Stockhatch Future

[flying flynn]

[QUOTE=Roundy Mooney]It's not easy to keep a stock hatch straight !!

Dont i know it!!!
God knows how many panels I put on my 205 in 2001-2.
Damage is inevitable. But still costs must be kept down. Its a fine line between continuous repairs to a mint condition , or just keeping the car tidy thru cleanliness or stickering.
Conor rolled the Mini yesterday. It has a graduated paint job [faded in like] there is no way we can put it back like that unless its bodyshop every time. So the bodyshop will make it straight blue and white with straight lines, then we will stock up on some blue & white vinyl, keep putting front stickers on every meeting, keep t-cutting and touching up the inevitable rub marks.
On the meetings we jetwash the car between each heat, squeegy the water off and leather off, polish windows and wheels and out for next heat. If youre gonna be on TV you might as well try to look good!
Pat

[PhilChicken]

The future of the sport lies with the entry level classes.

We need another class,where cars are built to stock hatch type rules, but allowed to run 16V.

Stock hatch 2000 as an example, but 1600 16Valve

[leonidas]

Why not just follow the successful example of the 750 motor club:

Entry level: Stock hatch - as now but with a class A and B to encourage more recently homologated machinery (106, saxo etc).

Progression level: Hot hatch - upto 2 litre, fairly free engine tuning, close ratio gearboxes, lsds etc

The performance of the hot hatch civics would be as good as some of the slower modifieds allowing people a logical ladder to step up to higher classes...

[sihorton]

I know stock hatch works well and the class is always growing, but i also feel that the class does needs to move with the times and introduce newer machinery onto the grid.

I would think that if you could impliment a 2 tier class with the standard current stocks and say 1.6 16v then people will naturally want to build faster / newer cars as time moves on.
Remeber a few years ago only horsley had a saxo, but now there is an abundance of saxos/ 106's out there doing very well, people just need to accept change slowly.
This way you are not saying that people with 205's etc can't race, but will allow them to move on when they are ready and they have the budget / ambition to build something new.

I'm not sure how many would build 1.6 16v's for the begining of next year if they did go that route, but i dare say there could get at least 8-10 cars ready by then which would get the class of the ground.

Si

[silver bullet]

If it was 1.8 16v. I would build one.

[MJ1]

1.6 16v would be an easy upgrade for me, but im hopefully going the modified route but thats even more confusing!

[sihorton]

And let me guess, i bet it would also have a blue oval badge on the front too dave