basically the same rule

Check with your co-ordinator but I suspect the aim is to give you very little leeway - plastic dirt shields inside the wheelarch are about the limit of removable / changeable parts

[Chris Y]

Okay, I'll spill the beans a bit more.. The championship is the MGOC class B - Maestros. The regs are usually quite free, and the implementation is usually open to quite a bit of personal interpretation, which no-one seems to mind much about, unless you start taking the mickey.

The reason why I ask is that I have a Maestro, built to the MGOC standards, but then raced in the 750MC Hot Hatches, when Maestros were competitive. It's had loads of drilling done to lighten it, and a few bits of important metal have been removed (drivers side crossmember in front of the seats, and the seat mounts!)

I did have a damn good nosey around the other cars last weekend at Donington, and a lot seem to have drilled out the inner skins of the doors, for example, and some have removed metal from the dashboard frames, etc.

I am sticking to the spirit of the rules, and I am covering all the drilled panels I can find with sheets of metal. I'm not looking for an advantage, but I was just wondering what people considered to be a 'body panel'...

P.s. Adam - I went to see your lot racing at Croft a couple of weeks ago. Very entertaining watching those heavy Jags in the wet around the twisty bits of Croft. I noticed you weren't there though?

[Adam43]

I wasn't at Croft because the car underwent some weight reduction at Outlon! I couldn't avoid a spinning XJS in front of me. So that is that for this year. We have bought a donor car and are in the process of repairing the racer for next year. It was quite a heavy shunt. I went into the back of another car after he'd spun a couple of times.

Good luck with the Maestro racing. My first car was a Maestro - a very rusty one! However, as with the jag, you may find rust to be the best way of lightening those body panels!