2014 Z28 Assault Thread.

[Trackaholic]

Back in 2011, I was a corner marshal at the bottom of Andretti Straight at Mosport in Toronto when the Mustangs were pounding the GT competition, running first through sixth, except for one BMW running in third. I was dancing with giddiness every time the Mustang pack went by.

Suddenly the second place Mustang pulled over to the side of the track with apparent engine problems. No smoke, oil, water etc. Just pulled over and stopped. No big deal right. Still going to finish first through fifth, with one BMW in the mix. Then the fifth place car pulled over and parked behind the second. Oh!Oh! What's going on?

Shortly thereafter the race ended with two Mustangs on the podium, then the two parked Mustangs fired up and drove off to the pits. What??? What happened?

Since that was the last race of the day, I hurried into the pits as fast as possible and went looking for Dean Martin whom I had talked to earlier in the day. I wanted to know what happened. I was dumbfounded to learn that the Mustangs were facing another weight or restrictor penalty if they all finished one through five.

It seems like BMW, Porsche, or Camaro dominance is OK but Mustang dominance is not.

I never enjoyed another race after that and soon withdrew from marshaling and lost my interest in racing.

Interesting conundrum. As a team boss, do you race hard and accept the balancing attempts, or do you game the system and try to avoid the consequences of being "too" fast. Personally, I would fault the Ford theam in your example, rather than the series organizers.

They have a tough job trying to keep the cars roughly equivalent to promote good racing, and a team purposefully dropping out undermines that. Of course big money tends to override honorable sportsmanship in these cases, so you can't get too upset at the teams either, as they have real money on the line. The teams also have a duty to their sponsors, drivers, engineers, etc, so from that perspective they have a duty to game the system as far as rules allow. So with that in mind, how could you blame the teams after all?

Once you move away from a spec racing series, these issues arise and there usually isn't a simple solution.

-T

Sponsored

 

[thePill]

Why Zero? How does this work?
The Camaro is doing well, finishes 2nd overall, and the Mustang is restricted? How in the hell is this game being played?

Doesn't seem like a level playing field to me. Why would I want to watch it?

Okay, I know it seems unfair. It actually isn't John... The 5th Gen Camaro is the worst platform they could have selected for competitive racing. Look at the 5th Gen's GS record from the last 5 seasons. Only 6 wins total, maybe 10 podiums and a 2nd place finish overall last year. It has a BAD track record John, a really bad track record. The only other cars out there with less wins was the Challenger with 4 or 5 (out this year, it fits into the "Not a good choice" category with the Camaro.

Lets rewind back to the year in question, the year 2011...

As I mentioned before, Ford engineered the Boss right up to the GS class rulebook's threshold. Ultimately, it was because BMW had the M3 and it was killer. Ford pushed beyond that, some say the M3 was already too fast for the series. Regardless, fans no longer wanted to see Ford vs. BMW and, at the time, Porsche looked impotent against the two. The Boss hit the circuit hard, in it's very first race in 2010, during it's development year, the Boss finished 4th at Daytona. The very first Stevenson GS.R Camaro also raced that day, first race, development year... it finished 5th behind the Boss.

As you know, the Boss didn't stop there and it wasn't just Team Roush. Most of the Boss teams were cleaning house. Mid-season, 2011, the restrictions came hard... The #61 Roush Mustang was on track for a Championship... Then it came...

The initial restrictions were lifted from the Camaro. At the time, the 5th Gen had a severe issue with weight (No sh!t) and, teams had extreme difficulty getting the race weight down to the Camaro's 3300lbs class minimum. It was a huge issue... Here is a qoute from the old Mitchum Motorsports driver talking about the GS.R's weight and, how awful it is to deal with.

In the GRAND-AM CTSCC series there are only 2 options for competitors to use for shocks, Koni and AST. All of the Mitchum cars run the AST shocks, however springs are unrestricted and can be changed to any height and/or rate. Through testing the two different branded shocks are almost identical in speed but driver tuning was preferred on the AST shocks.

The Camaro's that compete in the GS class have to weigh 3300lbs after the race, this means no fuel and no driver weight added. With a fuel capacity of over 18 gallons and a driver that weighs roughly 170lbs, the cars can easily reach 3600lbs when racing.

As you can see above, the GS.R's actually wet race weight is 3600lbs, that was posted in 2012. It was brought to my attention that Riley started using Carbon Fiber doors and panels to get the GS.R down to 3350lbs. Still not as low as they wanted to go but, better than 3450lbs as some driver had complained about. It wasn't anyone's fault but Chevy's. They just could not remove any more weight from the 5th Gen Camaro. You can see below, the LS3 had to be updated as well... All these updates were to make a non-competitive piece of sh!t into something competitive. Except, it took 5 years to muster a 2nd place finish.

For the most part yes it is a 'stock' LS3. We are allowed forged pistons in replacement of the OEM units but they must be stock compression. Really there is no HP benefit here, just a more durable piece. We are also allowed to replace some other internal parts that are meant to deal with the higher temps and stress of racing but provide no real HP gains. All of our GRAND-AM engines are built by CRD in Charlotte and that is where all the Camaro teams have their's built as well. We even still have to use a completely stock intake with box and stock exhaust manifolds. They still make the Camaro run a restrictor in the Throttle Body as well.

The Camaro has a choice of two different transmissions for 2012. We have been running the last 2 years on the stock Tremec box that has been pulled apart and gone through to maximize efficiency, still maintains all stock gearing. We also have the option of a GM prototype transmission that is simply a taller 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gear but keeps the same 4th, 5th, and 6th of the stock Tremec unit. We tend to use the new trans on tracks that require very slow speed corners and need a taller gear, 2nd, to prevent wheel-spin exiting the slow corners.

Now, back to 2011. Mid-season, Chevrolet started threatening to pull support in GS.

Step #1: Whine and Cry
The Camaro was about to be pulled, even Buck tried to petition Camaro5 members to help "Save the Camaro". They were out of money, had no factory support and were left to sell T-Shirts to finish the season. So, in order to save some of the Camaro's face, ALL restrictions were removed. This lasted for 3 full races, you may remember the Camaro teams bitching about Roush stealing a win. They are talking about the 3 races the Camaro was suppose to win. Roush I guess stole the first win, the Camaro finished 2nd... The next two races, the Camaro finished 1st in both events. Which has never been done in Grand AM I believe. As I said, Roush was on their way to a Championship but, the HUGE restrictions actually started damaging engines. Even the defending Champions couldn't break the top 10 for 3 races. Turner, Flat-Line... They just disappeared into the ranks. Of course, BMW and Ford bitched... It didn't restrict the Camaro but, it alleviated some of the current restrictions that are still in place today. After the 3rd race with a Super Camaro, the Boss and M3 took off again and the Camaro wasn't heard from until the next season.

Step #2: Get your way

The Camaro GS.R needed to be unrestricted, rebuilt, upgraded and lightened to compete with the GS class competitors. The real shame is that Stevenson stuck with the GS.R, fought off the restrictions, finally got some weight reduction from Riley and then BAM!!!!

The LS7 GS.R comes out, now badged as the Z/28.R. Same car, different engine and more restrictions. Even with all this help the Camaro cannot keep up. It isn't the engine, its the car. They built a race car backwards, from the street version. The OEM car had all sorts of illegalities so everything was changed. To what affect though??? To accumulate more weight and stiffer restrictor plates? The LS7 uses a 90mm Throttle Body right? With an 80mm choke plate, that means its equivalent to a 10mm throttle body. If GM Performance could foresee this doom before hand, they have no business racing. It isn't that though... They knew, didn't care. They have a new useless car to market and your free thinking minds are in the way. They knew... but continued anyway.

It was stated that Team Camaro wanted you to look out on the track and say, they sell those, I can get one exactly like that. This is the intentional mis-marketing that upsets me... and they will keep marketing in this fashion until someone raises the BS flag.

The Boss was the Boss because it forced the competition and organizations to change the rules. Not just in Grand Am. The Boss 302S won 6 races in SCCA GTS and locked down the championship with 1 or 2 races left. NASA banned the Laguna Seca from Solo, Porsche was forced to spend millions in the US Motorsports scene to be competitive in 2013, The SCCA enforced strict rules on the Boss just as Grand Am...

It was the Boss, it had almost 25 wins in two classes in 3 seasons...

Stevenson won't come back from a 55th finish fella's... They would have to have a season better than Roush's 2011 and they still came within 8 points of the Championship after a crash in Daytona.

Stevenson was their only hope and they were forced into a marketing angle by Team Camaro.

 

[FATTBoss]

To emphasize Pill's point, if any of you can find a picture of the Camaro in a pack, it dwarfs the rest of the field. It is a HUGE car trying to compete with much lighter more nimble cars. I would think this season will be a Porsche vs BMW battle, next year the Mustang may be the car to beat, and then in '16 the new Camaro might be ready.

Only time will tell if GM learns from this current fiasco of a car and builds a car that will actually be competitive with the rest of the field.

 

[thePill]

To emphasize Pill's point, if any of you can find a picture of the Camaro in a pack, it dwarfs the rest of the field. It is a HUGE car trying to compete with much lighter more nimble cars. I would think this season will be a Porsche vs BMW battle, next year the Mustang may be the car to beat, and then in '16 the new Camaro might be ready.

Only time will tell if GM learns from this current fiasco of a car and builds a car that will actually be competitive with the rest of the field.

A good observation... To me, it looks like a Civic'd out, street squeegee. It helps having a smaller car, especially when you are trying to overtake. The wide nose having Camaro makes it difficult to get a fender in to pass. However, the Camaro's fat a$$ also makes a great road block...

 

[Norm Peterson]

The Boss wears a 57mm and the M3 has a 38mm x 2 restriction... The GS.R had ZERO restrictions, this is why the GS.R did so well last year (2nd Overall).

I must admit I'm having difficulty visualizing what these and the 80mm Camaro restrictors look like, if 80mm is worse than 57.

Sketch, anyone?


Norm

 

[Fenderaddict2]

Back in 2011, I was a corner marshal at the bottom of Andretti Straight at Mosport in Toronto when the Mustangs were pounding the GT competition, running first through sixth, except for one BMW running in third. I was dancing with giddiness every time the Mustang pack went by.

Suddenly the second place Mustang pulled over to the side of the track with apparent engine problems. No smoke, oil, water etc. Just pulled over and stopped. No big deal right. Still going to finish first through fifth, with one BMW in the mix. Then the fifth place car pulled over and parked behind the second. Oh!Oh! What's going on?

Shortly thereafter the race ended with two Mustangs on the podium, then the two parked Mustangs fired up and drove off to the pits. What??? What happened?

Since that was the last race of the day, I hurried into the pits as fast as possible and went looking for Dean Martin whom I had talked to earlier in the day. I wanted to know what happened. I was dumbfounded to learn that the Mustangs were facing another weight or restrictor penalty if they all finished one through five.

It seems like BMW, Porsche, or Camaro dominance is OK but Mustang dominance is not.

I never enjoyed another race after that and soon withdrew from marshaling and lost my interest in racing.

Glad to see I share space on this forum with another race Marshall. I worked Mosport in the 80's and 90's.

 

[JohnZiraldo]

Glad to see I share space on this forum with another race Marshall. I worked Mosport in the 80's and 90's.

My interest in racing started back in the 60s when I attended my first race at Mosport and saw scenes like this which started my lifelong love for Mustangs.

This is actually a vintage race from 2011. Back in the 60s though I captured a fabulous picture of identical Shelbys all alone between two and three with the pack blurred out in the background. Sure wish I still had that pic.

 

[JohnZiraldo]

Mr.Pill, Thanks again for all the info and opinions you bring to this forum.

I can sympathize with the difficulties that race organizers and teams must face now with keeping racing interesting and profitable. I think I am stuck in the past though when racing was far more about Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday. When the manufacturers were continually trying to beat each other with new motors and body styles in oval, track, and drag racing. 'Interesting' and 'profitable' were never the concern as I recall.

The 60s in particular was a fabulous time to be a car guy. I suspect I will never get over that era in racing.

 

[thePill]

I must admit I'm having difficulty visualizing what these and the 80mm Camaro restrictors look like, if 80mm is worse than 57.

Sketch, anyone?


Norm

I am looking Norm, they are really new so no pics yet. We may actually have to wait until a disgruntled driver post pics of one...

Here is the exhaust restrictors that were used along with the 57mm intake plate in the Boss 302 during the 3 races mid-season. These were finally approved to be removed in August 2011 (So I heard). Sad, but the Boss still won a race during that time with the 57mm plate and these still in place (Rev limiter as well). Note, these were the side exhaust restrictors... and I believe they were suppose to be in the OEM models, I need to confirm that though. (Edit: They were homologated into the OEM Boss)

Edit: This is what I think an 80mm restrictor passage could look like... Perhaps a bit larger.

Norm, I hope you can at least acknowledge my concern about the LS7 in Motorsport. Is this a very real issue now?

...or is thePill still crazy? If you have time Norm, I was wondering if you can deliver a truck load of Crow for me? I am still not allowed on the intended receiver(s) property.

TRIVIA: What Cartoon Are These Crows From and What Specific Event Occurred That Had the Crows Laughing?

 

[Stuntman]

The cage and pretty much the entire build of the Z28R by P&M is completely different than the Riley GSR. Its also the only car in the field with lexan windows, 6 piston calipers, race rear calipers, twin master cylinders that are not boosted, amongst other things. It was fast on the straights and the turns and should be fast this year.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I would have thought that the 80mm would have referred to the hole diameter, choking 90mm down to 80 which doesn't sound all that bad. Kind of like this 1-1/32" NASCAR plate for when they still ran carburetors (with 1-11/16" throttle bores, IIRC). Orifice plates in the business I used to work in also use hole diameter.

I can't imagine how poor the exhaust flow through those tiny holes in your picture of exhaust restrictors would be. Honestly, I didn't realize that anybody was restricting the exhaust side.


BTW, nice cartoon reference, even though elephant references are normally Mopar in nature . . . :lol:


Norm

 

[Grimace427]

I think the restrictors that thePill posted were of the Boss302's side pipes and have no impact on exhaust flow.

 

[thePill]

I had heard BMW's 38mm x 2 was a slightly larger airflow restriction than the Boss's 57mm.

I don't think a 10mm decrease will get the LS7 below the class minimum of 405hp...

Unless it's detuned as well... It's suppose to have OEM calibration right?

Unless they wavered the class minimum for the Z/28.

 

[smitty]

I am looking Norm, they are really new so no pics yet. We may actually have to wait until a disgruntled driver post pics of one...

Here is the exhaust restrictors that were used along with the 57mm intake plate in the Boss 302 during the 3 races mid-season. These were finally approved to be removed in August 2011 (So I heard). Sad, but the Boss still won a race during that time with the 57mm plate and these still in place (Rev limiter as well). Note, these were the side exhaust restrictors... and I believe they were suppose to be in the OEM models, I need to confirm that though. (Edit: They were homologated into the OEM Boss)

Edit: This is what I think an 80mm restrictor passage could look like... Perhaps a bit larger.

Norm, I hope you can at least acknowledge my concern about the LS7 in Motorsport. Is this a very real issue now?

...or is thePill still crazy? If you have time Norm, I was wondering if you can deliver a truck load of Crow for me? I am still not allowed on the intended receiver(s) property.

TRIVIA: What Cartoon Are These Crows From and What Specific Event Occurred That Had the Crows Laughing?

Dumbo. How appropriate... a flying elephant. "I seen a horse fly. I even seen a dragon fly..."

 

[Norm Peterson]

I had heard BMW's 38mm x 2 was a slightly larger airflow restriction than the Boss's 57mm.

Makes sense. Two holes @ 38mm is roughly equal in area to one hole @ 54mm.

I don't think a 10mm decrease will get the LS7 below the class minimum of 405hp...

I wouldn't think so either, and that's what prompted opening up this side topic in the first place.


Norm

Sponsored