PROVISIONAL REGS !
Discussion
As usual the goal post are on the move, I strongly suggest anyone building a car don't bother finnishing it untill the regs are Final, we are building two customer cars and both of them have asked me WTF is going on !
Unless you have a 458 Ferrari, then you know you will be in GT class 1 and not too much should change, unless they allow Helicopters in !
Then again they might say only 10 litres of fuel and 5 mandatory pit stops, after all it is 'BRITCAR'
Unless you have a 458 Ferrari, then you know you will be in GT class 1 and not too much should change, unless they allow Helicopters in !
Then again they might say only 10 litres of fuel and 5 mandatory pit stops, after all it is 'BRITCAR'
All amendments to the regs have been made with the discussion of teams and drivers both on here and in conversations direct with the office. That's the reason we get them out early, to promote discussion and allow the teams and drivers to offer their suggestions.
If you have a specific questions you are welcome to call us on 01252 834377 at any time to discuss.
If you have a specific questions you are welcome to call us on 01252 834377 at any time to discuss.
Edited by Britcar David on Friday 27th January 17:04
David, this is very very unfair. We brought TWO Drenth gearboxes for our cars, and I sold my close ratio H pattern dogboxes on the back of the original regs. We asked Kevin Clarke to build us two cars to suit the regs and maximise them to the regs, which he has done, and only now AFTER we have paid a deposit we get hit with a 25 second penalty?? I have wasted about £22k it would seem.ost eoples cars are built or well into a build by now.
Which teams and drivers exactly did you talk to? Me and Mark made the effort to attend the pilot race at Brands, and made it clear then that we wanted to compete in 2012, yet no-one has contacted us, nor our team Intersport? Who exactly did you talk to?
On top of this the winning penalties have been altered, so potentially if we did well in the first four races, am I right that our pitstop will have to be a staggering plus 65 seconds to everyone else and we will have to carry that then for the rest of the season regardless of where we finish? Frankly thats a crap system, fair enough if the penalty is applied for the next race, then if that winning car comes second, the penalty is removed for the subsequent race, or if it wins again, it then gets another 10 secs, but to apply it then keep it regardless is bo**ox frankly.
I need to speak to Kevin Clarke about what we do now, but my 1st reaction is that we go and race elsewhere with our 3 cars and get our deposit back from you. Very unhappy.
Which teams and drivers exactly did you talk to? Me and Mark made the effort to attend the pilot race at Brands, and made it clear then that we wanted to compete in 2012, yet no-one has contacted us, nor our team Intersport? Who exactly did you talk to?
On top of this the winning penalties have been altered, so potentially if we did well in the first four races, am I right that our pitstop will have to be a staggering plus 65 seconds to everyone else and we will have to carry that then for the rest of the season regardless of where we finish? Frankly thats a crap system, fair enough if the penalty is applied for the next race, then if that winning car comes second, the penalty is removed for the subsequent race, or if it wins again, it then gets another 10 secs, but to apply it then keep it regardless is bo**ox frankly.
I need to speak to Kevin Clarke about what we do now, but my 1st reaction is that we go and race elsewhere with our 3 cars and get our deposit back from you. Very unhappy.
if you win the first four races you would be taking a 40 second addition to your pit stop into the last four races of the season? if so best try to win the last four races and wait till others have taken some time penalties. daft idea if you ask me and should have been decided pre-deposit time. please correct me if i have got this wrong?
have been talking up this series to everyone and i know we will have helped encourage more cars to the grid, shame its starting to fail before its even got started. As hazy has said, some mega money spent getting the cars ready.
have been talking up this series to everyone and i know we will have helped encourage more cars to the grid, shame its starting to fail before its even got started. As hazy has said, some mega money spent getting the cars ready.
The regulations are put out early in a draft format so that people can come back to us with ideas and suggestions. We have had a number of people contact us in the office and there have been open discussions on here about different aspects of each of the regulations.
Regarding the sequential gearboxes issue: The point was raised that some sequential gearbox systems give a distinct performance advantage (which is one of the intentions of the gearbox system obviously, along with ease of use and reliablilty). A suggestion was made, by a member of a team with experience of running a non H-Pattern box that a time penalty might be appropriate to avoid the need for everyone to go and get the latest money-no-object g'box to make sure they win. As you can see from the format and pricing structure of the Production Cup this coming season we are trying to make it more affordable to more people. The 25 second penalty mentioned in the regulations was an initial thought put down and was quickly dismissed for being too harsh. I thought I'd removed the reference to it in the regs but I missed it in regulation 3.9.7, I only took it out of 5.9.3, so my apologies for causing distress here, I've now updated the regs on the website to reflect this. It has since been decided that there won't be a set penalty mentioned in the regs. If the penalty system does get implemented it will be decided on a race by race basis and following review of the perceived performance benefits. We don't want to have a large enough penalty to make having a good g'box pointless but similarly we don't want to leave it totally unchecked as we can't have the racing being ruled by the cheque book or we will get back to the diminishing grids we saw the last 2 years.
Success penalties are only cumulative if you are winning every race, and only upto a maximum of 40seconds. This is simply to help stop runaway winners. In a 90min race I suspect everyone will only be stopping once and if you have such a performance advantage that you are still winning with a 40second penalty in the pits then, in all fairness, I believe the car does need to be a bit slower. If you are not winning you don't get any penalty added, if you finish on the podium you keep any penalty you might have previously received but don't get any more and if you finish off the podium your penalty is wiped out. For example, if you win your class in race 1 you will have an extra 10 seconds added to your stop for race 2. If in race 2 you win again you will have a 20second penalty to take into race 3. If in race 3 you finish 2nd you get no additional penalty but keep the 20 second penalty for race 4. If in race 4 you finish 4th your penalty is wiped out. This system was suggested by the floor at a managers meeting in 2011.
Regarding the sequential gearboxes issue: The point was raised that some sequential gearbox systems give a distinct performance advantage (which is one of the intentions of the gearbox system obviously, along with ease of use and reliablilty). A suggestion was made, by a member of a team with experience of running a non H-Pattern box that a time penalty might be appropriate to avoid the need for everyone to go and get the latest money-no-object g'box to make sure they win. As you can see from the format and pricing structure of the Production Cup this coming season we are trying to make it more affordable to more people. The 25 second penalty mentioned in the regulations was an initial thought put down and was quickly dismissed for being too harsh. I thought I'd removed the reference to it in the regs but I missed it in regulation 3.9.7, I only took it out of 5.9.3, so my apologies for causing distress here, I've now updated the regs on the website to reflect this. It has since been decided that there won't be a set penalty mentioned in the regs. If the penalty system does get implemented it will be decided on a race by race basis and following review of the perceived performance benefits. We don't want to have a large enough penalty to make having a good g'box pointless but similarly we don't want to leave it totally unchecked as we can't have the racing being ruled by the cheque book or we will get back to the diminishing grids we saw the last 2 years.
Success penalties are only cumulative if you are winning every race, and only upto a maximum of 40seconds. This is simply to help stop runaway winners. In a 90min race I suspect everyone will only be stopping once and if you have such a performance advantage that you are still winning with a 40second penalty in the pits then, in all fairness, I believe the car does need to be a bit slower. If you are not winning you don't get any penalty added, if you finish on the podium you keep any penalty you might have previously received but don't get any more and if you finish off the podium your penalty is wiped out. For example, if you win your class in race 1 you will have an extra 10 seconds added to your stop for race 2. If in race 2 you win again you will have a 20second penalty to take into race 3. If in race 3 you finish 2nd you get no additional penalty but keep the 20 second penalty for race 4. If in race 4 you finish 4th your penalty is wiped out. This system was suggested by the floor at a managers meeting in 2011.
Edited by Britcar David on Friday 27th January 17:10
Edited by Britcar David on Friday 27th January 17:14
David thanks for the clarification, the Drenth will offer no performance advantage over my old close ratio dog box (see mine and Radders times in the GT cup last year) but is miles easier to use, more robust and as a team running all 3 cars on the same DG400 makes alot of sense.
Still dont entirely agree with the winners penalty, but again your clarification of the penalty coming back off if the car finishes off the podium improves it, but IMO the penalty should be removed if the car doesnt win the next race, or a further 10 if it wins again, as you have suggested.
Still dont entirely agree with the winners penalty, but again your clarification of the penalty coming back off if the car finishes off the podium improves it, but IMO the penalty should be removed if the car doesnt win the next race, or a further 10 if it wins again, as you have suggested.
David i have to agree with the others on this one... Infact our latest car is slower than our old Manual gearbox car atm, ive never heard of such a penalty for a sequential gearbox, and where will the seats stand with this and there DSG boxes? i think you have to go with the majority on this, how many cars do you have with a manual gearbox fitted in class A ? i know us, hazy, radders, kev, keith, Nathan, Paul all have E46 m3's all with Sequential gearboxes. Im also about annoyed that when we spoke on the phone last week you didnt mention any of this to me, you guys know the spec of my car as we spoke about it when i our deposit for the whole season..... with this kind of penalty it would mean there wouldnt be any point running our car with a Drenth, and having to buy a WTCC H Pattern from motorsport ( Hazy how much are these? ), not only that but, A new Clutch, New mounts, New prop shaft, New shortshift, New pump fittings, sensors etc.... not to mention labor todo it all.
richard_abra said:
David i have to agree with the others on this one... Infact our latest car is slower than our old Manual gearbox car atm, ive never heard of such a penalty for a sequential gearbox, and where will the seats stand with this and there DSG boxes? i think you have to go with the majority on this, how many cars do you have with a manual gearbox fitted in class A ? i know us, hazy, radders, kev, keith, Nathan, Paul all have E46 m3's all with Sequential gearboxes. Im also about annoyed that when we spoke on the phone last week you didnt mention any of this to me, you guys know the spec of my car as we spoke about it when i our deposit for the whole season..... with this kind of penalty it would mean there wouldnt be any point running our car with a Drenth, and having to buy a WTCC H Pattern from motorsport ( Hazy how much are these? ), not only that but, A new Clutch, New mounts, New prop shaft, New shortshift, New pump fittings, sensors etc.... not to mention labor todo it all.
A new WTCC dog box will be the best part of £10k I reckon, I sold mine a month ago 
Anyways, that 25 sec ruling has now been removed thankfully, its the success penalty that needs tweaking now IMO. Im still interested who has been consulted, I havent, Intersport havent, Richard hasnt and clearly Geoff Steele racing havent? I would have thought teams running multiple cars in Britcar would be given the oppurtunity to comment?
hazy said:
Im still interested who has been consulted, I havent, Intersport havent, Richard hasnt and clearly Geoff Steele racing havent? I would have thought teams running multiple cars in Britcar would be given the oppurtunity to comment?
Britcar David said:
The regulations are put out early in a draft format so that people can come back to us with ideas and suggestions. We have had a number of people contact us in the office and there have been open discussions on here about different aspects of each of the regulations.
As some of you are aware Britcar is a small company. We do not have the manpower or resources of SRO or TOCA for example, hence we only have 2 full time employees (of which I'm not one of them) and organising 2 championship seasons plus at least one 24hour race takes alot of time. We don't have time to phone every single competitor and run through every aspect of the regulations individually just in case it affects them. Also, when you consider the majority of the time when the regs are being written it is before anyone signs up. This would mean we would have to contact everyone who had indicated they might be joining us at that time, which is literally hundreds of individuals. In addition, if we were to phone up each competitor with a question such as "should we penalise cars with XXXX" those who it would benefit would say 'Yes' and those who it would penalise will say "its a bad idea" so we wouldn't really get anywhere. If we put the ideas out there in PROVISIONAL regulations it gives everyone time to read, digest and come up with reasonable arguments for and against and come back to us with those reasoned arguments either directly by speaking to us in the office (which some have done) or by having an open discussion on here (which is what we are doing now).
We are always going to take claims of 'big performance advantage'/'no performance advantage' with a pinch of salt as there will always be vested interests involved, however an investigation will be taken into any issue/idea to see what the appropriate course of action should be.
The FIA suggest (and mandate in some of their championships) (based on vehicle performance of approx 300bhp) a minimum of 30kg ballast for sequential gearboxes. This is almost impossible to police when there is no mandated base weight for a class or championship as we have with Britcar Production Cup and only works in a championship or series where you have a minimum weight for everyone to meet. Tests in the UK have shown that a proper sequential g'box can have a performance advantage of over a quarter a second a lap on a short circuit like Brands Indy, over a H-Pattern, motorsport g'box in the same car. Hence the idea was proposed to introduce a penalty to try and dissuade people from spending fortunes on their cars when this championship is supposed to be about getting back to cheaper motorsport.
The actual penalty was removed form the regs and has been replaced with a line stating 'may receive a penalty' to give us the flexibility to impose a penalty if the situation warrants it come the races. It also means each type of box can be regulated on its own merits if necessary so the DSG road g'box in a SEAT won't (IF penalties are used) be penalised as much as a full race spec Sequential 'box.
richard_abra said:
Im also about annoyed that when we spoke on the phone last week you didnt mention any of this to me, you guys know the spec of my car as we spoke about it when i our deposit for the whole season.....
Richard, in specific response to your point above, when you called the office to ask if a sequential gearbox was allowed in the regs you were told it was. At the time of the conversation the penalty issue had been discussed with some teams who HAD contacted us and also internally in the office and it had become less of an issue, if not something we would only revisit later in the season if it became apparent it was required. As mentioned above in this thread I thought the amendment to the regs had been made but I missed one mention of it. This has now been rectified. The latest version of the Provisional regs will be posted to the website today for you to all read, discuss and come back to us here with any suggestions/queries/issues so we can all discuss it openly, or if you prefer by calling us in the office, and we can hopefully work towards a set of regulations which we can jointly agree are to the benefit of the championship and the competitors.
What we absolutely don't want is a spending war, as it will kill the grids which benefits no-one. It has been for the last few years. The re-organisation of this championship is to try and combat that situation, i.e. cheaper entries, slower cars, no control fuel etc. We can only survive charging what we are on the entry fees if we get big grids so we HAVE to keep a lid on things to make it an attractive Championship to new competitors. Britcar hasn't had the best reputation in the past and we have an opportunity to work together to change that and make this the best club saloon championship in the country which is the benefit of everyone. We are not out to persecute anyone we are offering ideas and wanting to promote discussion.
I just wanted to clarify our position on this situation:
The 2012 Britcar Production Cup will be, if required, balancing the performance of entrants with sequential gearboxes against those competitors running standard H-Pattern type 'boxes. The idea is not to make these gear boxes obsolete but to reduce some of their performance advantage over a standard H-Pattern box to avoid the need for smaller teams to overstretch their budgets.
The performance will be balanced via the application of a time penalty for specific types of gearbox which will be applied during the mandatory pitstops. Different types of sequential gearbox may receive different levels of equalisation relative to its perceived performance benefit.
There will be no time penalty for round 1 of the championship to measure a baseline of performance between the different specification of cars taking part. Penalties may then be applied to following races if deemed necessary to balance the performance to a degree. This is as per regulation 3.9.7 and 5.2.4.
The 2012 Britcar Production Cup will be, if required, balancing the performance of entrants with sequential gearboxes against those competitors running standard H-Pattern type 'boxes. The idea is not to make these gear boxes obsolete but to reduce some of their performance advantage over a standard H-Pattern box to avoid the need for smaller teams to overstretch their budgets.
The performance will be balanced via the application of a time penalty for specific types of gearbox which will be applied during the mandatory pitstops. Different types of sequential gearbox may receive different levels of equalisation relative to its perceived performance benefit.
There will be no time penalty for round 1 of the championship to measure a baseline of performance between the different specification of cars taking part. Penalties may then be applied to following races if deemed necessary to balance the performance to a degree. This is as per regulation 3.9.7 and 5.2.4.
David,
Is it not almost a given that the bigger teams with bigger budgets will be at the front therefore you are going to see the need ( incorrectly IMO ) to 'balance the performance?' but you will be doing it for the wrong reasons, there isnt much of an advantage with a proper box Main one is the durability but yes it does cost money, as does testing ( which also makes you faster ) and decent suspension ( which also makes you faster ) etc etc.....
Would you take a view on this and take into consideration the drivers who have already paid there entries and already built cars? As in if 80% of class A cars have Sequential boxes then penalizing them would seem a little unfair?
Is it not almost a given that the bigger teams with bigger budgets will be at the front therefore you are going to see the need ( incorrectly IMO ) to 'balance the performance?' but you will be doing it for the wrong reasons, there isnt much of an advantage with a proper box Main one is the durability but yes it does cost money, as does testing ( which also makes you faster ) and decent suspension ( which also makes you faster ) etc etc.....
Would you take a view on this and take into consideration the drivers who have already paid there entries and already built cars? As in if 80% of class A cars have Sequential boxes then penalizing them would seem a little unfair?
AP Brakes v Standard,
KW's v Standard,
Race engine v Standard,
Aero developed in wind tunnel v Standard
New tyres every 90mim v 3 or 4 hours,
That other little part the drivers some may just be a little faster that the others. Days spent on track testing and getting set up right,tyre pressers right to ambient conditions tweaking the odd 10th here and there. None of this makes the car quicker then its all down to a gearbox. If you want standard production cars then state that not this is free and that is free then maybe its going to get a penalty if it wins.
The performance will be balanced via the application of a time penalty for specific types of gearbox which will be applied during the mandatory pitstops. Different types of sequential gearbox may receive different levels of equalisation relative to its perceived performance benefit.
Perceived performance benefit how on earth is that one going to be worked out? If you have the same box in 4 different cars and they finish 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th then the winner has a preceved performance benefit so gets a penalty! I'm 5th in my H box if no penalty is given Off to the M.S.A i go with a set of reg's.
Then you have the different types of sequential gearboxes, different manufacture's of boxes , Is a stick change faster than a paddle change, dose a blipper make the change faster, And who makes the fastest Gearbox control unit,
Good luck with this one as i can see the race results taking weeks to sort out
KW's v Standard,
Race engine v Standard,
Aero developed in wind tunnel v Standard
New tyres every 90mim v 3 or 4 hours,
That other little part the drivers some may just be a little faster that the others. Days spent on track testing and getting set up right,tyre pressers right to ambient conditions tweaking the odd 10th here and there. None of this makes the car quicker then its all down to a gearbox. If you want standard production cars then state that not this is free and that is free then maybe its going to get a penalty if it wins.
The performance will be balanced via the application of a time penalty for specific types of gearbox which will be applied during the mandatory pitstops. Different types of sequential gearbox may receive different levels of equalisation relative to its perceived performance benefit.
Perceived performance benefit how on earth is that one going to be worked out? If you have the same box in 4 different cars and they finish 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th then the winner has a preceved performance benefit so gets a penalty! I'm 5th in my H box if no penalty is given Off to the M.S.A i go with a set of reg's.
Then you have the different types of sequential gearboxes, different manufacture's of boxes , Is a stick change faster than a paddle change, dose a blipper make the change faster, And who makes the fastest Gearbox control unit,
Good luck with this one as i can see the race results taking weeks to sort out
Guys, Thanks for your input and the points you have raised. Having been involved in this sport on all sides of the barrier for over 15 years I am fully aware of all the issues that make cars go faster or slower that is why the regs have been written the way they have i.e.: IF there is perceived to be a performance benefit gained from having a particular type of gearbox then we MAY introduce a penalty to minimise SOME of that advantage (the word used in the regs is 'may', not 'will' or what that penalty is, we will determine what that is if we need to based on as much evidence as we can justifiably use, if there is no definitive case for having a penalty we won't introduce one). As already stated, any penalty we may introduce won't be making the boxes obsolete, having them will still be an advantage we just don't want to see anyone running away with the championship just because they can spend a British GT budget on a club championship.
As with any other race in the UK the results will be finalised 30mins after the race once scrutineering has finished. We will analyse the performance of cars before the next round and IF we think there is any merit in balancing some types of gearbox then we will implement it before the following round.
I appreciate you specifically are all in a position where you can spend alot on your cars to try and win a championship but there are less and less people in British motorsport with the money or inclination to do it. We have seen that over the last couple of years of failing grids in Production when it WAS a free for all. If you want to race in a championship with 10 cars on the grid we are happy to charge you £2k+ for a 90min race but then no one benefits: our races look under subscribed; you have no-one but your team mate to race against and; we loose championship status because we have small grids. Isn't it better to have a large grid of cars of roughly even performance so you all have someone to race against?
We are not going to go down the VLN route of having nearly every car in a separate class so it needs us all to work together to make this a successful championship. If we impose a fixed penalty now or state there wont a penalty now we have no chance of working together to get a championship that everyone is happy to race in because they know they can be reasonably competitive. All this rule does is leave our options open IF we need to do something.
Plus bearing in mind rule 5.2.4 has been in the regulations since the first set of provisional regs were released in October 2011 (and has been in the Production Championship regs for the last few years) we have the power to do this anyway and it was something you all agreed to even in the provisional regs. All we have done is specify what the penalty might be if we decide it is worth implementing.
As with any other race in the UK the results will be finalised 30mins after the race once scrutineering has finished. We will analyse the performance of cars before the next round and IF we think there is any merit in balancing some types of gearbox then we will implement it before the following round.
I appreciate you specifically are all in a position where you can spend alot on your cars to try and win a championship but there are less and less people in British motorsport with the money or inclination to do it. We have seen that over the last couple of years of failing grids in Production when it WAS a free for all. If you want to race in a championship with 10 cars on the grid we are happy to charge you £2k+ for a 90min race but then no one benefits: our races look under subscribed; you have no-one but your team mate to race against and; we loose championship status because we have small grids. Isn't it better to have a large grid of cars of roughly even performance so you all have someone to race against?
We are not going to go down the VLN route of having nearly every car in a separate class so it needs us all to work together to make this a successful championship. If we impose a fixed penalty now or state there wont a penalty now we have no chance of working together to get a championship that everyone is happy to race in because they know they can be reasonably competitive. All this rule does is leave our options open IF we need to do something.
Plus bearing in mind rule 5.2.4 has been in the regulations since the first set of provisional regs were released in October 2011 (and has been in the Production Championship regs for the last few years) we have the power to do this anyway and it was something you all agreed to even in the provisional regs. All we have done is specify what the penalty might be if we decide it is worth implementing.
Sorry I might upset a few people but they should all be H Pat in Production Cup 
then there is no time penalties that ruin a 90 min race 
Why did the old production championship start to fail ? mainly down to cost of being competitive as the cars had mod after mod after mod that the rules allowed. Production cup should be what it says a production race series not cars slowly morphing into GT spec cars, in this case it would be cheaper in the long term to go out and buy a G50 or G55.
then there is no time penalties that ruin a 90 min race Why did the old production championship start to fail ? mainly down to cost of being competitive as the cars had mod after mod after mod that the rules allowed. Production cup should be what it says a production race series not cars slowly morphing into GT spec cars, in this case it would be cheaper in the long term to go out and buy a G50 or G55.
Edited by speedy7 on Wednesday 22 February 12:40
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