Marshall, You are right, we need to overcome the perceptions you listed. Maybe it's because I'm a mid-packer most of the time, but I would estimate my finish rate at 80%+. Cory
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Cory, The snapped belt may not be expensive in and of itself, but when the entire weekend is thrown away because it breaks in lap 2, the effective cost is the entire weekend, i.e., entry fee, hotel, tow gas, tires, etc. From my experience, my actual finish rate hovers around 50%, and I do a LOT of preventive maintenance, and have never hit another car, hit a wall, or otherwise created a driver-error DNF. Under any circumstances, I think you missed my point (or I just didn't get it across well). If you ask most people in the paddock what they think of F500, you will get several responses, and these are what limit our attractiveness to those who come into SCCA with no understanding of our class structures. 1) Unreliable 2) Noisy (almost as bad as RX-7s or FMs) 3) 'Not real race cars' or 'overgrown go-karts' 4) Just another formula class with 2 cars on the track To solve perception #4 by growing, we have to deal with perceptions 1 through 3. Also, if I may, has anyone thought about trying to get the word out by putting information in karting magazines? Putting ads into SCCA is talking to those who already know who we are, IMHO...... Marshall Mauney 2002 Red Devil In a message dated 7/23/2006 5:44:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: <<Marshall regarding reliability. If you run your engine stock/legal and replace the belts on a reasonable cycle, I beleive our cars are very reliable. The guys who got me into racing were IT drivers and they were also having to work on their cars all the time. A big difference was when they had a mechanical DNF, it was something much more expensvie than a $50 belt. I do agree that you can race a SS or IT and have long periods where you don't have to spend so much time between races on maintenance (like we do), but the guys that do that aren't winning national or ARRC races. In addition to spending $25k for an engine from Sunbelt, how much reliability do you give up when you tweak an SM to the point where it can win national races? I am not trying to flame Marshall, I just beleive that it is accrate to describe our class as very reliable.>>> _______________________________________________ F500 mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change options please visit: http://f500.org/mailman/listinfo/f500 *** Please, DO NOT send unsubscribe requests to the mailing list! *** --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Next-gen email? Have it all with the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. _______________________________________________ F500 mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change options please visit: http://f500.org/mailman/listinfo/f500 *** Please, DO NOT send unsubscribe requests to the mailing list! ***
