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 | |  | January 14, 2009 - There was an announcement of a tire rule change for the Targa in 2009.
R compounds - such as my Toyo RA1s - are no longer allowed. In fact, the tires must have a wear rating of at least 200, which gets rid of a range of popular sticky street tires such as the Falken Azenis and the Bridgestone RE01R. There's an exception for cars built before 1950 and those with stock 10" tires. The number of tires available to be used for the event has also jumped from 6 to 8, although with the harder required rubber that's not a big deal.
This means I'd probably end up running on a Hankook Ventus R-S2, although I haven't done a big search for other options. It would also make it much harder to meet the target times, which is probably the goal. Is it an improvement? Well, it's certainly a change.
entry 646 - tags: tires, regulations, 2009 | | |  | August 6, 2009 - Ever wonder how the base times are calculated, and how the various classes are handicapped?
The organizers have released the factors for 2009. You can see the original here.
Basically, the Class 9 Modified Large cars (Evos, Challengers and the like) are assigned a time. Then that time is multiplied by the factor for each class. In other words, a Class 8 Modified Small (that's us) gets 3.25% more time to finish the class. That's pretty close to the big boys. If our car was a 1990, we would have had a 5.72% handicap instead - but then we would have had to use the weaker ring gear in the differential. The winning 2002 gets either 17.40% or 12.12% depending what class it's in. If I do put that V8 in the car, I'll have to complete the stages about 5% faster.
Details about the 2009 race are being released over at the Targa website. Looks like SRZs are out this year (yay!), maximum average speeds are back (a concern for the Open Class guys), race tires are allowed (this year) and a few other bits and pieces.
Do I wish I was going this year? Oh yes.
entry 688 - tags: regulations | | |
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