Street Touring November 20, 2005
That last batch of upgrades for my car move it from D Stock to Street Touring X. The SCCA added the Street Touring category in 1997 as a way of reaching out to the Sport Compact / Import Racing crowd, whose cars could be forced into categories typically consisting of more prepared cars over parts that had negligible performance impact. “Bling” items such as body kits and spoilers being prime examples.
There are two major differences between the Street Touring and Stock categories:
- Dress-up parts and performance upgrades suitable for daily driven cars are generally allowed.
- Tires must be 140 treadwear or higher, with tire and wheel widths restricted on a per-class basis
Street Touring’s treadwear restriction can have a significant impact on the cost of autocrossing competitively. In the other SCCA Solo categories any DOT approved R-Compound “racing slick” that meets the size restrictions is allowed. Such tires can cost $800-$1,200 per set, should never be driven on public roads, are typically good for just one season (10-12 events, 40-60 runs), and will improve times by a whopping 2-4 seconds. At the local level few people will be running R-Comps in Stock classes, but if you have the misfortune of being in the same class as someone who uses them you stand little chance of winning on street tires. In my area this is an issue at larger events, especially in the GS and HS classes.
High Performance street tires, on the other hand, don’t really cost more than any other tire — $350-$1,000 depending on what brand you choose. There are many tires to choose from that perform great on the track and street, and unless you are smoking the tires regularly the added treadwear from autocrossing is negligible. I use Kumho MXs, a popular street tire choice amongst autocrossers. They cost around $500/set and have a higher treadwear rating than the significantly more expensive and less capable performance tires that are original equipment for my car.
Street Touring presently has two competition classes: Street Touring S and Street Touring X. STS allows engines up to 3.1L N/A and 1.8L forced induction, STX bumps it up to 5.1L N/A and 2.0L forced induction. There are also two supplemental Street Touring classes available at the local level: Street Touring U and Street Touring S2. STU allows unlimited displacement for N/A engines and 3.1L for forced induction, STS2 is essentially STS for 2-seaters with naturally aspirated engines up to 1.9L. Each class excludes certain cars, consult the SCCA Solo Rules for details.
In my local area the STX competition is mixed. For the Central Florida Region events at Indian River Community College, Jorge’s WRX is often the only entrant. My raw times were within a few tenths of Jorge before this last round of upgrades so I expect some 1st-place wins next season. Equipe Rapide’s larger turn-out translates into 5-15 STX entrants. Subarus dominate in numbers but the lighter FWD imports seem to take home all the trophies. At the last ER event my best raw time was 1.483 seconds ahead of the quickest WRX but that still left me 3.769 seconds behind the 1st-place driver. I’ll need to improve quite a bit to make up nearly 4 seconds, I expect it will be frustrating for a while.
My next couple of planned modifications are allowed in Street Touring — rear swaybar, endlinks, intake, springs, and maybe an FMIC. After that I’ll have to decide between turbo upgrades that would put me in Street Modified or buying another car…
- Posted in : Uncategorized
- Author :tby
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