Pro10 has been around since the early to mid-1980’s where it was an extremely popular class. Like Touring Cars today, there were many flavours of Pro10, spanning the capabilities, and pocketbooks, of every racer. In North America, Pro10 died a slow death in the mid-90’s when most of the beginning and average racers gave up, as the speeds were beginning to get out of hand, they became costly and even dangerous.
Pro10 continues to grow in Europe and is still an incredibly popular class. They have one major advantage over us here in North America; they have some really REALLY nice 1/8th scale tracks they can run on and really let them see their true potential.
We are not so lucky...
This year in Pro10, in my opinion, we are starting to see some cracks in our formula. Our numbers were not down, at least not uniquely, all classes have shown signs of weakness, due in part to the economy, but mostly due to a lot of our, shall we say, middle-aged group of racers buying houses, fixing houses, getting married, getting un-married, all of which have taken their toll on the week to week numbers. Pro10 held it’s own in terms of numbers, but we started to see a pretty healthy gap from the top of the leader board on down, almost like we were running two classes.
Thats not good...
Trying to analyze why this is happening, you can pinpoint a few factors:
Technology, Money, and Skill level
Technology:
This year was the year of the programmable speed control and all it’s intricacies. We embraced LiPos and Brushless the year before but this year was all about getting the most out of the little black boxes. There were more Laptops than tire truers in the pits this year!
Money:
Pro10 was a secondary or even tertiary class for most drivers this year and as such funds needed to be allocated to two or more classes. Me, I could throw all the money I wanted into it, and quite frankly it showed...I had nothing exotic, but I did have a brand new car and enough tires to run a different set every run, including practice time and that in-itself is a contributing factor to a successful, and believe it or not, economical season...and I’ll explain that part to anyone who wants to hear it, just not here and now
Skill Level:
Like any other class, and in any other sport for that matter, you cannot replace good old practice, practice, practice, when it comes to getting better. That being said, when you’re dealing with a rear wheel drive car, a ballistically fast motor, high downforce bodies, and a smallish sized track, you have a formula for disaster. The difference between the fastest and slowest cars on any given race day was as much as 5 laps in a 5 minute race. Quite frankly, thats no fun for anyone. Those of us that have had the years of track time have developed a decent respect for the speed whereas some of our newer drivers have not yet had enough time to really get a feel for and understanding of what it takes to keep these things running fast and consistent. I have done everything possible for as many guys as I can this year to get their cars handling reasonably well but teaching someone how to drive is simply not easy to do.
So all that being said I would like to propose some major changes to this class which will hopefully help it to grow, bring the costs down, and promote better competition throughout the field.
Enter World GT.
When this class was first introduced a few years ago I was the first to call it a lame duck. “Lets slow them down, put big GT bodies on them, run one tire compound and narrow them up.” Wee....
Now, 4 years later and seeing first hand what happens when you let things get a little out of hand I’m starting to see the light...
All these factors make perfect sense if the goal is to have a highly competitive, economical class which promotes good driving, not deep pockets, and I think thats all that a racer is looking for really...
On to the proposed specifications as per ROAR:
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Length: 560mm
Width: 205mm
Minimum Height: 104mm
Weight: 930gm
Rear Wing: Chord Width: 45mm Min, 200mm Max
Rear Wing Side Dam: Length:45mm, Height: 20mm
Tire type:
Foam only
World GT shall use the World GT control tires for Level 3, 4, and 5 events.
Battery Cells:
World GT Pro: 2s, 7.4v nominal lipo battery
World GT Standard: 1s, 3.7v nominal lipo battery
Transmission: Single speed only
Rear suspension and drive:
Single, one-piece drive axle only
No independent suspension allowed
Body style:
Can-Am/GTP/WSC, GT/GT-1/Trans-Am or World GT
World GT body rules:
Bodies must be based on production front engine - rear drive autos
Body must be a replica of an original, 2 door sports/gt production car or based on
a full sized auto which has been raced in a major series (Speed World Challenge,
FIA GT Championship, ALMS GT1 + GT2, Japanese GT Championship, etc.)
Bodies must be of a model year no older than 10 years prior to the year of
submittal.
Bodies deemed unrealistic or out of scale will not be approved. The burden of
proof lies with the manufacturer to provide documentation for submitted bodies.
Acceptable documentation for proof of scale realism shall be pictures of original
1:1 car from the top, front, rear and sides and or manufacturers dimensional data
for production vehicle
Overall roof height shall be measured with the car ready too run.
The rear of the body must be trimmed no more than 40mm higher than the ground
level with the body mounted.
Minimum dimension, center base of body windshield to intersection of hood and
front grill 135mm
Minimum body width at the base of the windshield 145mm
Maximum body width: 205mm
Minimum body material thickness .030” to be measured by a cut out in the upper
rear or front windshield
World GT wing rules:
Wing must be fastened to the rear deck of body
Rear Wing may not be higher than roof height
Wheel arch cut-outs: Maximum 0.375” over tire diameter
Ground clearance
Minimum 4 mm under all parts of the vehicle excluding the spur gear.
Roll Over antennas are not allowed
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Now those are the ROAR rules and we can align ourselves completely or we can make changes for our club races. If we wanted to take part in a sanctioned race those are the rules we’d need to abide by.
Personally, I’d like to see us run the new World GT with full rules compliance on chassis and bodies but continue to run 10.5, with 1 cell or 2 cell, with the control tire, which means, there is ONE compound of tire only, so no one can run anything but that one compound of tire. There are I believe, 4 different manufacturers for these controlled tires but all will yield the same traction. If and when we wanted to run these cars indoor, we would run the 13.5 motor recommended.
OK, enough blather from me, this should be an interesting discussion and one we have plenty of time to discuss before the Spring!
Lets try and keep this discussion to IROCC club members only please!
