Hi all, I'm a new forum member/reader and I'm planning on building a short track stock car based track toy in the coming years (something along the lines of SCCA GTA). My intent is to do HPDE intitially and then run ST1 or SU. I've spent most of my life in automotive and powersports industries but I don't have any four wheeled track time. My question is if a car without aero aside from a wicker bill spoiler and maybe a front splitter can be competitive in ST1 or SU?
In reply to BrakesAreForQuitters :
If the cars that are currently competitive have substantial aero, it is unlikely. You would have to build in some inherent advantages that overcome the reduced corner speeds and braking abilities of an aero car.
Starting from scratch with a clean sheet chassis can get you some of the way there, but Low CG and relatively high track width can only reduce the grip loses of weight transfer it cannot increase the tires overall grip the way down force does.
If the class allows for higher power to weight ratios for non aero cars it is possible you will be able to use increased straight away speeds to overcome the deficit.
Also if the fast cars in the class don't have substantial aero you may be okay. But it's unlikely you can engineer or driver skill your way around the inherent vehicle performance gaps of having no down force.
I suspect it depends on what you mean by "competitive". At the Champs level, SU is a class dominated by sports racers/prototypes. Even with aero I suspect you'd have a hard time getting a 3000 pound stock car to compete with them.
ST1 it's going to depend a lot on the track. When they ran at Daytona, there was a big enough "top speed" section that in the lower-powered ST classes it made sense to delete the aero. Less drag, plus those classes gave you more power/weight for it. Somewhere tight and twisty like Sonoma would be a different story.
Locally it's really going to depend on who else shows up. I would recommend going and checking your local region's results, because cars on the faster end of ST get very expensive to build and as a result there don't tend to be many. Here in NorCal the fastest class that regularly has more than 1 or 2 entries is ST4. (well, OK, when the Rush SR guys show up it's either ST2 or SU, but they are really running their own race)
I dug up the results for the last couple years NASA Championships and you're right that SU is populated by downforce cars but last year the guy who took 3rd in the ST1 championship was driving a car very much like the one i'm describing so it's certainly possible to do well if the skill is there. SU is probably not a good series to start out in anyhow. Thank you!
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