New spec prototype class - NASA / RUSH

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2019 2:51 pm
Has anyone looked into this? The car is cheaper than a new SRF3 and about the price of a good used one. They're running with NASA which means crowded tracks and very mixed fields. It's a shame they couldn't find a way to work with SCCA.

https://rushautoworks.com/raw-racing-series/
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 9:54 am
Interesting. NASA has tried to partner with manufacturers such as Elan and Superlite Cars to launch spec racer series the last few years. Those were targeted at higher performance with cars priced at $60,000 plus and didn't generate much traction. This new effort seems to be targeted right at the SRF community, down to the promise of the series having its own run group. It will be interesting to see how NASA works that into their race weekends. Also, the manufacturer is waiting to have 30 orders in hand before they start building cars. Going forward, it appears that they plan on building in batches of 30 as well. The manufacturer was founded in 2017.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 12:36 pm
If the pricing holds up (and I doubt that it will) you can have a ready-to-race car for $10-15,000 less than an SRF3. If Enterprises was smart, after confirming that this car actually has potential, they'd buy this guy out ASAP. This class makes much more sense in an SCCA weekend than NASA, and SCCA has a 500+ pool of drivers who would consider this a nice transition from SRF3.

Or, it could just be another Ariel Atom. ;-)
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:20 pm
Not sure of the attraction as another SCCA class. Suppose it could fit into DSR given the 1 liter engine size and 850 lb weight. Did my stint racing in NASA in the "outlawed" Sports Renault days. Not an experience I would repeat for a lot of reasons (with the exception of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill), mostly due to local management in those days and the safety side of their racing program.
Bob Breton - SRF 51 - San Francisco Region
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:22 pm
Sounds pretty “Radical” to me...
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 3:01 pm
These efforts to replicate SRF usually fail because they overthink the car. It's not about how good the car is. It needs to be good enough to allow for good racing with solid lap times. But it doesn't need to be a Radical.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 3:17 pm
breton wrote:Not sure of the attraction as another SCCA class. Suppose it could fit into DSR given the 1 liter engine size and 850 lb weight. Did my stint racing in NASA in the "outlawed" Sports Renault days. Not an experience I would repeat for a lot of reasons (with the exception of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill), mostly due to local management in those days and the safety side of their racing program.


The safety is still an issue with NASA even these days. Curious to see about this, cause the Elan NP01 cars I would think were a dismal failure for the objective they tried to achieve.

Speaking of SRF's has anyone looked into entering one in a WRL type event? I have been curious about maybe next year with the Gen 2 as it would be a fun car to race in the type of cars there and with their longevity and allow to run any tires I think we might be able to pull some interest from the endurance groups into our class. Thoughts anyone?
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 8:03 pm
I wonder what the engine is from? I guess it helps their pricing that they can use the machine shop from the owner's day job to make parts. Last I heard GRP tooling was quite expensive but maybe keeping the sections small fixes that? IIRC GRP is not really repairable so maybe they'll make their money from spares?
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 09, 2019 8:47 am
TrackBrat wrote:Speaking of SRF's has anyone looked into entering one in a WRL type event? I have been curious about maybe next year with the Gen 2 as it would be a fun car to race in the type of cars there and with their longevity and allow to run any tires I think we might be able to pull some interest from the endurance groups into our class. Thoughts anyone?


Hi Chris,
My memory is that WRL created a special run group for SRFs at one of their events at COTA a few years back. The SRFs qualified and raced within time slots that were downtime for their main event. My guess is that they would not want SRFs within their regular event due to safety concerns.

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 09, 2019 9:32 am
pmiranda wrote:I wonder what the engine is from? I guess it helps their pricing that they can use the machine shop from the owner's day job to make parts. Last I heard GRP tooling was quite expensive but maybe keeping the sections small fixes that? IIRC GRP is not really repairable so maybe they'll make their money from spares?


I think a few days with Mike Davies would do them a lot of good. It's a spec series, so why go with exotic materials? Make it fiberglass so it's 15 lbs. heavier but cheaper to run/repair. It's always the last 2% of performance that doubles the cost. Not necessary if everyone's in the same car. But I'm preaching to the choir here. :D
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