Spec Racecar Challenge - [DONE]

This is kind of a WW spin off. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Spec Racecar Challenge


Brief:

A regional motorsport federation is looking to host a new series for spec racecars. They’re looking for a car that will be popular with both spectators and drivers, as well as reasonably affordable for the teams.


Performance Targets:

The car should have performance within these margins. These are not mandatory, but failing to meet these might give you penalties.

  • Airfield Laptime: 1:05.0 - 1:25.0
  • 0-100km/h time: 2.8s - 6.5s
  • Top Speed: 220km/h - 300km/h
  • Cornering Gs: 0.80G - 1.75G

Rules:

Trim:

  • Model year: Free, Trim year: 2020
  • Rim diameter: 18 inches maximum
  • Tyre profile: Minimum 30
  • All radial tyres allowed. Only hard slicks allowed for racing radials. All cross-ply and racing cross-ply tyres banned.
  • Maximum tyre quality tyre: +5
  • Interiors: Won’t be judged, but a simple one is recommended for topless cars.
  • Racing parts are allowed
  • Active aero and cooling flaps are banned.
  • Seats: At least 1 full seat
  • Basic, Sport or Race interior
  • Entertainment: Basic or Standard of any kind
  • Hydropneumatic, Air, and both Active suspensions will increase SVC by 10%
  • Toe limit: +/-0.5
  • Legacy and open wheel bodies are banned
  • Max price: $60.000

Engine:

  • Family year: Free, Variant year: 2020
  • Fuel: Ethanol E100
  • Loudness: 85 maximum
  • Emissions must pass WES9
  • Racing parts allowed
  • No V16 engines

Other:

  • Techpool: maximum $75M total
  • No negative quality or techpool
  • Advanced settings: Wheel width, wheel diameter, tyre width, tyre diameter, and camber are banned; wheelbase can be changed by 20 (including negatives, for example: -5 rear, 15 front); track width can be changed by 20 max (negative or possitive).
  • I will punish memes and cars that cheese too hard.
  • If you have any doubts feel free to ask either in the thread or my DMs.
  • Ellisbury stable update.

Priorities:

The car will be scored in three different categories: Excitement, Racing and Cost.

Excitement:
:star::star::star: - Styling, Design Realism
:star::star: - Less driving aids (power steering and traction aids)
:star: - Prestige

Racing:
:star::star::star: - Sportiness
:star::star: - Safety, Drivability
:star: - Comfort

Maintenance:
:star::star::star: - Price, Engineering realism
:star::star: - Service Costs, Reliability
:star: - Fuel Economy


Inspirations:

Open

Mazda MX-5 Cup

Renault Clio Cup

Porsche 911 GT3 Cup

Lamera Cup

VW Fun Cup

Radical SR3 XXR

Formula Ford


Submissions:

  • Model name: SRC - your username
  • Trim name: Car Name
  • Family name: SRC - your username
  • Variant name: Engine Name
  • Submissions will open on Monday, 24th March at 00:00 CET
  • Submissions will close on Sunday, 13th April at 23:59 CET
  • You need to submit your .car file to me via forum DMs and post an ad in this thread.

Changelog:

Open
  • Clarified which tyres are allowed.
  • Added rules for interior and entertainment.
  • Removed lower limit for rim size.
  • Lowered laptime taget times by 10s.
  • Reliability goes from 3-stars to 2-stars, price goes from 2-stars to 3-stars.
  • Active aero and cooling flaps banned.
  • Entertainment changed to Basic or Standard of any kind.
  • Changed Advance Settings rules.
  • Specified what counts for driving aids in priorities.
  • Hydropneumatic, Air, and both Active suspensions now increase SVC by 10%.
  • Toe limit is now +/-0.5
  • Removed John Travolta from the changelog.
11 Likes

If better drivability makes it less likely for drivers to make mistakes, then having more comfort reduces the amount of fatigue sustained during a stint - but the latter is a 1-star priority considering that the races in this series tend to be quite short.

The 24th of march is a Monday no?

Is this engine + car techpool or 75M for car and 75M for engine separately?

I think it’s the former.

Yes, that’s a mistake

Engine+car combined

Stable release, I assume?

Could probably specify radial hard slicks, as cross-ply slicks are extremely outdated and disused in the modern era, as well as the wording suggests hard slicks are the only racing tyres allowed, therefore any tyre is allowed from a word-logical point of view, English language sure is delightful lol :+1:

The challenge is interesting, but I am slightly opposed to open-wheel ban considering there is a Formula Ford in the inspirations, and maybe Caterham or Ariel would make for good inspirations too? Those also have cup/championship series. Another good call would be Ginetta (Ginetta Junior G40 and G56 GTA), as they’re synonymous with their cup cars too.

5 Likes

E100 seems like an odd choice to me given none of the inspiration use purpose-built racing engines and therefore have compression ratios that are more suitable for gasoline, around 12:1 max and E100 requires around 15:1 minimum to work properly in game.

2 Likes

Any mandated entertainment?
AM radio to simulate communication with pit-wall?
Or just nothing at all?

Can we also get 15 inch rims? Nascar and Indycar used to run 15s and Australian S5000 still does as far as I know

Yes, it’s on the rules.

I agree, I could word it better. Just to be clear all radial tyres are allowed, but the only racing radials allowed are hard slicks. I’ll ban cross-plies.

Open-wheel bodies are a hard no from me. They’re broken and I don’t want to deal with them. If you want to use 3D to make an open wheeler then I’m fine with that.

As for the other inspirations, they’re good too. I just thought the ones on the post would be enough.

Many racing series have been moving to ethanol fuels in the last years, so I don’t think a 2025 series running on E100 is too crazy.

Fair criticism though. I want to use a fuel with at least some ethanol, but I’m interested in seeing what people think. I might even let people choose what % of ethanol they want for their cars.

Basic, Sport or Race interior.

Standard AM radio or better.

I’ll do you something better, no lower limits but it has to make sense.

13" inches on a Caterham? Sure. On a Porsche Cup? You’re getting a heavy realism penalty.

3 Likes

Here are some extra inspirations other than the ones @Aruna already mentioned:

Toyota GR86 Cup

BMW M2 CS Racing

Praga R1

Ferrari 296 Challenge

Legends Cup

Skip Barber Formula 2000

5 Likes

Gotta ask how are you gonna judge a miata vs Radical?

Like what if i have a same reliability engine but instead of miata its in the radical. Saying this to say i dont wanna make a miata and become last because everyone did crazy track radical

2 Likes

The Miata should be cheaper to buy and maintain as well as easier to drive.

I might change price to a 3-star priority and reliability to a 2-star.

4 Likes

Can this be removed for weight balance and cost reasons?

I made some important changes to the main post:

  • Some people told me the laptime targets were too slow, so I’m lowering them to 1:05.0 - 1:25.0.
  • Reliability is now a 2-star priority and Price is now a 3-star priority.

No, I think that rule is fine as it is.

Does manual vs assisted steering count for “less driving aids”? Or will that all be mediated via the existing reduction to sportiness?

Karhgath points out that it could be broader than just steering. Do autos count? Do the various manuals without clutch pedals (that one’s me)? Do LSDs or active suspension count?

Oh, one more thing, are we allowed to use premium/luxe entertainment, or options more recent than AM radios? Comfort is a scored stat, after all.

More changes to the rules.

TL:DR


I’m still thinking of what to do with active suspensions. I don’t want to ban them, but I feel like they should be limited somehow. I’d like to hear your opinions about it.

4 Likes

From personal experiences, I don’t think Ive ever seen active suspension on a race car. Standard setups offer more than enough adjustment in 99% of scenarios. Its more often than not just not worthwhile adding the complexity and weight.

Its basically the same with anti-roll bars. I I’ve only seen passive ones with some form of adjustment either trough blades, change the levarge point or just outright change the the roll bar to a thicker one. This is how its adjusted on the Radicals, its called a nik link system. You can look at the SR1/3/10 owners manual and in the parts catalogue if you wanna visualize it. It can be found on Radicals website and is totally free to look at.

Personally I don’t think it should be outright banned but there should be some form of penalty, like added cost or effect the driver assists criteria in a negative way.

Edit: I would think that having active suspension would make the car setup process a hell of a lot more complicated as well. For most beginners the setup process on the dampers/springs is complicated enough and I would imaginen having active stuff on a spec car would make the mechanical knowledge entry level much higher and would probably require an engineer which would also make the price point to enter much higher and would scare away a lot of lower budget teams.

3 Likes