As I mentioned before, the rule book for SCCA is thick and, for a beginner, daunting. For my first race, after spending some time trying to decipher from the PDF rulebook what class the 1968 Camaro should be in, I decided to just show up and let the friendly people at the SCCA tent tell me what class I would be in. It turns out they don’t see too many early domestic cars at our particular club (only about 10 percent of the cars on any given race day are domestic; of these, most were born in the last 10 years) and they weren’t sure what to do with me and my Camaro. After they spent some time pouring over the same rulebook I had struggled with, they decided to put me in the generic class for altered domestic cars that are still generally street-driven: E Street Prepared, or ESP. This was fine by me, and I appreciated their putting me in a class as it was farther than I got in the task. I competed mostly against other domestics in ESP for my first three races, which I liked; there were opportunities to face other f-bodies as well as mustangs.
However, upon some time familiarizing myself with the cars I saw in my first three races, talking to some of my fellow competitors, and some further research on the internet, I determined my car was no longer legal in ESP due to the extensive modifications I had made to the Camaro. Basically, these are the classes for a Camaro autocrossing in SCCA Solo II:
FS (F Stock) if bone stock (yeah right).
ESP (E Street Prepared) allows lots of modifications, but must run original motor and no subframe connectors. Extensive suspension changes are not allowed.
SM (Street Modified) most anything goes as long as the engine manufacturer matches the body manufacturer.
STU (Street Touring Ultra) allows pretty much anything but you must run street tires and widest tire is a 275.
CP (C Prepared) anything goes as long as it’s still recognizable as a Camaro.
Of these, I had modified the suspension heavily, and was running a larger-than-stock camshaft; I was no longer legal in FS or ESP. As I understood the rules, I still could have raced in SM, STU (because I was running street tires 275 or less), or CP. STU is least competitive if you qualify, SM and CP are pretty much a wash in terms of PAX. However, SM and STU were replete with imports and CP was where most of the domestic cars resided. So to be most competitive I could race in STU, but to race heads up with the other guys running domestics I needed to run in CP. I figured I was not likely to ever be nationally competitive in CP with a pro touring car with full interior and all of the other comforts but also figured I was a long way away from that anyway and it would be a nice class to enjoy the company and competitiveness with my fellow domestic guys and perhaps enjoy some level of autocrossing success locally.
Because there is a season-long points race I wanted to settle into a class and stay there; I decided the rest of my autocross racing in the 2008 season would be in the CP class.
