I was at the M-O Dbl Natl and I, too, was tempted to go out on my old rains. (Yoko A021)
(when an old dude says "old", he means OLD!)
But I couldn't afford the 2 position penalty.

H.(what the heck is 2 spots past last, anyway?...paddock?)

These new rains are way slower than the uber-rains that the Miatas run on apparently (this directly from a guy who ran both at TWS in the rain). The Miatas were so strongly-tired that they could just run the dry line with no thought to the consequences (probably like our old rains would have allowed). If we did that on our new rains, we'd be backwards very quickly.
The TWS rain race was not in deluge conditions. The track was very wet and there was standing water in places. My feel for them is simple (and of course YMMV):
- they are not easy to drive like the old rains
- BUT... they are predictable (seem to move water well) and they will survive a drying track

The last two points are all I care about, to be honest.
My .02.

I called the Chief Steward...non-complaint ANYTHING...should be DQ - no time...set behind all other starters. Unless it is intential, then I prefer they are sent home for the weekend.

Thanks Erik

Erik Skirmants wrote:non-complaint ANYTHING...should be DQ

So does this mean I need to "complain" about something after each race in order to not be DQ'd?
Cuz that I can do.

In all seriousness, I'm in complete agreement with you, Erik.

I are a god typerer ...complaint not the same as compliant!

People using illegal tires, eg the old rains, should be DQ ed. dude they are cheaters. I have no Idea how the decision was made to just penalalize 2 places. Decisions like this just undermine the cred of the SCCA.

In response to the original question, " what penalty" I would say DQ. I bought a new set of "old rains" last year. 600+, it never rained. This year to be "legal" I bought a new set of "new rains" another 600+. So if someone runs old rains in a National and beats me I'd settle for them buying my "old rains" at retail, or DQ. I'll give'em a chance before I protest! LOL

WhatsThatNoise wrote:I was going to buy some of the new rains this weekend at Mid-0 until I found out how useless they are.

We were in the same qualifying group as SM and they were passing us.
What a humiliating fiasco

Talked with the Good Year guy and he said that he is taking a whole truckload of unsold rains back home & was less than pleased.

Scott Rettich qualified pole in the rain with a 2:27.464 and a day later in the dry with a 1:39.323

Well, that would be because the new SM Hoosier H2O rains are very much like our old soft rains (according to our NW SM boys who have run them, if the track starts drying the Hoosier rains go away as fast as our soft rains).

Blame all this on everybody who complained about the old rains melting if the track dried

Tray wrote:The old rains are worth much more then 2 sec a lap. Put that same driver that was 2 sec ahead of Scott on the same tires and he's behind him by 10-12 sec.

No one said that they are easy to drive but they last and we are all on the same ones. Can't have it both ways.

Agree. Don't care how good a driver, if he's on new hard rains only 2 sec behind somebody on old soft rains, the guy on the soft rains is way slow! I honestly (and conservatively) figured in the May Rational at Portland, had it rained, (me entering as regional driver) I would have been able to lap the national guys running the hard rains in a 30 minute race!

Whatever set of stewards only called for a 2 place penalty blew it (unless there were only 3 SRFs). Walsh got it right at the beginning of this. Soft rains in a national qualifyer should be a loss of time and start at the back (minimum, maybe even points for deliberate cheating), soft rains in a national race should be DQ (again minimum).