Eric - Excellent post!!! We must remain focused on how to make F500 "as it
is" more popular or we might stand a chance of losing our "most bang for the
buck" status. I too am a regular reader of Apex Speed.com and followed the
F1000 right from its' original concept. When I saw Lee Stohr first say he
wasnt interested in building a F1000 car only to change his mind and to make
preparations to build and sell one my first thought was there goes the low
buck concept.
Ed Capullo
From: Eric D Christensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [F500] Editorial: How did F1000 go wrong?
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:13:27 -0700
Every once in awhile I have to exercise my right as the host of f500.org
to stand on a soapbox and editorialize. And yes... I know I'm opening
myself up for flames by doing so! Bring it on!
This isn't strictly F500, but I think it is F500 related in a way. What
has happened to F1000 in the course of being adopted by SCCA is a great
example of how good ideas and intentions can get derailed.
Formula 1000 was originally conceived as being a (reasonably) low cost,
grass roots class. The intent was to get some older, no longer
competitive FC cars out of the garage and back on the track and to do so
inexpensively. Flat bottom car with a factory stock 1000cc bike motor,
chain driven, and no go-fast / spend-faster trick parts.
Sound like a familiar theme?
The original spec was for a simple flat bottom wings & slicks car with a
factory stock 1000cc bike motor and a chain drive. The first F1000 cars
built were just that - older FC chassis like 80s era DB-3s with a
wrecking yard bike motor. All told you could buy a chassis, put a motor
in it and even with fabrication costs have a F1000 track ready for about
$20K. Not bad for something that turns close to FA times, right? I'm not
ashamed to say, I was intrigued enough to start looking into it very
seriously.
Then the fun began. Once SCCA started showing interest in sanctioning
F1000 things started to change. I'm not going to go into all the details
of what happened, how it happened or who's to blame. Heck, I don't know
all of the details and it's be more speculation than fact anyway. But
somewhere along the line F1000 morphed from a grass roots, low cost,
home-builder friendly class to being another big bucks class.
Original concept: Retrofit existing older FC chassis and provide a place
for them to be competitive again.
As adopted by SCCA: New, purpose built F1000 chassis are the norm.
Several manufacturers have either released or will release for 2007 at
around $40K. Now that's a big jump from doing $2000 of fabrication on a
$10K chassis.
Original Concept: Factory stock 1000cc bike motors with no modifications
allowed.
As adopted by SCCA: Stock bore, stroke and displacement - than means
BUILT engines with aftermarket parts, blueprinted and balanced. And of
course all the care and feeding that goes along with a built up motor.
Basically you are looking at DSR engines - they start about $8000 and go
up from there. That $1500 junkyard engine is going to need $5000+ of
work to make it competitive.
The net result - The $20K F1000 concept has become a $50K car. Yeah, you
can still build one for $20 and run around in the back of the pack, but
you won't be competitive. Kinda like running a Kawasaki in F500.
No conspiracy theories here... but I find it interesting that by the
time SCCA adopted the F1000 concept, it's costs has skyrocketed to the
point that Enterprises' FSCCA cars are a lot more cost effective.
Anyway, the point being that the best intentions don't always come to
fruition. Keep that in mind when talking about fundamentally changing
the F500 concept by adding coil-over shocks, bike engines, etc. While
some changes are going to have to happen over time to keep F500 a viable
class, we must remain VERY vigilant that the concept of F500 is a grass
roots, home-builder friendly, low cost formula car.
I guess I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that there *may* be an
opportunity to revise F500 to fill the void left by the hijacking of
F1000. There still is considerable interest in a low cost bike engine
formula car. If there is a way that a bike engine could be added to the
existing F500 spec as an additional configuration, it could be a very
good thing for the long term health of the class. On the other hand...
if done wrong, it could obsolete the 2 stroke / CVT combination and
current chassis and raise the cost of the class dramatically (ala
F1000). We must remain vigilant...
-----
Eric D Christensen
Proadmin, Inc.
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