Time Trial groups

[concretevol]

Wow what a thread so far! Here are my comments on NASA and SCCA TT, as I have run both many many times. I won't comment on GridLife as I haven't run with them, other than to say they are big in their region (Chicago is their home base) but not so much in others.

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Experience so you know what I'm coming from - did my first HPDE in 1988, first TT in 1990, and have done 100s since.

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I started running in NASA Time Trial in 2006 and have enjoyed that series and ruleset for many years. Have built 10 or 12 cars for myself around this series and dozens of cars for customers for same.

Forum post about NASA TT rules (2019): https://www.vorshlag.com/forums/for...-tt-rules-overview-200tw-texas-region-classes

It is hard to argue against their Power-to-Weight classing that they have adopted entirely since ~2016. Having run their "letter" classes before, this P-to-W basis is a lot more fair and balanced. The main thing they are missing is a good place for cars to be competitive with on 200TW tires (basically if you are on something that isn't a Hoosier, you are at a disadvantage).

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We built up a lot of data running NASA TT in many cars, including this 2018 GT above where we ran 200TW on day 1 and Hoosiers on day 2 of a NASA weekend, for 2 seasons. Their current "calculated" bonuses for various street tires just don't work very well. After running NASA TT almost exclusively from 2006 to 2019, I started doing some SCCA TT events in 2018...

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SCCA TT has a much more modern ruleset with "categories" and classes within each: Sport, Tuner, Max, and Unlimited. The first 3 categories all run 200TW tires, which keeps costs down (it really does) and makes for great competition, as there aren't classes with wildly different tires / power levels / aero or not.

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Blowing $2000/weekend on sticker Hoosier A7s -vs- getting a season of competitive use out of a set of 200TW tires makes for a big difference in the tire budget. YUGE.

SCCA Time Trials - Rules Suggestions from Vorshlag - Vorshlag Motorsports Forum

www.vorshlag.com

SCCA TT is relatively new and not every region runs the National ruleset. I had my issues with those rules in 2018 (see above) but after some much needed changes (and I wrote in for rules changes - which most were adopted) and running it for a few seasons, I'm 100% on board with their rules mentality and it makes for an easier entry into Time Trial without needing a gutted race car with Hoosiers and aero to have a prayer of trophying.

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Since 2021 all of our shop cars are built around SCCA TT rules, which would seem crazy to me circa 2018. But it just works, and their rules cross-over better to Grid Life and GTA, which isn't a bad thing. Will I run our cars in NASA TT? Sure, but they won't be competitive until we get them to the limit of the P-to-W ratios, add aero and Hoosiers, etc. Still love our NASA Texas folks, though, so I will run with them even if uncompetitive. But I will build around SCCA TT, because the rules work better with my way of thinking.

Hope this helps, and let's keep it Troll Free

Sorry for the delayed response but thanks for posting. Great info and happy to learn from your experiences as far as building the car towards a specific rule set.

 

[concretevol]

I run with NASA -SE, my experience with them is like I reported earlier in this thread. It’s a real good group and super competitive, but not in a bad way, we all help each other out and hang out together between sessions. The time difference on the last race at Robeling between 1st and 5th was low 1:19 to mid 1:20. None of the other TT groups are that close. There is only one other mustang that runs TT3 and he has not been to all of the events, but we were separated by 2 thousands of a second on the Saturday event. There are a pair of corvettes that have been to every event this year and they have been fun to play with.
Please do come join us we could use all the blue oval support we can get.
Let me know if you want to do it and I will send you the TT directors email so you can get things going.

Hopefully you will see me down there next year. I have one more HPDE trip to RRR this year and plan on starting with NASA SE next year. I love that track, both because its fast and because I did the concrete work on it during that recent repave!