SCCA Trans-Am Series

[jjvincent]

It's to make those few left that are running an old Jag, 2009 Mustang and 2004 C5 Corvette to finally re-skin their car. What that does mean is that most of the C6's will be gone by 2018.

The problem has been that when you go through all of the work to get the body done, then your team and one other buys it, you just give up and don't want to do anything new unless the sanctioning body forces everyone to do it.

Only reason why they haven't enforced it is because they don't have enough cars and forcing a rule upon just a handful of guys will just make them stay home and continue to run the local SCCA GT1 races just limits the field too much.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally Posted by MagVanisher

But that 500 HP alone can be comparable with Super GT/DTM cars, so long as the TA2 class will have manufacturer support and modern chassis tub.

Then again, I guess you're right that the current Trans-Am Series is a club series.

Each make uses its own engine but only from approved engine builders.

[jjvincent]

Actually, Trans Am is no more of a club series than PWC. The only real difference is that Trans-Am does not have Am classes or driver rankings and they hand out 4 championships instead of 14* as in PWC for 2017. In addition to that, Trans-Am gets to run at the tracks like Daytona, Sebring, Indy, Road Atlanta, Detroit and Watkins Glen. TA runs a bunch of events with historics, so if you like old sportscars, then you'd be happy. TA 1 is faster in a straight line over a GT3 car but has less aero, no ABS or TC. Both run spec tires. TA gets about half the entries as opposed to when PWC runs all of the classes. Both are on TV and can be watched online. Both pay horrible prize money. Both draw from the geographical area for the one off's. Both are funded by rich older white guys.

If you have a GT3 Cup or T1 car, they throw you in TA3. Have a GTS American car, it goes in TA4. My guess is that they will throw all GTS PWC cars into TA4 and just forget TA5.

It's just that both series are doing the same thing just a bit different.

*Provisional number of championships

[nasportscar]

Is it a problem that PWC has championships for each class?

[schmidder]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

13 rounds? Seems unnecessarily long for what is essentially an amateur series. But more power to them if they can pull it off, I guess!

I realize the cost, but would be great to see a west coast date..laguna or sonoma. Just a selfish thought here, that's all!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

[Rcz]

I kinda wish they just trim it down to 3 classes instead of 4 or 5.

TA1- Souped up cars with Supercharged engines with some dimensions of the road car kept.
TA2 Same as now.
TA3- GTS and GT4 4seater cars

And keep doing the weekend as before, TA1 and TA3 on one day and TA2 on the other.

I do think Trans-Am can make a mini comback if they get a good Tv deal on a real channel. It doesn't have very many moving parts so it's concept is quite simple for a causal race fan to get into it.

[nasportscar]

Originally Posted by Rcz

I do think Trans-Am can make a mini comback if they get a good Tv deal on a real channel. It doesn't have very many moving parts so it's concept is quite simple for a causal race fan to get into it.

Just free live streaming would be a good start

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by schmidder

I realize the cost, but would be great to see a west coast date..laguna or sonoma. Just a selfish thought here, that's all!

That's a strong wish from some of the (potential) competitors as well and I really thought with Tony Parella of SVRA taking a major share in the series we would see at least 1 west coast date next year. Not sure why it didn't happen but it certainly comes across as a lost opportunity to have more West coast folks committing to the series (for now). Maybe in 2018??

On a more positive, sideline note [and for all you club racing fans out there!]: the VIR round won't conflict with next year's SCCA Runoffs @ Indy so one can expect more SCCA GT1/2 (TA/TA2) and T1/2 (TA3/4/5) cars to be entered!

[jjvincent]

Originally Posted by nasportscar

Is it a problem that PWC has championships for each class?

Not at all, it's that having 14 of them is getting a bit excessive. Here's why. The more classes you make, it just adds more slices in the pie. So, for 2016 you have 9 championships and 2017 it could go to 14. I'm not sure if GTPro for Sprint X will actually be a champion for 2016). For guys going for the championship in each class, you have these approximate numbers:
GT: 13
GTA: 3
GTC: 3
GTS: 10
TC: 10
TCA: 8
TCB: 5
GTPro: 2
GTAm: 5
GTS: 5 (I think some of those are co drivers)

In Trans-Am:
TA: 10
TA2:10
TA3: 1
TA4: 1

As you can see, the competition in TA and TA2 is much better than TA3 or TA4. So winning a championship in those two latter classes doesn't mean much at all. As for the other two, more of a challenge. As someone pointed out, TA3 and TA4 should just be combined. For PWC, GT, GTS, TC, TCA actually require some work to win those championships. As for the rest, not so much. With adding 4-5 more championships for 2017, one would think that would bring more cars (it will) but the number in each class ends up going down, thus each championships becomes easier to win.

Just to give you an example on car count for a class and where'd you finish in the championship by just doing a start and park program, I figured it out for the GS class. This is just starting a car and running the minimum drive time to get points, then park the car and not finish. In IMSA it's 45 minutes.
2014: 41st and $0 prize money
2015: 13th and $6,000 in prize money
2016: 5th and $20,500 in prize money (Even though the last race has not run, I'm locked into 5th and could technically get 4th if the #76 car breaks down before the 45 minute mark)

Since TA has decided to not keep adding championships and PWC is, I'd have to commend the powers at TA for sticking to something that makes drivers and teams work harder. Combining TA3 and TA4, would be a benefit as those classes right now are pretty much field fillers.

So, the real problem for PWC will be the awards banquet. They will have 14 drivers championships to hand out (actually 18 driver championship trophies). If you hand out trophies to the top 3 in each class, then there are 54 to give out. 14 team (count the top 3, that's 42). Then there will be 14 rookie of the year. You know you have 110 trophies to distribute for the night. For TA, it'll be 4 championships, 12 trophies (counting the top 3) and 4 rookie of the year. A total of 16 trophies. In case you are wondering, the Runoffs handed out 84 medals and probably another 5-6 individual driver awards.

If you are of the mindset of everyone gets a trophy, then you'll love adding more classes. If not, then you want less. I grew up with the less classes and more cars in each class. I guess I'm showing my age because the trend is to hand out trophies like Halloween candy.

[nasportscar]

I'm fine w/ adding classes, IF they can back it up with entries, but there's probably some room for reducing classes in both series. I'm still not completely sold on GT Cup in PWC for example and would be totally fine w/ TA3, TA4 and TA5 being combined.

If those classes can justify it, I also support running them solo and not having multiple class racing. Just GT3 cars would be great for PWC GT, just GT4 is great for PWC GTS and just TA2 is awesome in Trans Am

[jjvincent]

Before most were probably born or even cared about SCCA WC, they only had two then three classes for a long time. With the class structure today, Sprint X, non, SprintX and the Pro-Am thing, it's literally just made the classes grow at a rate not consistent with the car count.

Again, it's just lowering the bar to win a championship and too many people get trophies for just picking the right class where they can just participate and get one. I do know some would rather just hope that adding classes will just make them all with plenty of full season drivers but history says different.

Remember, the only reason for all of these different classes is so the sanctioning body can get more entries. That's their main income. It has nothing to do with the on track product for the spectator to enjoy. If they luck out with class that's popular, then they count their lucky stars. The overwhelming attitude today is to make sure you can please everyone because of the amount of money they are spending. Not the hard work they have to put in.

[nasportscar]

Going through press releases last night made me realize how many championships IMSA has as well, especially w/ NAEC. That's a crazy number too

[nasportscar]

2017 West Coast Championship announced http://nasportscar.com/trans-am-anno...ship-for-2017/

[Rcz]

Heh like clockwork.

Never heard of Spring Mountain. Cool Portland get a race though.

[jjvincent]

Originally Posted by nasportscar

Going through press releases last night made me realize how many championships IMSA has as well, especially w/ NAEC. That's a crazy number too

I don't think they have nearly as many.

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by Rcz

Never heard of Spring Mountain.

Nor had I. Nevada "car country club" track in the sands an hour outside of Vegas....

I won't begin to speculate on which course they'll use:
https://www.springmountainmotorsport...ity/race-track

I like their reference to Road Atlanta T1 being one in the group of "most famous" corners.



Looks like a neat place!

Cool Portland get a race though.

PIR deserves a big series, no offense here to TA

[Coach Ep]

Looks like a Tilke drome - Bahrain comes to mind.

Anyway, good to see TA going West - especially PIR.

However, combining with PWC at Laguna made to much sense I guess...

[nasportscar]

I'm not sure we'll TA and PWC together anytime soon..Laguna Seca won't happen in the near future especially w/ the Blancpain stuff happening there w/ PWC

[jjvincent]

Hopefully they run the full 6.1 mile full course.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally Posted by jjvincent

Hopefully they run the full 6.1 mile full course.

Looks too much like a giant go-kart course.
Stewart course looks like a decent high speed one.

[TheMightyM]

TransAm suspends Tomy Drissi again (bottom of story):

Due to Tomy Drissi’s actions in Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli competition at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 17, 2017 (sic), the Trans Am Series, by ruling of Chief Steward Wally Dallenbach, Jr., has excluded Tomy Drissi from the day’s competition and all remaining Trans Am Series competition for 2017. “After today’s race, Tomy Drissi got into an altercation with another team which became physical,” stated Dallenbach.

“Tomy had been suspended from the series before I got here on some other issues. He asked if he could come back to the series and did mend fences with a lot of people, but I was pretty clear with him at the first event that even though he was not under probation but he was under a high level of observation. Basically, he was under probation with me and needed to keep his nose clean. There was a situation at Road Atlanta with a corner worker that could have been a lot worse than it was, and today Tomy had a physical altercation.”

“You can talk trash and smack to each other as much as you want, but as soon as you lay a hand on somebody else, that becomes a completely different issue. Due to Tomy’s actions he has been suspended for the event and suspended for the remainder of the 2017 series.”

[schmidder]

Andy Lally had some not so kind words about drissi's driving at Detroit in the imsa race too..dude seems to cause trouble everywhere..

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[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by TheMightyM

There was a situation at Road Atlanta with a corner worker that could have been a lot worse than it was ...

I had to dig into that one a bit, this is from http://gotransam.com/news/Tomy-s-Day...Atlanta/66643:

With less than 12 laps remaining in round three of the TransAm Series Presented by Pirelli, running in 5th position, Tomy Drissi’s No.8 Ave prepared Corvette took a hit in the rear shoving Tomy off track.. With his car in the gravel and off to the side, Tomy’s day at the legendary Road Atlanta track was over.

...

“I especially want to thank the corner and safety workers between turns 6 and 7,” noted Tomy. “Those guys were all over me the minute I came to a stop. They got me out of there in no time… but it was obvious we were out of time. Anyway, I really appreciate those guys and all the safety crews for their hard work. We couldn’t do what we do if they weren’t out there looking after us.”

I can only guess Tommy wasn't as grateful to the workers right after his car got beached in the gravel, any of the RA die-hards saw or heard anything about this? (this was back in May)

[rich07]

Again with Tommy Drissi?

When will he learn? That guy needs a long ban instead of being let back into the category

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

I had to dig into that one a bit, this is from http://gotransam.com/news/Tomy-s-Day...Atlanta/66643:



I can only guess Tommy wasn't as grateful to the workers right after his car got beached in the gravel, any of the RA die-hards saw or heard anything about this? (this was back in May)

No, I wasn't there but I believe the back side of the track is closed to spectators during Gridlife.