<VV> Prepared Advisory committee

[Levair@aol.com]

SCCA
Prepared advisory committee
P.O.Box 19499
Topeka, KS
66619-0400

All,

   Per the June Fasttrack:
    You are absolutely right; the time is now for prepared changes.
   I just attended a Cendiv Championship Solo II event at Grissom Air Force 
Base. This event and site is as near to being at the Nationals as is possible.
  The surface is even better than Topeka (except for the ridiculous car 
breaking bump) and the courses are very much akin in size and speed. 
   Many National champions were represented in all classes, so the 
competition was fierce.  I chose to run in CP where there were 18 entries. 
   This is not a rant against CP; everyone is greated warmly, treated well, 
and the Corvair has been granted as much help as is.a possible; but if a 
Martian were to come down and view the competition, he would have to wonder about 
the cars fit in the class at 2689cc vs 5700cc. 
    The course was fair to us, but we were 4 seconds off of the pace. Please 
don't start theold thread about us not being as well prepared as the pony cars 
until our cars are critically examined or you take a drive in one of them. 
Also it is totally unfair to even consider that the pony car preparers don't 
have their suspensions fully optimized. 
   We Corvairs are just a poor fit, except for socially, which I would  miss. 
CP entries are so large that they wouldn't miss us though. 
  Having said all of that; we are a good fit technically in F Prepared, and 
FP needs us!.
   My times in the 1900 (1850 plus 11" rear wheels) pound Corvair were within 
hundreths  of the well prepared FP 280 Datsun and very experienced/fast 
driver. I spoke with the driver and he welcomes the competition.   
   The cars in FP range from 2000cc to around 3200cc, which is a good fit for 
our 2689 cc cars except for our ancient engine technology. 
   Another plus for me is that these FP cars are the very cars that I road 
raced against in the 70's in D Production. We never ran against Trans Am or GT1 
cars. 
   A possible problem is the proposed weight factoring system. It seems to 
add weight to all of the existing cars.  I expecially cannot see adding weight 
for over hung rear engines. Un prepared 911 Porsches and Corvairs are the worst 
handling per polar moment and lead ball on a string swinging  mass examples. 
All of the preparation is to overcome these deficiencies. Besides the very 
definition of "prepared" is that any cars tendencies are either minimized or 
maximized. The best cars probablly all have slightly rear weigth bias regardless 
of original layout.   Formulas are likely good for new cars with no racing 
experience, but the cars currently in the class have had their potentional watched 
for many, many years. The long experience has to be more valuable than 
experimental formulas. 
   Thanks for reading this over long letter and considering entry of Corvairs 
and Yenko Stingers into FP at 1900 pounds.
    Maybe Turbo Charged Corvairs could still have a place in CP, but not NA 
ones.
    Warren