Vintage Sports '60-'75 car weights

[gordon]

At the last Vintage Sports '60-'75 event, I was surprised how much faster and snappier my Slot.It Ford GT40 was compared to both my Revell-Monogram Lola T70 with Slot.It HRS 2 chassis and my MRRC Chaparral 2 with Olifer 3D chassis. In acceleration and braking and even handling the GT40 was a substantially better performer. All three cars were completely legal for the class, but the latter two had no chance against the Ford.

I gave it some thought and realized that the GT40 was substantially lighter than the other two cars so I set out to check how much lighter. In fact I decided to check some of my other VS6075 cars for comparison and came up with the following information:



The columns are self-explanatory aside from the final column titled "77". This column shows how far off a weight of 77gm each car is. Why 77gm? Well I found the average of the lightest and heaviest cars and this came up to 77gm. So if I wanted to reduce the cars' performance differences by making them all weigh 77gm, I would have to add or remove each one's weight difference by the amount shown in this last column.

What do you think about this? Would you agree to a minimum weight of 77gm for our VS6075 class?

[steveaca]

I need to think about this one a bit Gordon. Will let you know.

[gordon]

In VS6075 we've set up rules that try to allow any car from any manufacturer to have a competitive chance, but I've come to realize that we have left out an important component in not considering the weight of the cars. Imagine racing a Slot.It Challenge car in its class where it is up to 20gm (nearly 33%) heavier than everyone else's. That's like racing a real car that weighs 3000 lbs against cars weighing 2000 lbs. Doesn't sound right, does it?

[steveaca]

Hi Gordon,
I agree that weight plays a big role in car performance but in our racing, so does magnetic downforce. I think that in classes where the Upside Down Rule is applicable, heavier car weight enables the use of more magnetic downforce, in a way compensating for the additional weight. My feeling is that we should leave the rules 'as is' .

[RameshB]

Hi , Gordon your calculations were good and i am in agreement that a minimum weight is the way to go . thanks.

[obrie]

As My Father in Law, AHSF would say " Suck it and see" in other words if we try it and it works for us , we keep it. If we don't like it, we chuck it!
We could do an experiment with the GT40 and see what reduction in performance we get and determine if it is worth the hassle.
I do agree that we do not want a class that one particular car becomes the only competitive car and crapo smoke yu pipe if you don't own one!

my 10 cents