To Pound or not to Pound??

Poorvette Racing

Well-known member
Happy New Year Everyone!

I'm currently in a dilemma and hoped some of you more experienced bench racers can provide some wisdom.

For a little background information, over the last year I have built a car and worked my way through the novice program. Shying away from the advice of many I decided to build a Corvette to AP specs because I was already driving a vette and frankly just like the car. Following my novice races I found that there were no drivers running AP so I decided to run ITE instead but kept the car at AP specs. This now puts me in a position where, due to the open nature of ITE, my car is not going to hang with the Big Boys of ITE until I make some real upgrades to the stock powertrain.

So here in lies the dilemma. Do I upgrade my vette to run with the big boys in a class with spotty run group size or do I bite the bullet and buy a Ground Pounder? From a dollars and cents perspective you can pick up a respectable GPounder for not much more than I will be spending upgrading my current car, from a maintenance and repair perspective the Gpounders seem much cheaper to maintain, and from a competition perspective there seems to be quite a bit of SPO/GT1 participation. Other than the emotional attachment to my current car i'm having a hard time with finding a reason not to move up.

The questions I have are ... As an up and coming racer is moving in to something like a Gpounder going to stunt my development as a driver? For those currently running stock cars, do you have any regrets? Hind sight being 20/20, would you have gone another direction? Is there anything about a purpose built car that keeps any of you away?

Thanks,
 
depending on how much power your vette puts down and how much it weights you might be able to run ST in group 4. i was thinking a c5 vett like a 97 might be a good car and a C4 should fit pretty good to as long as you dont mod the power to much. 10:1 weight to wheel power.
 
production based cars. with 10:1 wt:whp ratio w w w dot race-st dot com. is a C5 vette not a unibody car i thought it was i guess not just looked online. wonder if you could race a 69 mustang even though its not a unibody car body on frame.
 
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ST would be a great fit for your car. Is your car the Z06 with the LS6 or just regular C5 with a LS1? If it's the Z06 you will likely be over power but if the the regular LS1 C5 you should be almost 10:1.
 
It is an Ls1 C5 and I would love to run ST but I'm still confused about the Unibody rule. A corvette is definitely a body on frame car (Fiberglass body bolted to steel frame), doesn't this exclude it from ST?
 
If we wrote the rule like that it was definitely a mistake. The rule was meant to exclude tube frame and or partial tube frame cars. I (can't speak for everyone in ST) wouldn't protest it and would push to change the rule next year. We definitely didn't mean to exclude Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes, etc.
 
Oh and by the way -- I thought this post was going to be more about going to Poundtown than about racing a ground pounder. :D
 
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And now for something completely different

Sell it and buy a Formula car (ford, continental, mazda).

Get a Crossle 32 or 35 for Club Ford, any post 97 FC, or your basic Formula Mazda and you will not need to be concerned with how competitive your car is, only how good a driver you are.

Running costs, tires, fuel, motor, brakes probably the same or less than what you are paying right now. With a modern progressive rate suspension, triple adjustable shocks, wings and a diffusor, a quick change 4 speed transmission, and an 8 to 1 weight to hp, Formula Continental is my choice.

As for purpose built race cars, I made the switch 23 years ago to formula cars and sports racers and have never considered going back. The basic reason is that production cars are made to be on the road and they are modified to go on the track,\. As such they carry a number of design limitations and considerations that purpose built race cars do not. In addition (I cannot comment on gpounders) cars like the Crossle, 97 and newer FC's (read Van Diemens) and FM's are well understood, well developed cars and that means you do not have to spend the time to test and engineer the car....it has already been done. Purpose built race cars are also generally easier to adjust (set-up), easier to repair and do not suffer from "now that I have modified this part what part will break, be over stressed, etc. syndrome" (used to run a 1960 g production MG in the 80's, which I think came stressed from the factory lol).

The down side of course is that purpose built cars require a lump sum payment where modified production cars can be done on an as cash is available incremental plan with costs potentially offset by sweat equity. Regardless unless you are getting a car where the class developement is essentially frozen (like those mentioned above) buy the newest (read most current design/developement) you can afford.
 
wonder if you could race a 69 mustang even though its not a unibody car body on frame.

A 69 Mustang is a unibody car. I have no idea what "unibody car body on frame." means, though. Eric, please add some punctuation to your posts -- they are really, really hard to read.

And yes, ST does exclude standard frame cars. A late 60's Chevelle or big Ford could not enter. It appears neither could a Corvette:

1324. C. Body

1. All vehicles must be unibody production cars and have been
available for sale to the general public. Tube-frame cars are
not eligible.
 
And now for something completely different

Sell it and buy a Formula car (ford, continental, mazda).

Get a Crossle 32 or 35 for Club Ford, any post 97 FC, or your basic Formula Mazda and you will not need to be concerned with how competitive your car is, only how good a driver you are.

Running costs, tires, fuel, motor, brakes probably the same or less than what you are paying right now. With a modern progressive rate suspension, triple adjustable shocks, wings and a diffusor, a quick change 4 speed transmission, and an 8 to 1 weight to hp, Formula Continental is my choice.

As for purpose built race cars, I made the switch 23 years ago to formula cars and sports racers and have never considered going back. The basic reason is that production cars are made to be on the road and they are modified to go on the track,\. As such they carry a number of design limitations and considerations that purpose built race cars do not. In addition (I cannot comment on gpounders) cars like the Crossle, 97 and newer FC's (read Van Diemens) and FM's are well understood, well developed cars and that means you do not have to spend the time to test and engineer the car....it has already been done. Purpose built race cars are also generally easier to adjust (set-up), easier to repair and do not suffer from "now that I have modified this part what part will break, be over stressed, etc. syndrome" (used to run a 1960 g production MG in the 80's, which I think came stressed from the factory lol).

The down side of course is that purpose built cars require a lump sum payment where modified production cars can be done on an as cash is available incremental plan with costs potentially offset by sweat equity. Regardless unless you are getting a car where the class developement is essentially frozen (like those mentioned above) buy the newest (read most current design/developement) you can afford.

why? He said he wanted more cars to play with.... Oooo wait I've got an idea, combine group 3 and 6. Then there might be 4 or 5 cars to run with! I kid, I kid.
 
Regarding ST, does anyone know where the "Unibody" rule came from. It was mentioned above that it was not the intention of the group to exclude framed cars but it is written pretty clear. . . I like the idea of bringing a domestic influence to the group but if i'm not allowed i'm not allowed.

Regarding the formula cars. I really enjoy traffic on the race track and while it would be a blast to run an OW car the run group is pretty light.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the Gpounders?


ClintonRacing. . . A trip to Poundtown never hurt anybody!
 
Eric Krause and Steve Adams were the framers of the actual document, but we had a pretty democratic process to grind through the specifics. I pinged Eric to get his input and Steve will probably find this thread soon enough.

I'm of the opinion we just missed the mark with the wording.
 
I would recommend you drop as much $$ in your vette as possible. Race cars always cost a lot anyways! The ground pounder route seems like a great way to go instead though. You can then drop as much $$ as possible in that too! Either way, you should do it for fun and the hope of a $12 trophy! Good luck on this decision. I hope you will stay in ITE though.
 
The word unibody was not intentionally meant to exclude Corvettes, it just happened to fit 99% of the intened audience. The target of the class was late model, mass produced Improved Touring style cars. Additionally the intention was to eliminate purpose built race cars and kit cars and small run specialty cars. I can only think of a few mass produced cars in the last 20 years that are not unibody construction. Vipers, maybe Lotus and apparently Corvettes. Maybe others? Despite having worked on a C5 vette it never dawned on me it might not be considered a unibody car. With the bonded panels it appears very unibodyish.

Personally, I think a Corvette street car is well within the spirit of the class, as long as it stays within the 10:1 limit. I can't speak for other ST competitors but I wouldn't anticipate anyone having a problem with you running ST. Next rule change season we should look at adjusting the wording so not to unintentionally discourage a car that is in the target audience.

ST was born from people who were in your position. ITE has unlimited horsepower and no minumum weight. Eventually, you either go "BIG" or do something else. We did something else - by creating a class where there wasn't one before and putting a limit on "big".
 
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sorry for the punctuation or lack there of. i was thinking most of the cool cars from the muscle car era were all body on frame cars because you could lift the body off and the powertrain and suspension stayed behind. I guess I picked the wrong one for an example.
 
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