pach said:
The new (heavy) M3 is in SS does that mean it can beat the S2000 also ?
Just because one car is classified higher doesnt mean its going to perform better. Often times S2000's do beat C5's on the autocross. Many times CS (Miata) cars beat SS and BS. And a Supra Turbo does pretty well when it is unresistricted in power mods as it did win SM one year.
Yes, often times S2000s do beat C5s and Z06s (and e46 M3s). I've even done it myself. However, that is because the
driver is better, not the car. Generally speaking, the higher the class the better performing the car. There are exceptions of course (as you've noted) but they are
exceptions. The whole point of classing is to have similar performing cars compete against each other. And SCCA classes are in descending order. SS is faster than AS is faster than BS is faster than CS, etc..... So yes, car classification
is a big indicator of a cars performance. (Again, much more relevent at the national level where driver skill variance is small vs. at a local level where skill variance is huge. Hence, me beating every e46 M3 and most C5s that I've auto-crossed against.)
A Supra winning SM once is hardly indicitive of a class dominating platform. S2000 has dominated BS since it was classed there. Z06 has dominated SS since it was introduced. Every year. Consistancy and repeatability is the sign of a class dominator.
I don't think we're disagreeing all that much here, I just think you're focusing too much on the exceptions and discounting driver skill.
