Time Trials Rules and 2025 Leaderboard

I have it in the back of my mind to host a time trial competition for front-wheel drive cars. Only. I’d call it FF/TT, and hold the race at the most challenging track for FWD cars, Pineview Run.

What makes it so challenging is something I debate with my brother. Partly it’s the uphill esses, which take the weight off the front, where you need traction for acceleration and turning. Partly it’s the long slow corners, which show up in the data as lower lateral Gs. And partly it’s I don’t know why; it’s just so goddamn slow in a FWD car.

As an example, on the original track, I drove a Mini Cooper R50 on 205 RE71R tires and struggled to get a 1:22 lap. In a Miata with the same power to weight ratio, and on similar tires, I could do a 1:18 all day long. Similarly, in my Veloster on V730 tires I can do a 1:16 on V730 tires, but a RWD car of the same specs would be doing 1:13 easy.

Now these examples are from Pineview’s original track, and the new track extension should balance the scales a little bit, being faster and longer. But it will still be more difficult for FWD cars, and that’s what makes Pineview a great place for a FWD TT.

I was thinking about how to class the cars and came up with two obvious ones right away:

• B-Spec, Sundae Cup – These cars are close enough in spec that I’d lump them together and have them on similar tires.
• Unlimited – The fastest FWD car must emerge as the overall winner.

There’s a chasm of performance between Sundae Cup and Unlimited, and so there should be a few classes in the middle. To determine where to divide the classes, I ran hundreds of computer simulations in OptimumLap, using Pineview’s long track. I used cars that ranged from 10:1 to 20:1 lb/hp, and choose tires of various grip levels and different aero parts. From this mound of data, I sorted all of the cars into classes separated by 2.5 seconds each.

I also tried sorting cars into classes based on 1.5 and 2 seconds, and while this would bring more parity within each class, it increases the number of classes from an easily manageable four classes, to five or six. That’s nothing compared to the thirty-something classes in SCCA autocross, but I’d like to keep things much more manageable.

In the simulations, mechanical grip was the most important factor by a long shot, and so the classing system is largely based on tires and things that affect grip. Because Pineview is a low-speed track, there are diminishing returns to adding more power. In fact, after about 10 lbs/hp, lap times didn’t change much at all. Likewise, because of the slow corner speeds, aerodynamic downforce doesn’t come into play much.

OptimumLap doesn’t discern between FWD and RWD, and so my classing system is generic to all cars. However, most racing series recognize that FWD cars are at a disadvantage, and give them a slight performance boost. For example, NASA TT gives a +1 bump to lbs/hp for FWD cars (or + .5 lbs/hp if it’s a factory built race car). I’ll do something similar for FWD cars, but I’ll modify grip rather than power, because that’s actually where the discrepancy lies.

Time trial classing

To class your car in my system, do the following:

• Log the weight of your car, with fuel and driver, ready to race.
• Add together your car’s maximum hp and torque and divide by two. These figures are assumed to be measured at the wheels on a Dynojet. (Using both hp and torque should put both peaky and flat-tuned engines on more equal footing.)
• Divide weight by power, and save this as your Lbs/Power figure. (Which I may call lbs/hp for convention, but it always means an average of hp and torque.)
• Now find your tire’s Time trial pace on GRM’s Ultimate track tire guide.

With these values, you can now find your class in the following lookup table.

Modifications to classing

There are several modifiers to the class, which move your car left or right one more columns. I may come up with more modifiers, but I’d also like to keep things simple.

• Tire width – For most cars, tire width falls into a standard range that’s 11-13 times the weight of the car. So a car that weighs 3025 lbs will have a tire in the 235- to 275-width range. If your car weighs more than 13x tire width, your car has skinny tires and moves left one column; If your car weighs less than 11x tire width, your car has wide tires and moves right one column.
• Suspension – Coilovers allow more camber and the ability to corner weight, and so they move the car one cell to the right. If you have multi-adjustable coilovers, move two columns to the right. RWD cars with a solid rear axle move one column to the left.
• Aero – Cars with aero move one or more columns to the right, depending on how much aero. But know that aero doesn’t help that much at PV.
• Drivetrain – FWD cars move one cell to the left. I feel like they deserve more help than this at Pineview, but let’s start here.

You may notice that the table doesn’t include cars that are slower than 20 lbs/hp. If your car is that slow, get it to 25 lbs/hp and race in Sundae Cup. Likewise the table doesn’t include anything more powerful than 10 lbs/hp, because at this track, there are diminishing returns at higher power, so just use 10 lbs/hp if your car has more than that.

Classing examples

Here are some cars and which classes they’d fit into on different tires.

• Corvette, 10 lbs/hp – Class C3 on a RT615K+, C2 on Kumho V730, and C1 on a RE71RS. (Most Corvettes have better than 10:1 lbs/hp, but this is the maximum for the chart.)
• Civic Type R 11 lbs/hp – Moves one column to the left for FWD. Class C4 on RS4 C3 on V730, C2 on A052, and C1 on Hoosiers.
• My Hyundai Veloster N, 13 lbs/hp – It’s FWD and has skinny tires for its weight, and so it moves two columns to the left. But I have front and rear aero, so it moves two to the right. In the end, it stays where it is. Class C4 on RT615K+, C3 on ECF, C2 on RE71RS, and C1 on Hoosiers.
• ND Miata, 15 lbs/hp – Class C3 on V730s, C2 using CR-S V2, and C1 on Hoosier R7s.
• Mini R56 JCW 16 lbs/hp – FWD so it moves one to the left. Class C4 on AD09, C3 on RC1, C2 on Hoosiers.
• Typical Track Miata, 18 lbs/hp- Most of these have front and rear aero, wide tires, and coilovers, and so they move four columns to the right. Class C3 on RS4s, C2 on RE71RS, and C1 on SM7.5.

FF/TT or a Pineview leaderboard?

A front-wheel drive only time trial sounds like a fun event, especially at this very challenging track. I envision this as a Saturday race, with optional practice on Friday, and an optional HPDE on Sunday. (Optional days because it’s unlikely the track could be reserved for a full weekend event; Pineview is a private member club, and they have the first rights to drive.)

If this idea interests you, let me know, because it will take some momentum (and convincing Pineview’s owner) to make this happen.

But even if FF/TT doesn’t happen this year, I think this classing system works great for a leaderboard. Show up at the track whenever you want, set a lap time on any 10hz GPS device (Aim Solo, Garmin Catalyst, phone app with 10hz antenna, etc), send me the lap time and your class, and I’ll add it to the online leaderboard.

On the leaderboard I’d keep track of eight classes:

1. Sundae Cup – For B-spec and FWD Sundae cup cars on RA1 or RT660 or RT651 tires only (no z214, Toyo RR, etc).
2. C4 – Per the classing chart. RWD Sundae cup cars go here.
3. C3 – Per the classing chart.
4. C2 – Per the classing chart.
5. C1 / Unlimited – C1 is essentially an unlimited class, this would be for any drivetrain.
6. C1 / Unlimited FWD – I’d keep track of the fastest FWD separately.
7. A/S Open – 500 TW, no restrictions.
8. A/S FWD – 500 TW front-wheel drive, no restrictions.

You might question the 500TW categories, but there are quite a few Pineview members that regularly track their car on 500+ treadwear tires. Dennis, Ed, myself, and even Pineview owner Todd Milton regularly choose to drive on all-seasons. Not only are all-season tires a lot more economical, they are the great equalizer between cars, and quite a bit of fun.

I’ve tried to convince Todd that he should hold the first and last race of the year on all-season tires, but that hasn’t gotten any traction with him yet (chortle). I’d make it a point-to-point race with autocross timing lights rather than transponders, and bring the track rats and cone dodgers together to see who’s the fastest on the worst tires. That would be a great way to kick off the season in March and put it to bed in November.