The other series. Talk me in or out of trying it out. (Page 2 of 3)

Feel free to come up and hang out with us. No open driver spots, but we will be camping out and having fun at the track all weekend. Bring anti-mosquito weapons.

24H at VIR... simca vs marina...

I still don't like the mandatory pit every 2 hours. not that we often make it more than 2 hours before needing to pee, or fix something important, but it's the principle of the matter!

edit: I just realized that the rules for Chump means that I need to spend the next month getting to pass tech. oh and all the crap I have to buy on top of it.

We'd probably hold the record for most penalty laps at a chump race anyways.

aftermarket shocks, coilovers, fuel cell, etc etc. would be comical to declare our "cheats" going through tech.

For the races where there are blow-by-blow online updates, it sure looks like they're tougher on contact, I know I've seen multiple instances where there's a "Contact between xx and yy, both cars black flagged to come in and talk about it.".  The express view on it has definitely changed, I remember when we were told, "Rubbing is racing," this year the story in the drivers' meeting was that contact was not acceptable and racing room should be maintained at all times.

Just as Lemons appears to have evolved more towards Chump's attitude on spins and offs, Chump appears to be evolving more towards Lemons's attitude on contact.

Track availability certainly plays a significant role in overlap.  It's also possible that either series may intentionally try to schedule popular events head-to-head with the other, although both publicly disclaim doing so.

Fuel cell is only an issue if it's too oversized (and even then, displacement devices are allowed to get capacity with the rules).

The rest is only an issue if you lack value headroom.  If you're working with something rare, ask for a value, and I'd bet you'll be given something that's reasonably generous (e.g. I know of another unusual vehicle that was given a -$100 value).

I don't think we should be propagating false information about ChumpCar, so please feel free to correct any errors you see posted here.

As for race overlaps, Lemons HQ generally has only a very vague idea, if any, of when/where CC races will be happening. Jay doesn't really think about CC that much, from what I can tell.

Unlimited? Perhaps in the respect of new STOCK parts, yes they are more serious about speed, watering/oiling   the track is controlled a little better, reliability is encouraged as is safety so suspension,shocks, piston rings, gaskets, radiator, hoses etc. fly through tech inspection without a blink but cheaty bits are still cheaty bits, sure anythings allowed but deceleration in the log book is required, if those cheaty bits exceed $500 when added to the price of the car penalty laps start adding up.

From the other sides perspective the IOE hunt has a truly unlimited budget.

Being competitive costs more in either series, be it a new set of shocks and a radiator a month before a chump event  or 3 junkyard engines and a 5 gallon drum of epoxy on raceday while earning  heroic or screwed, its all about your flavor of fun, we are all car geeks

This is probably why Chump doesn't interest me.  The $500 limit to me has always been part of the challenge.  Balancing performance to reliablity, and that has always set a bit of a balance in Lemons between cars that shouldn't ever be able to be balanaced on a race track.  Between the car valuing system and that you can replace any part with new stock parts you lose that.  You might as well just look at the list of approved cars and buy the most expensive well maintained stock version of the fastest car on the list and pay a shop to replace every worn part and tune the car and show up with an essentially new old sports car to race.  Early on when I was looking into getting into Lemons I remember reading some article about why they made the series.  In it Jay said that they were tired of being beaten by guys who only ever use the Checkbook wrench.  Chump seems far to easy for people to do that.  (I'm not saying everyone does but the rules make it rather tempting)

Coming from someone who won IOE with a car horribly stock and always way under budget, I would say the majority of the teams who win IOE play within the rules.  Even cars that wouldn't be looked at from a budgetary fashion I wouldn't be surprised to find the majority try to stay within the rules also, because its part of the challenge.

80 isnt that low, and we do have the advantage that we feed them well.

Last year at road america (50 cars for over 4 miles of track, that made Autobahn seem overly crowded) the topic of what courses they like came up, and for them it is basically good food, nice bathrooms and a decent place for them to work out of and hang out.  So Autobahn ranks high for them, and Food wise RA is awesome.  Even though only one consession stand was open, it was soooo good.

50 cars is thin for a Lemons race, but there are a lot of Chump races with fewer than 20 cars.

I took our old Honda Hatchback to Laguna Seca for a November 2011 race. A great chance to race at LS and with three drivers for one day, and $1000 it was a good deal for us. We had tires and didn't have to spend anything on the car. Our guy screwed up the AVI calc, and with the header (+$50), and rear coil-overs and sway bar, we were over the $500, so we had a couple penalty laps to start with. But in our case, we didn't care, we were there to race the track.

The 2 hour drive stint rule kind of screwed us up a bit and we actually had one guy go over the 2 hours (7.5/3 = 2.5), cause we for got about it until we were reminded. The second guy hit a berm, damaged the car slightly and got BFed for the noise. The left front strut top shear through its mount and was banging the hood and the strut tower every turn and the workers would hear it. Pitted didn't see it, they let us back out.  #1 driver drove short and then at the end with the busted strut banging away to get ~2.5.

LG limits the track to 30 or 35 cars, and it was great not having the normal 100-175 cars of Sears Point/ Thunderhill/Buttonwillow out there as excessive traffic. We ran clean laps, pushing hard and had to deal with some faster cars every lap, but not every corner. We were one of the slowest cars (125 hp 1800# honda), but we finished 16th/35. we beat an EC BMW 3 series that had some fast but bad drivers, who kept spinning off track.  As far as I know there was not one car to car contact the whole day, and all of the drivers I thought were very respectful of each other, while still running fast. I thought the corner diving wasn't there, passing excellent, and A**hole factor non existent.

Chump is definitely more about racing, and racing fast. The rules are definitely a bit different and you can get slammed by the AVI and add ons with the parts swap spreadsheet, especially if you've raced Lemons a few times and upgraded due to low residuals. Chump allows rebuild parts, but no real upgrading. You need to build it right the first time. That said in my one day experience, I saw what I would consider more cheaty cars running with fudged AVIs to allow more upgrades. But that is my opinion.

Go do it, and find out for your self.

I'm not even saying its wrong or a bad thing, but to me a big part of the fun is the challenge of getting these heaps to finish the race while not being able to replace every part before the race.  Now if that means my crap engineered lowest bidder built piece of crap beats new highend sports cars I consider it a bonus.

ChumpCar may be a hair more willing to give a super-low count race a chance than Lemons, but not by much.  A 20 car field won't fly very long in either series.  The real difference is that ChumpCar has a much longer leash with 30 and 40 car fields, and won't really pack cars onto a track the way Lemons does at Sonoma.