Homologated weights

[Peter Mallett]

As has been discussed elsewhere, I'm somewhat old school when it comes to my racing cars. My position is that the cars should race to homologated weights if they are in any kind of series or championship that purports to relate to an official set of regs such as Group 1 AppJ. However some people suggest that, that position is unfair to the larger driver (at a current 98kg I class myself in the large range).

Well maybe but what does adding the driver's weight to the car actually do?

First you have to take a mean weight which necessarily will be somewhere close to "large". Then you tell all the drivers large and small to build the cars to those weights including driver.

Result? The lighter drivers gain an immediate advantage because they have to ballast their cars to get up to that min weight. And they can place that ballast in the correct locations that will work to their advantage.

Us larger drivers are stuck with a car that is a) over weight and b) out of balance.

I do stand to be corrected, but perhaps Gerry Marshall could have helped us out here.

Discuss?

[Al Weyman]

Gerry wasnt that big I bet I have 4 stone on him, he was quite short when I met him!

CTCRC set the weight of a driver at 75kgs based on the weight of an average englishman and that weight was added to the original figures so the car now gets weighed with driver abooard which saves time and fuss however it was suggested at the AGM (by Ken C) that be increased to 85 as more realistic and I have no problem with that. I actually weigh in at around 125kgs in racing gear so could in theory get my car lighter by 50kgs less than say a similar car driven by a 75kgs driver. It could be argued I could distribute weight better but as I could never get that amount of weight out the car its academic.

With most historics being driven by older (fatter) drivers I think this makes sense.

[zefarelly]

ballast is ********

cars have weights

drivers are drivers

deal with it, Fangio did

I'd add at my height getting in and driving comfort is more of an issue, and at 13st 3 I'm no lightweight.

there's plenty of bloody fast drivers who are built for comfort

[Alan Morgan]

Delta and I always raise our eyebrows when combined weights are discussed - it has come up a number of times in Historic FF2000 (where the cars only weigh 440Kg)

I did a reasonably scientific study at the Oulton Park Gold Cup a few years ago, where we weighed all the cars after qualifying, both with and without the drivers, and compared the weights with lap times. I won't bore you with the details, but the quickest drivers were a very long way from being the lightest. If anyone's sad enough to want to see the results, I'll email them the relevant Excel spreadsheet.

We're racing historics - it really doesn't matter who wins in the overall scheme of things. If you really think that weight is that important, go on a sensible diet for six months, and compare your laptimes before and after.

I have a feeling they won't be very different...

[zefarelly]

socialising is as much a part as racing for some . . . .it doesn't seem to hinder competitiveness

I'm sure Simon H will give me a chinese burn next time I see him (and I'll happily extract the urine out of his 'guns n roses' tee-shirt while he does it ) but he's no featherweight teenage punk, and an FF still goes ok when he gets in one.

[terence]

Drivers can always go on a diet,the cars cant, which is the whole point of having something homologated at a particular weight.

[Peter Mallett]

Of course no matter what the weight, the driver is the worst thing you can put in a car. He/she moves around, can't be controlled and resets the balance of the car every time he/she turns the wheel!

[Jeremy Hall]

For homologated cars weights-rather than Formula weights-in period most cars weighed considerably more than their homologated weight and in fact then the roll cage was treated as an addition to the weight of the car. Its only now when preparers spend their time, and your money, fighting the cars down to the homologation weights that we get these issues.
Broadly speaking Manufacturers took the minimum permitted wieght for a car by cc-this was a formula published in appendix J- and used a figure close to this as the homologation weight when very often the car actually weighed a very considerable amount more as produced.
I seriously doubt whether there are many drivers in TC and GTS racing who would find the slightest time differnce by saving a few kilos.

[zefarelly]

weight must be one of the simplest checks there is, so not a difficult one to police

I agree with Jeremy, in my limited experience cars are all over weight unless ( very strictly speaking) illegally modified

[Al Weyman]

I'd add at my height getting in and driving comfort is more of an issue, and at 13st 3 I'm no lightweight.

Well try anothe 6 stone and see how you get on and why is it skinny guys always think its so easy to loose weight I bet all of you eat and drink more a week than I do I have dieted off and on since I was 17. My original proposal with the CTCRC would have effected no one but those with a genuine weight problem levelling the field a tad but it wasnt carried out as per my original brief which was either/or. I stand by that as a fair way of competing.