Okay, class, sorry for the dramatic title, but today we have a topic that is pretty darn important, yet almost never talked about directly. People talk about classes all the time (e.g. FP or ST3 or SRF or T1 or SM) of course. But we don't often talk about classes of classes. Or, if you hang around with academic types, meta-classes. The idea of classes of classes is that we can usefully group classes together so that as you choose classes to run you are "shopping" within a group that has the characteristics you are looking for.
There is no standard definition of classes of classes, so we'll propose one that we think is useful. But when talking to people in the sport, you may get blank stares if you bring up this taxonomy. Our focus is on classes of classes for driving on track (road racing courses). Here we go:
We should say that there are lower-cost and higher-cost ways to do all of these. Of course, we'd generally say the street car group is the lowest cost and the BOP group is the highest cost. But, if you buy a McLaren P1 street car, it could hardly be called low cost. And in the BOP group, you can run PWC TCA in an MX-5 Cup car, which isn't low cost, but there are many higher cost classes. So there's a range and we recommend doing your homework.
The big difference, though, in these groups is that the basis of competition changes between them. In Street Cars there mostly isn't direct competition. Many drivers like this because they like being on track, but they just want to work on technique or have fun. They may dislike the stress of competition or the cost of wheel-wheel damage. In Builder Classes, a good driver helps, but you can also compete on technical merit, so if you like designing cars and/or working on them, you get to have fun all year long. Spec and BOP classes place a premium on driver talent, which appeals to drivers who like close competition and want to benchmark their skills.
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