Historical NASCAR series??

[BarbecuePete]

Had a thought about running some kind of Historical NASCAR style series race, anyone be interested?

Cars

Pre '76 American Cars only

Specs (Initial thoughts, will probably need some tweaks)

S - Class - 900/950pi
(Chevelle / Charger could be included, Testing from Snyders Legends showed Chevelle struggles when HP restricted)
600bhp Limit
(This should force towards Full Slicks and Full WR)
Race paint / numbers etc...

Tracks (10 laps each for series)

MV Short
Sunset Infield Short
Motegi Ring
Sebring Short
Nissan Speedway

Any suggestions welcome, its just an idea at the mo...

[Hoplee]

If you try to group them by speed rating, the barracuda wins

If you try to group them by horsepower, the ZR-1 wins

I liked the muscle inc b class oval cars from the last challenge, the barracuda and challenger were running pretty close. The Chevelle and Charger would probably run away from the rest though.

I think the only way to insure parity would be to constantly tweak max PI allowable for each vehicle. If a car looks like it has an advantage, penalize him 5 or 10 points. That way you could tweak the Chevelle and Charger to 'play well with others', but it would require someone willing to really run a tight ship

[fndrbndr]

The issue with the charger isn't power, but rather aerodynamic capability.  It would absolutely kill on an oval.  I think we do these (if at all) as one-off events.  We pick one car from each major manufacturer (the game already kind of does this) and go from there.  I'm just sort of thinking out loud here, but let's see what happens:

Nascar is Ford, Chevy, Dodge, and Toyota, right?  Well, no Toyota for a historic event, obviously, so we'll stick to three.
Let's have the mustang, camaro SS, and Challenger (though the charger really was designed for oval racing IIRC, it would massacre these two, and I'm thinking the Z28 was a road racer homologation special).  We'll throw in the Pontiac GTO, as well.  I'm not really up on my NASCAR history, so any suggestions are welcomed.
hp limit of 600 sounds good, assuming that they'll fit.  
hp limit should be low enough to FORCE people to use full width slicks and WR, even if it isn't technically required.  (This was the effect of my 200hp limit on the tiny terror spec; the weight limit and tire requirements were sort of redundant.)

Tracks:  I'm all about some ring and some road racing, but I think Sunset infield is wrong for this; you can't go to Daytona for anything but the speedway in my mind.  I'm thinking the two speedways and the most Watkins Glen-esque track we can figure out.  I think Dirt mentioned Motegi East as a candidate recently?
Laps:  We need way more than ten.  We really want pit strategy to come into this, since that's the main thing that jumps out in oval racing (aside from the drafting, of course).  I'm thinking either 25 or 50 would be better, depending on track, but make it long enough that everyone has to pit at least once.

Just some thoughts.  Feel free to critique/criticize/flame/whatever.

[Hoplee]

http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/6/767024/ShowThread.aspx

Here's a link to the old "Ricky Bobby" Muscle-Inc Challenge.

[BarbecuePete]

I was initially thinking 25 laps but then with 5 tracks thought it may take too long, droping down to 3 tracks with the 2 ovals and a street course would work.... (If only you could select a different race length for each race of the series)

Had a quick look at the Watkins Glen track website as im not familiar with it and to me the short track looks a bit like the full Road Atlanta track, or possibly the long track is a bit like the full Motegi (apart from the lack of elevation change)

I'll try and run some testing of a few cars and see how they go (in between the hatchback challange here and the D-class Tsukuba Enduro / hot-lap challange im running in over at Exodus  )
Anyone feel free to build some cars to the specs as they are now and report back how they go..

EDIT

Try Max 900 pi with 600bhp to start..

Revised specs after some initial builds - Max 950pi , Max 600bhp

[BarbecuePete]

http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/6/767024/ShowThread.aspx

Here's a link to the old "Ricky Bobby" Muscle-Inc Challenge.

I knew I should have got an X-box sooner.... 

[fndrbndr]

That was actually the first challenge that made me aware of the muscle-inc. guys.  I just lurked, but it was good reading.

[Snyder005]

i'd definitely be interested in something like this.  The charger seems to have a weird lack of drag, that just gives it too much of an advantage, while the challenger has huge drag that gives it a disadvantage.  Why not use the 'Cuda as a substitute Dodge car?  It seems more balanced between the 2 dodge muscle cars. 

also when would you be thinking of hosting a race like this.

[Hoplee]

The Charger's advantage goes beyond aerodynamics, as it is not the most aerodynamic muscle car.

IMO, use spec builds for a max of 5 possible choices

OR

Force Buick Grand National, A Class, no restrictions

[DirtDriver]

Pete, when we did this we finally settled on a speed rating of 6.3 and excluded the Charger as it was way faster at that speed rating than the other cars.

In our online practice sessions it was pretty mundane...get out of the draft and you were all by yourself....the rating of 6.3 put all of the cars together in a pack.

DD

[BarbecuePete]

Had a quick build up of the Boss Stang, Camaro SS, Cuda and the Trans Am, 900Pi was too low so 950Pi will work better as the Pi cap, got all the cars to within 1-3 hp of 600bhp and the stats were fairly close...

I'll post up some more details later, but these 4 cars are all running the Motegi ring around 36 seconds with stock tunes.

Cuda and Camaro may need more power to stay competative, but more testing is required, they may be better on the road courses than the ovals...

Other thoughts included tire suppliers, Current thoughts are allowing a choice between Goodyears or Firestone
Goodyears have better grip but less life, Firestones have less grip but more life and I think this would mix things up even more over 25 laps as the goodyears would be strong early on but fade quickly where the firestones would be consistant over the race distance...


Also on a little side thought... I think it would make for more interesting racing (more mistakes) if TCS and STM were turned off... just a thought... I spent quite a lot of time going sideways, backwards and round in circles during testing.. lol

@Dirt, I like the speed rating idea, funnily enough the Trans Am and the Boss both end up with a 6.3 speed rating at the current specs..

@Snyder, Not sure when we'd run this, it was just an idea I had I thought i'd put out there... probably be on a weekend if anything, bit more testing needed first though... so it probably wouldn't be for a few weeks at least..

[fndrbndr]

I'm thinking this is a good project, but a big one.  Maybe we should start with a test mule, just to see how oval racing works with "only" eight cars involved (Nascar usually has around 40, I think?)

Toying around with the Car of Tomorrow, I'm thinking maybe an appropriately-equipped Charger (the new one, not the 1969 one) might be the easiest way to see how oval racing feels.  If you're game, I'll post up a spec car tomorrow (I'm at the office right now, xbox is at home), and by the weekend, I should have a little free time, possibly meaning I can finally race someone??  Anyone know where I can get some ideas for the Car of Tomorrow's specs?

Failing this, we could just all race U-class GT40's around the oval, since that's something that's a lot easier to put together and there's a really good free toon available over on the .net from Big Mooing Cow.  I dunno, just kicking ideas around.

I'm not worried about the road racing, but running a bunch of laps of an oval all alone could be more than a little boring, and there's no way you'll catch up without a draft.

[Drift2XL]

COT specs.

3400 lbs.
358 c.i.d. pushrod V-8
Around 800 HP (more likely 850 to 875, depends on track)
Restrictor Plate Tracks (Daytona/Talledega, like Nissan SPW) 400-450 HP
Forced aero/ body restrictions. (If your car is out of template, you don't race, and are fined)
Goodyear Racing Eagles (slicks)

If you got any more ?'s, I'll try to answer them.

[fndrbndr]

Hm....600hp is a nice middle ground, and we already know it works.  I'm surprised at that weight, though.  Maybe just too much time with Forza.  So we'd run the restrictor plates at the speedway, but not on the road courses or at motegi?  Or am I misunderstanding? 

Thanks for the help, btw.

[Drift2XL]

I wouldn't use the restrictors for any track. You just asked for specs Your idea I'm just giving RL info.

It could get fun with 450 at Nissan, but it would be boring if you lost the draft. You just never know. In the draft with the aero forced cars, slingshots everywhere.

But if I can flat foot a stock Z06 around there, it would be no problem with a DF equipped flying brick.

But it would get rather hard to get an 800 HP NA engine into it. I forgot if the new Charger had the BIG hemi swap or not. That would be the only choice.

3400 lbs. Now you know why the F1, IRL, and road racing guys have a hard time adjusting to the stock cars. And that's on a 12 inch wide tire with a rather tall sidewall also.