Have we talked about this? SCCA rallycross adding an open class for railbuggy craziness

I decided to steal Leon's image and rehost on imgur. Sorry Leon. It is for a good cause.

This is a mod legal rear suspension. I assume it would be a legal front suspension as well. The tail gate and tonneau cover aren't in the picture but are required when competing due to modified rules.

I am not sure how you go more extreme than this for an open class car other than removing what is left of the bed sides.

icaneat50eggs wrote: In reply to Knurled: So who makes up the rules? I want to be cursing the correct people.

Generally speaking, the competitors. For instance, for the 2018 ruleset, there's something like 18 rule changes/additions submitted for member comment on the official forum, and then after a certain period, we (the committee) vote yea/nay/abstain, with commenting encouraged, and our votes/comments go higher up in the chain where the ultimate decision is made. And, again generally speaking, the rules that pass do so because the people want it that way. (Which means we might see Stock class get a wheel allowance sometime in 2020 when the only Stock-able cars left have 17" and larger wheels and people realize that this sucks)

If you're an SCCA member, you're part of the rulemaking process.

All that said, I am expecting to have a more interesting time listening to people commenting on the Open class proposal than I had dealing with a certain brand of tire that was a rally tire, not marked "for competition only", and was apparently DOT legal... which wasn't in any capacity as a rules guy, but in an "offical" capacity as being on the Protest board at Nationals one year. (The year we had like 17 separate protests. It was nuts)

ojannen wrote: In reply to Knurled: That is the car I was thinking of. If photobucket wasn't so dumb there would have been a picture in my response. All the ideas I can think of that are class legal but not super narrow are essentially mod cars where you don't put the bodywork back on.

Which, interestingly, when the higher ups heard about his plans, and started watching his build thread on VWVortex, it helped steer his project in a direction where it fit the spirit of the rules. (Basically, he put a bed floor in it so it didn't look too much like a tubeframe car)

The interesting part I think is that it's actually a melding of three cars. It's a Caddy skin, but the front end/suspension and I think also firewall and floor are actually from a Golf, I think maybe the one he rolled in 2014. So it's an A2 floor and A1 body, that's been backhalfed with Miata bits. And still the part that impresses me is that his steering column is actually just a steering quickener. Why splice one into the column when you can just bolt the steering wheel right to the input? It solves so many problems so easily.

Keith Tanner wrote: The lifted Exo in the pictures also has a 13.5" wider track. FYI.

Ah, didn't know if it had long arms or not. So it might pass, but would likely be slower than a stock miata

The competitors might suggest alterations to rules but I don't understand how they come up with brand new classes.

This isn't as bad as the old "you can run Hoosiers in stock class, but an aftermarket steering wheel puts you in super duper modified" rules they had a year ago.

Of course the only thing dumber than that would be invading Russia in the winter.

Just reread the rules, except I have not gone and looked at the SS/IT cage rules. The more I think about this, the more interested I'd be, if I had the time/space/skill to build something. Right now, I'm thinking a tube frame single-seater (located at the centerline of the chassis), with a mid/rear mounted drivetrain would be good for the 2WD class. On first glance, I'd lean toward using a Subaru drivetrain, because you could narrow the overall width without making the axles so short they'd be breaking constantly. If you could setup the steering so that the driver sits pretty close to the front, the car could be low, short, and narrow, and have a fairly low moment of inertia.

I think the biggest danger I'd see is building something to the rules this year, then having the class either be dropped, or have the rules altered enough that whatever you build is obsolete/illegal. I doubt participation will be high, but you could get some kind of Can-Am escalation between a few people that would kill the class.

ojannen wrote: I decided to steal Leon's image and rehost on imgur. Sorry Leon. It is for a good cause. This is a mod legal rear suspension. I assume it would be a legal front suspension as well. The tail gate and tonneau cover aren't in the picture but are required when competing due to modified rules. I am not sure how you go more extreme than this for an open class car other than removing what is left of the bed sides.

If somebody has a link to a build thread on this i'd love to see it.

In reply to gearheadmb:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?7089677-Rallycross-VW-Caddy-build-thread