The American Muscle Championship

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Running tests at the Nurburgring, I've found nearly all of them to be geared with a max speed of either 194kph to 212kph. The ones with 194 kph top speed included some of my favorites as the Dodge Charger R/T, the Corvette (C3), and the Plymouth 'Cuda. The Shelby Mustang 350, the Camaro SS, and I believe the GTO had a 212 kph gearing, but strnagely enough, only the Mustang was comparable in lap times to the cars I tested with the 194 kph gearing! The 'Cuda, to my dismay, was extremely slow, however, compared to the other vehicles with more than a ten second slower lap time compared to the average of the cars I tested.
These tests were done in arcade mode with SS tires only and no TCS/ASM.

As far as a mid-series "upgrade" in one form or another: I think it'd be difficult to keep track if someone were to keep changing parts throughout the series and keep track of his/her money as it changes. I think it'd be fair to allow the chance to change cars once, though.

It's all up to Kolyana though! Good luck!
 
Heck yes, not a problem. Nothing is cast in stone here and the competition won't kick off for a couple of weeks, so you have plenty of time for testing, changing your mind and such.

Plus, I want to get the final mods/$ available sorted by this weekend (or thereabouts), which will give everyone plenty of time to see what they can get for their money, run their own testing and so on.
 
Hey you can count on me to join. I'm new at this so this wil be a true test and an enjoyable one. Thanks for creating this race series.
 
Guys I would like to introduce a great friend of mine a former college rommate. The BIG BAD BBinnel440!!! I'm sure you remember him Kolyana ;). Welcome buddy!
I have done some more testing Nat and I think I have it narrowed down aleast. Either the C3 Vette, but thatSuperBee is also very good and the Chevelle isn't too far behind either. I feel like a kid in a candy store!!! Which One....AAAHHHH!!!!!!!

jump_ace
 
I will most likely join your seires... I have IRL a 68 Mustang Coupe. Straight 6 200cc.

Great car, all original. (except for the Front seats....@@#$@#$)

I will start doing my testing here soon, any idea on a rough amout for Non HP upgrades yet? I know you won't have final figures until later but a rough ballpark figure would be nice to work with. :)
 
I guess I should do some testing to figure out what vehicle I should use. In the WRS, the Superbird did me really good so it may be a canidit. I like the Shelby so that may be one as well. I'll keep you posted.
 
Well there has been some serious crunching of figures over the weekend (thanks Teledriel) and I'll be posting full mods here shortly ... (A family death kinda skewed my GT4 gaming for a short while, but the series is not postponed or cancelled).

I should have some more accurate figures for you guys to go off in the next few days.
 
Kolyana
Well there has been some serious crunching of figures over the weekend (thanks Teledriel) and I'll be posting full mods here shortly ... (A family death kinda skewed my GT4 gaming for a short while, but the series is not postponed or cancelled).

I should have some more accurate figures for you guys to go off in the next few days.
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First, sorry about losing family Koly.

Second, I'm sure if you canceled the series, someone would be willing to take it over(seriously, if no one else would have taken it I'd volunteer). This series is to good to not have. I wonder why it wasn't done sooner.
 
Ya, that is not good news and I assured her that if she needed to I'd step in and assist where ever need be. We're all pullin for you both Nat!

jump_ace
 
This season will be kicking off in 2 weeks time: September 11th. All cars now have finalized HP and non-HP upgrade amounts.

I highly encourage you to study the upgrades and test the results ... having done this for every car and every upgrade, I promise you that the results can be far from intuitive. I'm giving everyone 2 weeks so you have plenty of time to test.

I'm going to be pushing this series a little and I'd appreciate it if interested parties did the same.
 
goixoye
1) It doesn't make sense to me the SS Camaro has more initial HP and less initial wt (than the Z28) but your giving it more money for non-HP upgrades? I suppose your testing has indicated that the Z28 is the superior car so more money was needed for the SS.
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All I can say regarding the cars is that I initially gave all of them enough money to obtain HP upgrades to get them all within a very close power-to-weight ratio.

Jump_Ace and I then took all of the modified cars onto 2 different tracks and drove them until we got consistent times (Jump is capable of turning in regular, consistent times, which I felt was absoluetly essential for testing).

Two or three cars, despite having the same pwr/weight ratio were way ahead of the pack and 2 or 3 cars were way behind the pack. The Shelby was 1 or 2 seconds ahead and the Plymouth Cuda was waaaaay behind (shame that, sexy looking car).

We reduced the HP on the lead cars and increased it for the trailing ones, retesting several times with different combinations until the entire pack was running within a .7 spread.

Because this was done with 2 different drivers and 3 different tracks, I'm fairly happy that the cars are pretty evenly balanced, but this isn't to say that some of them will be harder or easier to drive for other drivers and you may get widely different results.

All I can say is grab the car that works for YOU.


goixoye
2) Now let me preface this by saying I'm new to GTP and GTP competitions so I'm learning the ropes. My intention here is not to offend or make waves so please don't get your hackles up and your claws out.... Are you, as the administrator of this competetion, actually going to participate? If so, the caveat (sp?) relative to future non-HP money seems a bit unfair. It seems a bit like a conflict of interests. You may already have decided how you are going to distribute that extra money...will it be the same amount for all cars? After 4 weeks will the lower finishing cars be awarded more money? Will specific individuals (instead of the cars) be allowed more money? If I know now it may impact my car choice for the competition. The track order, which you may or may not have determined, could also have some effect on this ex: if the "speed" tracks were first in the series and the "handling" tracks were last I would choose a car (and upgrades) accordingly knowing there was more "handling" (aka non-HP) money coming. If you, as a competing administrator know these things it seems like it gives you an unfair advantage. If you as a non-competing administrator know and none of the competitors know I guess it really doesn't matter.

If you are going to compete we should all know the full rules in advance and make our decisions based on that information.

Even if you yourself haven't actually decided how the additional money will be structured and you are competing then someone outside the competion should make that call.

Maybe there shouldn't be any mid-stream changes.
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This point is extremely valid and I really appreciate it being brought up.

A lot of you don't know me, but I'm extremely honest - to a fault. Yes, theoretically I could use the knowledge of what is to come to my advantage, and I remember being similarly concerned in this regard in other tournaments.

I'm going to *REMOVE* the mid-season cash influx and list the tracks in order, not so much to even the playing field and keep things fair (although this is a very valid point), but to increase the strategy involved with car selection.

I'd like to suggest a mid-season car swap as an option and I would like feedback on this.

goixoye
3) It seems that the Shelby is unfairly handicapped. It's a great car and I want to use it but I've already found 2 better cars and I may try, and find, a few more. With the promise of additional non-HP money the gap is going to increase. The Shelby needs more HP. It's limited by power not handling. I can't even drive one of the "better" cars without the ASM & TCS and it's still quicker than the Shelby. It's currently got power that I can't put onto the pavement and needs some chasis adjustments. With a better set of tires and and other tweaks I may be able to turn off the driving aids and then the Shelby will look like it doesn't belong in the competition. Actually, if the Shelby got additional non-HP money and this other "better" car didn't get any the Shelby might be the better car. So maybe the Shelby isn't completely limited by HP.
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I'm naturally very concerned with the balancing of the cars [see notes above], but both Jump_Ace and I had the Shelby well ahead of the pack by 1 or 2 seconds (it was a whopping 3 or 5 seconds ahead of the 'Cuda and ran just as fast even when the 'Cuda had over 600HP!)

If she doesn't work for you, I'm sorry, but even with the reduced HP upgrades, the Shelby came in 2nd during testing in both of our hands.


The above comments were sent to me via PM by goixoye, but I thought he raised some very valid points and I wanted to answer them publicly so that they'd serve as a FAQ and also notification that I was going to alter the rules slightly (no mid-season cash influx and a pre-determined race track list).

I highly encourage people to send me input and comments ... I will always receive them well, answer them where I can and incorporate your ideas where they add to the series!

~ Natalya
 
Natalya,
Relative to changing the car once. Initially I thought....no make your choice and stick with it. I've been married almost 17 years so to me commitment is important. But then I thought... This is only a 8 week race series. If somebody doesn't have the time to test all 12 available cars on several different tracks then they may make a bad choice and would likely abandon the series.... noone wants to compete without the hope of winning (or at least finishing well) . For example I too think the 'Cuda's a good lookin' ride but apparently looks are only skin deep (it doesn't sound like a muscle car either). If I got stuck with that pokey fish for the whole series I'd find something better to do with my time, I don't tink there's enough money or upgrades to make that thing competitive...you just can't tuna that fish. So I agree with being able to swap cars once....but be careful, make sure you figure out which one works best on the ring point-to-point and Las Vegas before you make the swap. Wouldn't you hate to change cars and then realize your first one was better on the series long events? So after all that my vote is to allow a one time car change...at any point in the season.
Ronny
 
Thanks Ronny for the input (as always!). I had the same thoughts as you for all the same reasons regarding a car-swap ... if you pick badly at first, you can change later, but it'll also allow you to pplay around a little with more than one ride ... so many of these babies are really nice to look at and drive and it would be nice to experience more than one of them.

I'll take your vote and a nod of agreement and see what a few others say!

Thanks for being so gungho about the series :)
 
I can't wait til this starts. I'm sticking with my Vette and I'm not doing any testing til it starts :)

Awesome sig goixoye 👍

As far the administrator racing in the series, the WRS mods do it - so did Viper....and now I do for my respective racing series. We don't have an advantage - at least I know I don't. I usually pick a car to run without ever having tried it.
 
1) If I change wheels does that come out of my money? (I guess the same question about wings too but if I remember correctly at least some of these cars don't allow wing changes and at least some don't allow wheel changes either) My understanding is that wheels don't make any performance difference. Would the answer to the question be any different if I said I want to put different Chevy wheels on one of the Chevy's from the daily specials section? IMO wheel changes should be allowed without reducing the amount of money you have to spend on upgrades....assuming that I'm correct that wheel changes don't affect vehicle performance. If wheel changes DO affect vehicle performance then the expense should come out of your upgrade account. Can anyone confirm or deny wheel change affect on performance?

2) Reading the regulations make it seem that once you choose your upgrades that's it. I assume you could use the one time car change to change upgrades without actually changing the car? IMO, in the same spirit that you may be allowed to change cars one time, you should also be allowed to freely swap upgrades (with notification to Kolyana). Although that may be an unfair administrative headache for Kolyana. Different upgrades may work better from one track to the next.

3) Are you going to make upgrade selection public knowledge? I agree with making car selection public but not upgrades (unless the individuals themselves want to make it public). At the END of the series the upgrade selections SHOULD be made public. Here's why I feel that way....I am WRS D3, I finished 8th, 10th and 5th so far in my 3 weeks of competition. 5th place was because 2 people popped off the top of D3 into D2, otherwise I would have been 7th. So I am middle of the road in D3. In AMC I will be competing against D1 and D2 and maybe some new folks that are even better. If I can figure out a superior upgrade combination that gives me an advantage then it should be mine (if I want to share it then it should be my decision). The WRS proves my ability when using the same car / upgrades. If this series is going to prove the same thing then it becomes a little less attractive to compete...at least to me.

Thanks for your patience,
Ronny
 
goixoye
1) If I change wheels does that come out of my money? (I guess the same question about wings too but if I remember correctly at least some of these cars don't allow wing changes and at least some don't allow wheel changes either) My understanding is that wheels don't make any performance difference. Would the answer to the question be any different if I said I want to put different Chevy wheels on one of the Chevy's from the daily specials section? IMO wheel changes should be allowed without reducing the amount of money you have to spend on upgrades....assuming that I'm correct that wheel changes don't affect vehicle performance. If wheel changes DO affect vehicle performance then the expense should come out of your upgrade account. Can anyone confirm or deny wheel change affect on performance?

2) Reading the regulations make it seem that once you choose your upgrades that's it. I assume you could use the one time car change to change upgrades without actually changing the car? IMO, in the same spirit that you may be allowed to change cars one time, you should also be allowed to freely swap upgrades (with notification to Kolyana). Although that may be an unfair administrative headache for Kolyana. Different upgrades may work better from one track to the next.

3) Are you going to make upgrade selection public knowledge? I agree with making car selection public but not upgrades (unless the individuals themselves want to make it public). At the END of the series the upgrade selections SHOULD be made public. Here's why I feel that way....I am WRS D3, I finished 8th, 10th and 5th so far in my 3 weeks of competition. 5th place was because 2 people popped off the top of D3 into D2, otherwise I would have been 7th. So I am middle of the road in D3. In AMC I will be competing against D1 and D2 and maybe some new folks that are even better. If I can figure out a superior upgrade combination that gives me an advantage then it should be mine (if I want to share it then it should be my decision). The WRS proves my ability when using the same car / upgrades. If this series is going to prove the same thing then it becomes a little less attractive to compete...at least to me.

Thanks for your patience,
Ronny
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1) Cosmetic changes such as wheels and wash you can have for free ... they make no difference to performance. I have not checked *all* of the cars for wing upgrades, but I have not specifically excluded this upgrade, so if you want to buy it and if the wing can be purchased, feel free to do so.

2) Once you have spent your money, that's it for that car. If you want to use the same car mid season just with a different set of upgrades, I have no problem with that, but once you have your chosen 'built' ride, there's no changing the parts.

3) If someone wishes to openly discuss their upgrade choices and settings, that is their choice, but I will not be doing it for them or insisting on this (as you described). If people would like to keep things close to their chest, then that's okay. At the end of the season, I'll post full car setups, otherwise we'll just be racing against car and driver.

It would be nice to know the net HP and perhaps even weight, but again I'll leave this open to individual drivers to discuss.

~ Natalya
 
I agree with the "one car change rule". I think it would be fair to allow a driver to change their vehicle once in the middle of the season. However, if they want to change their parts on the same car, I think the person in question should buy another "copy" of the car that way things like weight reduction won't be accidentally transfered. I think, however, if someone wants to test different version of the car with different parts, it's alright as long as times aren't submitted from this "test car". In other words, you could experiment with the car as much as you want as long as you have a seperate race car, and when and if you change vehicles, you buy another one. This would net 3 cars and would keep things simple for race purposes though perhaps not for the person who has to go and win 3 Shelby Mustangs! lol

I'm in. I'll go test some cars again once I get offline.
 
I agree RedWolf' ... exactly. You can buy and test as many cars as you want, but *ONE* of them must be your race car. You submit the parts and settings of this vehicle and you must drive it for half of the season.

During the switch you can (optionally) buy another car and re-set it up as you did at the beginning of the season, which can - theoretically - be the same car, just with different parts.

Personally, I have a garage of 2 of every muscle car, I had to for testing purposes, and I don't mind if people have numerous copies of all the cars ... it's only important that you race with ONE fo them for the season and that it conforms to the rules.
 
This is really gonna show how stupid I am but I thought maybe I better make sure....

When I first noticed the point-to-point at the ring (sectors 2 to 4) I thought...OK we start at T2 and go to T4. But "sectors" 2 to 4 mean we actually start at T1 and finish at T4. So for the competetion we'll be submitting our best time for T1 and T4 (subtracting to determine our time).

Additionally for discussion purposes, to see how we're doing against each other before we submit final times, we'll post times for T1, T2 & T3? But then we'll have to do the math to figure how competitive our times are? Or I guess we could do the math and post T2 minus T1 and T3 minus T1? Seems complicated. Although you did mention you might put together a live running leader board...which would be greatly aprreciated by me (and anybody else who might be similarly mentaly challenged).

I didn't really recognize the difficulty to be able to tell if you had a good time...a little math required prior to any celebrating....before I started writing this post. You could get your best T4 but if you had a blistering sector 1 (T0 to T1) it may not be your best time from sectors 2 to 4. Am I making any sense? If the point-to-point went from start/finish line to T4 it would make it a whole lot easier to tell when you achieved your best time...becuase you don't have to subtract your T1 time...maybe I should stop whining and by a calculator for my cockpit OR I could hire a crew chief to radio my times to me like they do in NASCAR OR maybe my b-spec guy could do it since he's not doing much these days...of course he's probably the poor guy who's been swapping all these upgrades around as I've been testing...of course if you judge by his driving he's even more mentally challenged than I am...but I'm digressing on an already too long post.

Sorry & thanks for your patience
Ronny
 
Yes, I haven't offered an explanation for the point-to-point yet (I was going to do that at the start of the season), but esentially you'll run fron T1 through T4 and just tell me your T2, T3 and T4 times ... obviously T4 - T2 = your point-to-point time. It doesn't really matter if you take 5 hrs getting to T2, because it's only the time AFTER that that counts. Hope that makes sense.

For the point-to-point and drag racing, I highly encourage driver to post their splits and obfuscated final times. For instance, in the drag race you can freely discuss you times perhaps down to a tenth of a second. For the point-to-point, perhaps post your T3 time (minus T2 time).

In other words, if your splits for the point to point are:
T1: 57.000, T2: 1'03.000, T3: 1'37.000, T4: 2'05.000 (simplified for the sake of math) ... the T1 and T2 times do not matter, because your time starts AFTER you cross the T2 starting line. You don't want to discuss your final (T4) time, so your T3 is simply T3 - T2 ... the time between those two point and the half way mark fo the point-to-point. That shouldn't be too complex for drivers to figure out and post.

Regarding your last point, it's not complex really, because you're only counting your T2 -> T4 time, the time between those points, so it doesn't matter if you crawled across T1 ... went and had a shower and then drove as fast as you could between T2 and T4.
If your splits were:

T1: 1:17'32.000 (1 hr 17 minutes!)
T2: 1:18'59.000
T3: 1:19'28.000
T4: 1:20'05.000

You can easily see that your ACTUAL run while 1:20'05.000 was only 1'06.000 - the time between T2 and T4.
 
Kolyana
Race Settings:
All races will be run in GT Mode.
You may adjust the settings of your car according to those items that you managed to buy with your starting cash.
Tires: Sports (Any combination of Soft, Medium, or Hard) from whatever you managed to buy ;)
Driver's Choice of TCS and ASM
Driver's choice of AT or MT.
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Apparently it is your intention to exclude the use of racing tires? The only reason I ask is because in the upgrade/modification section you mention tires but don't mention that racing tires are excluded. You did specifically exclude NOS and mention that nobody had enough money for NAIII. I tought maybe if you had truly intended to exclude racing tires you might have mentioned it there. This notation in the "Race Settings" section is the only place you seem to limit the use of racing tires. I've pretty much concluded my testing without racing tires but then gave the rules a final look and thought maybe they might be allowed. I just wanted to clarify since if I was racing on sports tires it might put me at a distinct disadvantage.
Ronny
 
After dicussing the issue of tires with goixoye via PMs, I'm going to exclude the Racing brand from the competition ... I don't want everyone buying R3s and ignoring other upgrade options. I'd rather people throw things under the hood, swap transmission and suspension, than simply get Soft Racing tires and be done with it.

I also think that keeping Sports tires is more in keepign with the spirit of "muscle cars".

Thanks goixoye for giving me your advice in that regard.
 
I have noticed that a lot of people are going with the Stingray or the Shelby Gt, and while they are both great cars, (and in my testing, the fastest) I will most likely go with the Cuda, as what is the point of a Muscle car series if everyone races the same car.

I may lose but I will at least have fun doing it.
 
I wouldn't worry about having a bad car. Koly's worked hard to ensure that all of the cars are more or less even once you've purchased your parts. I would personally recommend that you get a full-custom transmission, though. All of these cars have very fickle powerbands so proper transmission tuning is a must! I would also recommend manual transmission for most of the cars since auto will shift at the redline which isn't always the best time to shift.

We've still got a week and a half before this all kicks off so we have plenty of time to test and choose our cars for our needs. And, BTW, more people are choosing the Cuda now than there were before. lol But pick what you like; that's all that matters in this series anyway. It's all about nostalgia!
 
Frogger, that's the spirit! I worked hard to try and balance the cars as much as possible, but ultimately it was only so you could pick anything and we'd all have fun! I've purposefully been leaving my personal choice so I can select something that hasn't been picked, or not picked much, just to add a little color to the field!

Like Red' said, it's all about nostalgia!
 
I'm in!

I've just sent the details of my ride this season.
"Flem", is my Olive Green coloured SuperBee. All you folks will be seeing her on your rear bumper real soon :) ....
 
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