Strategic Planning and "The Problem with IT"

[lateapex911]

I thought we'd spin this off as it ws getting pretty big picture.

Synopsis:
Wings...good idea or bad? Bill Denton points out that they do have the advantage of atracting the younger crowd, which is needed.....
Kirk comments on the need for any organization to do strategic planning...
Travis opines that the SCCA isn't capable, and that NASA will be kicking our butts in a few years...
he said,:

..........as you said, bill's motivation for being in support of wings is very well founded. my perspective is that the solution to the problems in SCCA and IT go far and above just slapping on some trendy parts and stickers, and that doing so would hurt the class without helping the actual issue...........[/b]

So, I agree that wings aren't a soultion per se'...but to understand what the solution is, you have to know what the problem is...
(One issue that always drives away the more common constiuents is the "Haves and have nots" situation. I feel wings will further seperate the haves and have nots, something I feel IT fights to keep in check and balanced)

So...the qestion...what ARE the problems facing IT? Are they specific to IT only? Or are they part of the greater organization? As an ITAc member, it would interest me to hear where IT fails, and where it should go.

Let's try to keep the suggestions within the realm of possibliity...if you feel that we should be racing cars with stock springs (for example) that's fine, but it would be rather impractical to have the entire country throw away their springs, etc.

[zracre]

the only way I think wings will work is if they are all the same...like WC...one supplier and make them optional.

[tnord]

the only way I think wings will work is if they are all the same...like WC...one supplier and make them optional.
[/b]

a list of problems in no particular order

1) too many classes. top 27 rule is a decent start...but it really should go back to if the class doesn't avg 3 cars/race they are eliminated. something like that.
2) regional vs national. further thins the field.
3) Runoffs at Topeka. short of bulldozing the entire track and starting from scratch, nothing can salvage this place. Ozment(s), the BOD, and Julow messed this one up.
4) almost zero tech at anything but the runoffs
5) too many divions/too many races.
6) runoffs structure is assinine for amatuers. 1 week of testing and 1 week of qual/racing is rediculous to ask of normal people
7) the BOD creating classes nobody asked for. Prepared anyone? Ok, maybe pro asked for that one.
8) i'll come up with more later.

[Andy Bettencourt]

a list of problems in no particular order

1) too many classes. top 27 rule is a decent start...but it really should go back to if the class doesn't avg 3 cars/race they are eliminated. something like that.
2) regional vs national. further thins the field.
3) Runoffs at Topeka. short of bulldozing the entire track and starting from scratch, nothing can salvage this place. Ozment(s), the BOD, and Julow messed this one up.
4) almost zero tech at anything but the runoffs
5) too many divions/too many races.
6) runoffs structure is assinine for amatuers. 1 week of testing and 1 week of qual/racing is rediculous to ask of normal people
7) the BOD creating classes nobody asked for. Prepared anyone? Ok, maybe pro asked for that one.
8) i'll come up with more later.
[/b]

Point / Counterpoint

1. NASA now has 14 and still growing. I do agree that 3 min per race is simply not too much to ask.

2. In big regions this works VERY well. We couldn't have an all in one here in the NE. Simply not enough time.

3. Bids were submitted, Topeka was chosen. It hasn't worked well and I bet they learn from their mistake.

4. NASA is no different. Competitors police their own patch. You see something wrong, fix it.

5. Consolodation could certainly happen in some areas. Those regions need to make a business decision.

6. You don't HAVE to go for two weeks. It IS the National Championship after all.

7. Prepared? PERFECT for NASA types. Check out the rules. Motor swaps, wings etc.

IT has no real problems on the grand scale. The problems are in other classes and the lack of participation. The old gaurd hangs on with a white-knuckle grip which really prevents new cars being built. Trying to listen to the legacy customers while creating opportuinty for newbs is tough. NASA doesn't have this problem - YET.

[tnord]

Trying to listen to the legacy customers while creating opportuinty for newbs is tough. NASA doesn't have this problem - YET.
[/b]


focusing on this for a moment, it's situations like these where intelligent BUSINESS decisions need to be made. problem is, we're not run like a business, nor do we have the resources. a business wise person would say the decision needs to be made with an eye towards the future and tendancy towards growth. you can't sell buggy whips forever.

[Knestis]

Someone should have their eye on the big picture - how the classes all fit together to provide a comprehensive program. It's silly, for example, that the Touring rules aren't simply the IT rules jacked up to new cars. Those cars will have to go SOMEWHERE when they have aged out, after all.

I think it would be AMAZING if there existed another class for ITA-spec cars that were new - too new for the current eligibility rules. There's a huge pool of interesting cars that fit and a semi-pro or "National" series with those cars, built explicitly to IT rules, would be very interesting.

I'm totally with Travis on the small classes should die thing. I've been banging that drum for 20+ years. Problem is, that's a great example of where "member driven" means a small number of holdouts can effectively steer an entire club racing program with their need to keep doing exactly what they have always done - even if there's only six of them.

THIS is Bill's concern, I think.

Ditto the National/Regional distinction. It serves no purpose beyond preserving the status quo for drivers whose sole priority is a RubOffs trip.

The big problems frankly, are not WITH IT - they are AROUND IT. Within the category, we need to attend to the fact that cars are getting faster, and ITR is a great step toward dealing with that reality. The future looks bleak for ITC but there ARE cars that fit. I still think there's value in proactively classing cars that seem like good options in each class, even before someone requests them.

NASA does some things right but they haven't got it all figured out. Their real strength is in in the ability of the HPDE program to grow people into race licenses - something that SCCA has completely missed the boat on.

K

[JeffYoung]

Is this a regional issue as much as anything else?

SEDiv, MidAtlantic and NEDiv seem to be extraordinarily healthy right now. We've not seen less than 7 ITS cars at a SARRC race, and as many as 15-20, particularly in Florida.

Bill, is it something about the region (too many races?) that is hurting car counts? Is NASA strong there? I think you have to identify the problem first to work on the cure, and the problem that MidAm has (and it seems real) is not one that we are experiencing here on the right coast.

[ddewhurst]

Sorry DAvid, don't mean to be crass, but have to point out -- this from someone who believes you can replace the four links on the RX7 with custom rods and heim rod ends? I agree with you on the latter, but this is starting to look a little meish.

How do you reconcile this? Not picking at you, just interested.


Within IT, opening rules as has been going on lately will only harm IT.......................

If I list the rules than have been opened the list would only start a pi$$ing match......

Close the rules & let the folks who want to open the rules move into the larger pond.

No comments on my thoughts ^ required. :D At this time.



If this is the brain storming portion of the process I would believe people shouldn't start commenting at this time about other peoples thoughts. :D If people are criticized at this point in the process they my read only & not comment.

[tnord]

i'm with you for the most part kirk.

i don&#39;t know if there should be a class for cars <5yrs old with an identical ruleset to IT or not, but i&#39;m in agreement that it shouldn&#39;t be too difficult of a transition. for example, there shouldn&#39;t be anything in Touring that is &#39;beyond&#39; the IT ruleset in terms of prep. So for instance, the RR shocks should be reigned in.

there&#39;s a couple different problems with this region Jeff. we are HUGE geographically, but small on a population basis. Good lord, how far is it from Blair NE to Memphis TN? or even Nashville these days apparantly. Hell, it&#39;s 10hrs+ from Kansas City to Memphis, and Blair is another 5hrs NW of KC. So what is that, at least 15hrs from the NWernmost track to the SEernmost? The problem is, there&#39;s probably more people in NYC than there is this entire division.

combine that with somewhere around 15-17 regional race weekends this season, and you get small car counts across the board. between the June 16th National at HPT, and the end of the Runoffs, 12 of 16 weekends have events if you include the June Sprints and Solo Nationals. That&#39;s just plain stupid.

Amplifying the problem is the split between Great Lakes and Central Division. We used to get a decent number of these guys down to STL or Omaha for some events, but now they just go to either GL or Central for their out-of-division races. Splitting the old central division probably hasn&#39;t doubled the number of races in the same geographic region, but it&#39;s probably close.

We essentially have zero NASA presence in this area, maybe because they know it&#39;s a money losing proposition, maybe because it&#39;s too close to SCCA HQ, maybe they just haven&#39;t got around to it. But they certainly aren&#39;t our problem.

The only IT specific big issue is the number of major changes that have been made in a short period of time. I think it&#39;s for the greater good, but i can see how it would piss some people off.

[gran racing]

I still think there&#39;s value in proactively classing cars that seem like good options in each class, even before someone requests them.[/b]

I absolutely agree with this.

[dickita15]

Well yes of course we should but I would expect the current ITAC would say that do not have the time to do the work.
But I offer a solution. I think this is the job for an ad hoc committee. 5-8 volunteers to include 1 or 2 ITAC members to gather data and make a batch recommendation to the ITAC. The work could most likely be done in a private sub forum as was done with ITR.

[tnord]

throwing another log on the fire;

http://forum.specmiata.com/cgi-bin/ultimat...=2;t=003627;p=0 (http://forum.specmiata.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=003627;p=0)

[Sandro]

The whole wing thing to attract the younger tuner age is redicilous in my mind, as far as for IT. If them putting a wing on their car makes the difference of them being a part of IT or not, I think they are the wrong crowd to be searching for because they have a completely different mind set.

As Knestis said NASA gains many new people by them starting in HPDE. They end up just going to a weekend track event and then seeing everything else going on and get hooked on the actual racing scene. NASA has the TT and PT class which makes it easy for someone to take their street car and move into racing without having to do anything special because no matter what car they have and what they have done to it, their is a class for them.

[gsbaker]

Their real strength is in in the ability of the HPDE program to grow people into race licenses - something that SCCA has completely missed the boat on.

K
[/b]
Yup. SCCA should sponsor tricycle racing. Get them while they are young.

[planet6racing]

As Knestis said NASA gains many new people by them starting in HPDE. They end up just going to a weekend track event and then seeing everything else going on and get hooked on the actual racing scene. NASA has the TT and PT class which makes it easy for someone to take their street car and move into racing without having to do anything special because no matter what car they have and what they have done to it, their is a class for them.
[/b]

And, more importantly, they can do this without the required safety gear - no cage, no firesuit, etc. It&#39;s not wings that keeps the "tuner" crowd away. It&#39;s having to put in a real roll cage that keeps them away. They just don&#39;t see it as something to make them go faster, so it is not important.

[gran racing]

You can&#39;t wheel-to-wheel race in NASA without meeting safety standards, including a roll cage, kill switch, ectera. Sure you can do this at HPDEs, but lets not forget that SCCA now has the PDX tool. It is a matter of regions actually utilizing this tool effectively. I do really like that NASA incorporates their HPDE into the race weekend. While people might say we just don&#39;t have the room to do it at a regional weekend, I feel we need to make the room even if that&#39;s just a matter of having one run PDX run group out there of advanced drivers. It is a fantastic way to get people started with a club, then get them involved in W2W racing if that&#39;s what they choose. I&#39;m not too familiar with their mentor program, but it is something I think would help people.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Are we even on topic? How about &#39;the problem with IT&#39;? Lets get specific so we can make our own patch better. Leave the 10,000 foot problem &#39;solving&#39; to the Prod guys... :bash_1_:

Strategic planning for IT.........

[racer_tim]

A friend of mine who runs an Acura Integra in ITA as well as HC and NASA, says that he&#39;s slower with the wing on.

Can you say "BLING" ?????

[Knestis]

Strategic planning for IT.........[/b]

There&#39;s arguably little at the IT categorical level that actually qualifies as "strategic." If that&#39;s the highest we can jack issues for discussion, then we have:

** Vision/strategic position for listing new cars

** Position re: how/if new technologies will be integrated into the category

** Position re: alternate drivetrain layouts (e.g., turbos, AWD) and their place in IT

** Consideration of how changing markets might impact IT entrants (e.g., wheel/tire sizes)

** Decisions that might be made to position IT differently relative to other categories/classes and disciplines (Solo)

And...?

K

[zracre]

A friend of mine who runs an Acura Integra in ITA as well as HC and NASA, says that he&#39;s slower with the wing on.

Can you say "BLING" ?????
[/b]

It only makes sense...too much drag but it would be fun to play with one LOL. My buddy Chip takes the one off the Koni Challenge RX8 every time we get to a race...

[tnord]

Are we even on topic? How about &#39;the problem with IT&#39;?

Strategic planning for IT.........
[/b]

i&#39;ll let ya know after a couple years with the ECU rule. :D

the only thing i could see, would be to create an ITX class. AWD & Turbo.

Evo, WRX, STi, Talon TSi, Eclipse GSX, Renault 5 Turbo :P , Galant VR-4, Celica STX (or whatever it was), whatever else there was. i doubt there&#39;s really THAT much of a demand for it. but if you&#39;re looking for ideas......this is the only way i can see integrating AWD and Turbo cars, put them all in their own little sandbox.

make sure to put something in the ruleset about "you blowing up countless transmissions and differentials is not our problem."

[Doc Bro]

The best way to align vision and a measurable result is consistency in the message. Make sure the tongue in the mouth and the tongue in the shoe are both heading in the same direction. I think there are some things we do in the IT rules that are quite good; create a class for a higher speed car and (dare I say) opening up the ECU issue. However, there are somethings in my opinion that don&#39;t align with this forward thinking. I question whether we debate minutiae for something to do at work, while missing the larger 10 year out picture. I&#39;d love to see a straw pole for some topics like washer bottles, short shifters, wider wheels etc.. While I&#39;m not necessarily advocating their in/exclusion I&#39;m more interested in the alignment and the consistency of the message. IMO the ECU thing is progressive and the washer bottle thing is a blue law.

R

[tnord]

I question whether we debate minutiae for something to do at work, while missing the larger 10 year out picture.

R
[/b]


:023:

[pgipson]

I hate to post this, but here goes

Everybody wants to do strategic planning. But the first question should always be "what is the vision"? What do you see in 5, 10, 15 yrs for IT? What do you WANT IT to look like in 2022?

If you see 40 yr old cars (my RX7 will only be 38 yrs old then) at the end of that vision running around a track trying to keep up with the technology of 2015 then might I suggest we turn to the prod forum for answers?

If, on the other hand, the vision for IT is a class full of cars that reflect the interests of the membership, that are raced with minimal modifications, and that represent a full value of fun for the dollar invested, then maybe some radical thinking might be in order.

If you are willing to think about the class not as it is, but as it could be then how about making the first rule change to be this:

A. PURPOSE
Improved Touring classes are intended to provide the membership with the opportunity to compete in low cost cars with limited modifications, suitable for racing competition. To that end, cars will be models, as offered for sale in the United States. They will be prepared to manufacturer’s specifications except for modifications permitted by these rules.

Cars from the previous four (4) model years and the current model year will not be eligible. No car older than a 1968 model of any listed vehicle will be accepted for Improved Touring competition. Turbocharged/Supercharged cars are not eligible for Improved Touring competition. Cars need not be eligible for state license or registration.


A. PURPOSE
Improved Touring classes are intended to provide the membership with the opportunity to compete in low cost cars with limited modifications, suitable for racing competition. To that end, cars will be models, as offered for sale in the United States. They will be prepared to manufacturer’s specifications except for modifications permitted by these rules.

Cars from the previous four (4) model years and the current model year will not be eligible. Cars more than 25 model years old will not be accepted for Improved Touring competition. Turbocharged/Supercharged cars are not eligible for Improved Touring competition. Cars need not be eligible for state license or registration.
================================================== ===================

I know this would obsolete cars that people have a lot of development money in. And cars that people have a special attaction to. Hell, it would eliminate my car in 2 yrs. But I don&#39;t know if the category can survive long term if there isn&#39;t a way found to make the cars we do race closer to cars we drive.

The question isn&#39;t the competitiveness of a single type of car or even a class. The real question is what sort of changes (if any) are needed to help IT continue to be a viable part of the SCCA race program. And the time to ask and answer that question is now. Not when we are busy looking for other old race cars from other classes we can add to our dwindling numbers.

flame on :(

[JoshS]

IMO the ECU thing is progressive and the washer bottle thing is a blue law.[/b]
That&#39;s a really nice, simple statement ... I like the message.

[Zneed4speed]

OK you ITAC guys asked, but you really don&#39;t get paid enough...

Be proactive about classing cars. If it&#39;s a sporty car, class it.
Plan a schedule to analyze each IT rule in order, with an attitude of bringing it "up to date". Probably take a whole year, do it every 5 five years, at minimum.
Use SCCA resources to compose a survey just for IT drivers. Find the demographic if you don&#39;t already know it and target it. Prepare an IT "brochure".
SCCA sells mailing lists, maybe we need to buy some from other sources.
Get SCCA to help publicize IT. The results in SportsCar if any, seldom have write-ups or pictures. If they don&#39;t pay for event write-ups already, propose they do.
How about an IT report in SportsCar? Or a least an IT "state of the union" report. Since Fastrack is only online now, IT exposure has been reduced.
The Divisional reports have too much to cover. IT needs it&#39;s own report/reporters.
I know IT is a regional class but a little national attention could increase entrys.

The wing question may be kind of off topic but, I think wheel size would discourage a young driver more than no wings.

[shwah]

I see no reason to exclude older cars. I also see no reason to make sure that they can compete with newer cars. Proactive classing is on my list, and I like the idea of an Ad Hoc doing this because I would hate the workload to bog down the ITAC.

The CRB could certainly stand to look at IT, T, P, GT and form some semblance of a plan to &#39;grow&#39; cars through the system. T being reigned in to IT spec or less makes a lot of sense to me, then create space for T cars in IT as they age out, even if this means we create faster IT classes. If we have a path for cars from T>IT>P>GT then people can take their old T cars and go into any of 3 other classes, depending on the level of prep they want to embark on.

Speaking of faster IT classes. It does not take much looking to see that there are a lot of cars that are too fast for ITR already. Once ITR has a foothold, the ITAC should seriously look at what the next fast class would look like.

I like the idea of an awd/turbo class, but don&#39;t know if that can work well within the IT ruleset. Maybe we finally found a reason for Prepared to exist...

[ddewhurst]

*****Sorry DAvid, don&#39;t mean to be crass, but have to point out -- this from someone who believes you can replace the four links on the RX7 with custom rods and heim rod ends? I agree with you on the latter, but this is starting to look a little meish.

How do you reconcile this? Not picking at you, just interested.*******


Who added this to my post #8 ?

This is not good when someone is allowed to make changes to another members post.

[Knestis]

...
Cars from the previous four (4) model years and the current model year will not be eligible. Cars more than 25 model years old will not be accepted for Improved Touring competition. Turbocharged/Supercharged cars are not eligible for Improved Touring competition. Cars need not be eligible for state license or registration. ...
[/b]
We go on at length every once in a while about what the "founding fathers" intended and the fact that the "1968" rule has been on the books since Day One is indeed a suggestion of intent. (Given when the national IT rules were first published, 25 years is just about right on, BTW.)

On the other hand, if we don&#39;t take "extraordinary measures" to keep old cars on IT life support, then they will wither naturally. We just have to defend the basic substance of the rules by standing fast against the tactic of, "I can&#39;t find (whatever) for my car, so may I please use (whatever) instead?"

On the washer bottle issue: Understand that threats to the category exist in two very general terms - failure to change and TOO RAPID change. Right at this point in IT history, we are on the back side of the biggest changes the category has seen in its life. Many of you weren&#39;t even involved WAY back in 2002 when the Neon was still an ITS car and concept of using a repeatable process to establish IT race weights was pretty much roundly condemned as "impossible..."

Given this, it is probably too easy to go with the organizational momentum and "fix" all of those stoopid blue laws - unless you understand that a major reason that IT is even still around TO fix, is that those rules (no guarantee, regional only, etc.) prevented any meddling. IT came out of its stasis less than 5 years ago but to that point, it hadn&#39;t suffered the death that plagues most club racing classes - the gradual eroding of the category by incremental changes to little rules. Coined "rules creep" (someone needs to look in the archives and find the first use of that term), this is the gradual "nibbling to death by ducks" that naturally occurs with rules-making processes and constituencies like ours.

Bob gets the board to vote out washer bottles.

Carol lobbies successfully to get rid of the wipers, because the washer bottle logic worked.

Ted makes a convincing argument for removal of the HVAC unit.

Alice wants to use the area previously occupied by the now-empty rain tray/behind dash area for cage bars, to make her car safer...

If you think I&#39;m being alarmist because I see a straight line from that to tube chassis, you - with all due respect - don&#39;t understand the history of this game. Or you don&#39;t understand that IT dodged this bullet by the same forces that require you to have a washer bottle...

...and but shutting off those forces, you kill the constraints that have worked (completely accidentally, I&#39;m convinced) until just recently.

BUT, hey. Whatever y&#39;all want. Just don&#39;t say that you weren&#39;t warned. 2012 seems like a long way off but it&#39;s only as many years as it was ago, that Amy was fighting for the right to race against Acuras and the like in ITA.

K

[bldn10]

"The whole wing thing to attract the younger tuner age is redicilous in my mind, as far as for IT. If them putting a wing on their car makes the difference of them being a part of IT or not, I think they are the wrong crowd to be searching for because they have a completely different mind set."



We got off on wings but that was just a part of the "total package" that I mentioned. I also included bigger wheels, perhaps some side aero, lower ground clearance - i.e. DTM lite. I am 57 years old and I&#39;ll tell you right now that I have no interest in a showroom stock type class because I want my car to look like a friggin race car! The more it looks like what I think are the coolest races cars, the better. I&#39;m talking just one minor aspect of the solution, not the be-all end-all so don&#39;t make me sound so stupid as to think that wings alone would change everything. Again, think total package.

[Doc Bro]

We go on at length every once in a while about what the "founding fathers" intended and the fact that the "1968" rule has been on the books since Day One is indeed a suggestion of intent. (Given when the national IT rules were first published, 25 years is just about right on, BTW.)

On the other hand, if we don&#39;t take "extraordinary measures" to keep old cars on IT life support, then they will wither naturally. We just have to defend the basic substance of the rules by standing fast against the tactic of, "I can&#39;t find (whatever) for my car, so may I please use (whatever) instead?"

On the washer bottle issue: Understand that threats to the category exist in two very general terms - failure to change and TOO RAPID change. Right at this point in IT history, we are on the back side of the biggest changes the category has seen in its life. Many of you weren&#39;t even involved WAY back in 2002 when the Neon was still an ITS car and concept of using a repeatable process to establish IT race weights was pretty much roundly condemned as "impossible..."

Given this, it is probably too easy to go with the organizational momentum and "fix" all of those stoopid blue laws - unless you understand that a major reason that IT is even still around TO fix, is that those rules (no guarantee, regional only, etc.) prevented any meddling. IT came out of its stasis less than 5 years ago but to that point, it hadn&#39;t suffered the death that plagues most club racing classes - the gradual eroding of the category by incremental changes to little rules. Coined "rules creep" (someone needs to look in the archives and find the first use of that term), this is the gradual "nibbling to death by ducks" that naturally occurs with rules-making processes and constituencies like ours.

Bob gets the board to vote out washer bottles.

Carol lobbies successfully to get rid of the wipers, because the washer bottle logic worked.

Ted makes a convincing argument for removal of the HVAC unit.

Alice wants to use the area previously occupied by the now-empty rain tray/behind dash area for cage bars, to make her car safer...

If you think I&#39;m being alarmist because I see a straight line from that to tube chassis, you - with all due respect - don&#39;t understand the history of this game. Or you don&#39;t understand that IT dodged this bullet by the same forces that require you to have a washer bottle...

...and but shutting off those forces, you kill the constraints that have worked (completely accidentally, I&#39;m convinced) until just recently.

BUT, hey. Whatever y&#39;all want. Just don&#39;t say that you weren&#39;t warned. 2012 seems like a long way off but it&#39;s only as many years as it was ago, that Amy was fighting for the right to race against Acuras and the like in ITA.

K
[/b]


Kirk,
I totally agree that stability of the ruleset is of major importance. The consistency in the message is the crux of my issue. As I stated I&#39;m not pro/con on any of these issues, but there is a huge inconsistency in front of us. A progressive ECU rule standing toe to toe with many blue laws on the books. That&#39;s the real issue. Sure someone makes arguments about being allowed to do X because the washer bottle is gone.....while someone else is using traction control because of the totally "free" ECU rule. What about the newly classed ITB car that comes with a short throw totally tight gearbox and shifter while my buddy with the Wolwo 142 has the shifter coming out of the firewall and responds like a 67 F250? The juxtaposition of new against old is the major part of the debate.


R

[Greg Amy]

We got off on wings but that was just a part of the "total package" that I mentioned. I also included bigger wheels, perhaps some side aero, lower ground clearance - i.e. DTM lite.[/b]
Kirk&#39;s brought it up before, but is it time for me to update my "MT2" rules set from a few years ago?

http://www.it2.evaluand.com/intro.php3
http://www.it2.evaluand.com/mtcs.pdf

I&#39;ll be glad to do that, and glad to assist in building interest in a new class. But, don&#39;t puck with Improved Touring; it&#39;s worked well for all these years, graphically illustrated by its success, popularity, and its very existence. If you truly believe that a modified IT ruleset would be more popular, then create and promote this MT. You can run the class within the existing class structure (we proved that with IT2) and we&#39;ll let the open market decide who&#39;s right.

But, fer krists sake, leave IT alone.

[lateapex911]

Day three has brought some great stuff!

One comment regarding the "Aging out" concept. If the basic premise of IT is to provide low cost racing, it would fly in the face of that premise to arbitrarily tell people that they must throw away their, for example, 2nd place ARRC finishing 1973 Datsun 240Z....to buy the first place winning 1996 BMW E36......

I suggest the trouble Prod got into was that they changed the entire foundational rules package in attempts to molify owners of older cars that could no longer compete due to the inability of the old parts to survive the stresses of racing, or the parts sources dried up.

In any case, I can assure you as an ITAC member, I have learned from the mistakes of the past (And yes, I know many will argue that they weren&#39;t mistakes, LOL) and our basic foundational ruleset won&#39;t be modified to allow alternate billet cranks to keep older cars on life support. It&#39;s one thing to make rules changes to mold the category to the needs of the current/future cars and racers, but quite another to go backwards. In other words, I favor the "natural death" method, and I won&#39;t sponsor or back any "life support" rules.

[shwah]

Rob,

I think you just provided an excellent example of how, little by little, older cars will naturally "age out" of IT competition. The shifter alone won&#39;t do it, but parts availability, better brakes, better drivelines, stiffer chassis, will gradually push many old cars out of favor. A few will keep going because the drivers just love them, but those looking for the path of least resistance to victory will choose newer cars.

The last thing I want to see is rules changes specifically to allow me to take my 21 year old IT car and make it more like a 5 year old one. This is counter to the whole class philosophy. You run what you have, warts and all.

My Golf 2 will not live forever in IT, but IT will still be there for me when I am ready to upgrade to a newer car.

And regarding the ECU issue. We were all asleep at the wheel 3-4 years ago when this really took place. The recent proposed change, simply makes the same thing that was available to a few, available to many. It does not add any, not one single, additional gain or capability than what was already offered under the current rule. I wish it never happend, but like the new wording more than the old. I also think that we would have eventually ended up here as newer cars with more complex oem systems became IT eligible.

[BlueStreak]

Cars more than 25 model years old will not be accepted for Improved Touring competition. Turbocharged/Supercharged cars are not eligible for Improved Touring competition. Cars need not be eligible for state license or registration.
[/b]

My Rabbit GTI is 24 - Is it time to start running with the vintage guys?

[Knestis]

My Rabbit GTI is 24 - Is it time to start running with the vintage guys?
[/b]

A very poignant example. When the IT rules were invented, that car was brand new and the framers of the category didn&#39;t want cars that were only 17 YEARS OLD running.

K

[Dave Ebersole]

..............

Cars from the previous four (4) model years and the current model year will not be eligible. Cars more than 25 model years old will not be accepted for Improved Touring competition. ........
[/b]


That&#39;s brilliant. I&#39;m looking at registration for the final MARRS race this weekend and guess what? This rule would reduce ITB entries from 16 to 4. I&#39;m sure you&#39;re thinking that those guys would build a newer ITB car but I don&#39;t think so. Those guys like racing rear wheel drive cars. Most would either go to Spec Miata or Production. That won&#39;t help IT.

[zracre]

I guess that would work if they said no cars older than 25 year will be eligible. Cars with log books issued before the 25 year anniversary date of manufacture may compete.

this will keep the people with investments still in the game and prevent new old cars from appearing.

[flaboy]

With the 25yr rule you could say good bye to ITC.And thats a decent sized group of cars.

Hell i think theres like 11 cars at daytona in 2 weeks in itc.

Tim

[seckerich]

Just why would you have a discussion about the health of a class and worry about stopping someone from building a new car? What would it hurt to have a brand new 30 year old car? Don&#39;t bend the rules to make them competitive but let them race. At some point down the road either ITC will die or the target for all the classes will get moved again and the older cars will be less competitive. Darwin strikes again. I do not see that newer classes need to be added unless something goes away. As C dies (sorry guys it is going to happen) we will be back to 4 classes and have room to up the window of performance to take in the new cars. We are missing the boat bigtime not finding a home for the turbo crowd. Give them a class and assume boost on kill in classing and let them go at it. That class would grow fast.

We need to grow ITR now if it is going to fly long term. People will not build cars if there is nobody to race with. Myself and many others would build an RX8 now if it would get classed. None of the other offerings make sense for the rotary guys. We need something current and it is the only choice. It was sold in very early 03 but is considered a late 04 by the ITAC so you loose all those potential drivers. It is really 5 years old next year so whats the holdup?

[Doc Bro]

It&#39;s too bad there isn&#39;t a way to consolidate ITB&C with fairness and safety to all involved. That would also provide room for a class above R. In 15 years you could invision some of A joining in a similar fasion as the speeds continue to increase. It&#39;s a sort of planned obsolescence, that still gives the opportunity to race more competitiors than the current system would allow.

R

[gran racing]

I&#39;d hate to see an age limitation on cars. I actually think it&#39;s pretty cool to see the mix of cars and ages out there all racing against each other. As others have said, I don&#39;t think older cars should be thrown a bone for various parts allowances but don&#39;t ban them from the category.

[Doc Bro]

I&#39;d hate to see an age limitation on cars. I actually think it&#39;s pretty cool to see the mix of cars and ages out there all racing against each other. As others have said, I don&#39;t think older cars should be thrown a bone for various parts allowances but don&#39;t ban them from the category.
[/b]


Couldn&#39;t agree more. I KNOW for a fact if my wife were ever going to race it would be in an ITB Volvo.....pink with purple numbers.................

Hey it&#39;s a long ride to the Glen....what can I say???

R

[lateapex911]

Couldn&#39;t agree more. I KNOW for a fact if my wife were ever going to race it would be in an ITB Volvo.....pink with purple numbers.................

Hey it&#39;s a long ride to the Glen....what can I say???

R [/b]

Whatever it takes, Rob! Better than her demanding a super jammy top of the line ITR car!

[pgipson]

suggest the trouble Prod got into was that they changed the entire foundational rules package in attempts to molify owners of older cars that could no longer compete due to the inability of the old parts to survive the stresses of racing, or the parts sources dried up.[/b]

And I would suggest that as IT moves further from the original intent, one rule change at a time, that the same destination awaits.

25 yrs is a number, and exclusion of older cars is a just an idea. Or maybe no new logbooks issued for cars older than XX after some date.

The real issue is what do the current participants in IT think the class should look like in 10 or 20 yrs. As Kirk said, that is not very long in the grand scheme of things.

[Dave Zaslow]

I agree in principal with every point Kirk has made.

As silly as something like the washer bottle rule may seem to some, it is a benchmark of the intent of the IT rules philosophy.

The (now) five groups that make up IT are based on race potential of a set of cars. As long as there are new cars to class within those sets there is no reason to set any age limit. When there are no cars (or no interest in those cars) available to fill a class, that class will die.

Classifications of newer cars are needed. ITC in the NE is in trouble. Part of that is that there are no new cars being built and (chicken and egg) there is no good competition. One cannot run a Fiesta, Datsun 510, Rabbit 1.6 forever. ITB may have similar issues soon enough, but there are still cars out there that could be interesting for folks to build.

It appears to me that there is no feed from SS cars/drivers into IT. I don&#39;t know where they go after they age out of their (now) longer national lifespan. IT is an attractive choice people make when they decide to go racing. For a lot of people without extreme means IT is not too hot (technology) and not too cold (technology) but just right (technology balanced with that off other cars).

As has been suggested, I think that a faster class than ITR is not in our interest. Let those be the problem with another set of classes.

I am surprised that I have not seen a Ford Focus out there. Perhaps that and the equivalent Chevy should be looked at to repopulate C.

Dave Zaslow

[Bill Miller]

LOTS of really good stuff here. Sorry I&#39;m late.



NASA does some things right but they haven&#39;t got it all figured out. Their real strength is in in the ability of the HPDE program to grow people into race licenses - something that SCCA has completely missed the boat on.[/b]

I&#39;m repeating this, because it&#39;s such a fundamental issue. In fact, I see this as the single largest opportunity for new membership, and as Kirk said, the SCCA hasn&#39;t got a clue. Someone mentioned PDX as an answer, which it might be, but I think it only goes part way.

I think NASA has it right (and they sure didn&#39;t come up w/ it, EMRA had it 20 years ago when I got hooked on this madness). You have to run your HPDE/Time Trial/Solo I events IN CONJUNCTION with a race. It&#39;s an association thing. You get people out there w/ their street cars intermingled w/ people w/ their race cars, and the street car people get exposed to what the whole racing side is all about. You&#39;ve got a Wombat XSR that you drive to work every day, and Fred (Bob&#39;s brother and Alice&#39;s cousin) has a Wombat XSR that he trailers to the track and races. You start checking out Fred&#39;s car, and talking to him about what he&#39;s done w/ it, and then you hang around and watch him race it. THAT is what will get people hooked. I know, because it&#39;s exactly what happened to me. I took my Rabbit GTI street car to Pocono for an EMRA Time Trial and there were these two guys there w/a a Rabbit GTI that they were racing. It took that, and one session on the track at speed, and I was ready to sign up!

And please, stop trotting out the red herring that is the &#39;wing thing&#39; to attract the tuner crowd. You need to actually look at the typical &#39;tuner guy&#39; mindset to understand that the vast majority of them will never make the jump to racing. And it&#39;s not because they can&#39;t put wings on their race cars. For most of them, it&#39;s not just about the go-fast stuff, it&#39;s about the BLING. And the biggest issue, is that they don&#39;t see their cars as disposable. By that I mean, they&#39;re not comfortable (or willing to accept) the fact that they may write their car off any time they put it on the track. Hell, some of them still owe major chunks of money on their cars. If you don&#39;t believe this, just scan any of the marque forums and look for the stories about how the kid totaled his Wombat XSR at the track and his insurance company is denying coverage and how he now has no car but still has to pay for it.

You want to get the tuner crowd hooked on racing, start having HPDEs in conjunction w/ races, and work VERY hard at educating them as to what you can and can&#39;t do to the cars. It&#39;s one thing to talk about it, but when you&#39;ve got physical examples right there, it&#39;s easier to get the message across.

Kirk, and others, have made some very good points about older cars in IT. Looking at the &#39;age window&#39; when IT was created provides good insight into what was going on at the time. There&#39;s a reason that they made an age cutoff. I just wish that they would have had the vision to put something in there about how to deal w/ it in 10, 20, ??? years. That being said, I don&#39;t want to see anyone told that the car they have will no longer be eligible to race because it&#39;s too old. I think Evan really hit on something. Don&#39;t issue new log books to anything older than 25 (20?) years old, but grandfather in all the cars that currently have log books. I think that solution strikes a good balance between the two issues. Of course, there will be the case where someone wads up their 1980 Puddlebee, and has three spare tubs at home and a garage full of parts to build another one. I think in that case, you just have to say "No". There is of course the &#39;transplanted roll cage&#39; option.

As for creating &#39;newer&#39; IT cars, and better aligning T and IT, I think it&#39;s a great idea. Do you go so far as to say that you can prep to IT rules, cars that are <5 years old, and race them? I&#39;m not sure. Maybe. I think it&#39;s probably better to make the T rules a true sub-set of the IT rules. For example, only stock parts, no gutting of the interior, remain emission-compliant, etc. for T (probably not too far from what the original IT rules were). I just threw those out there as a couple of examples, certainly not a complete list, and may need to be tweaked further.

An important part would be to roll T and SS into one category. Right now, most of the T3 cars are ITR and some ITS cars. You need ITA and ITB (ITC???) cars. Set up T1 - T5 and be done with it. And don&#39;t let the mfg&#39;s hold the Club hostage again. I also think the T -> IT progression needs to be codified. And that being said, I don&#39;t really see a way of creating a T>IT>Prod>GT progression scheme, at least not the way things are now. Look at EP, it&#39;s a mix of ITA and ITS cars, nothing faster. And find something that&#39;s less than 10 years old that would fit into HP. GT has gone way too far down the tube-frame road to ever make it reasonable to build one out of a tub car. Not only that, just look at how many guys moved from Prod to GT over the last 10 years (w/ the same car) to get a sense of the desire for such a progression. I think that while it may look good on paper, and it may have this ultra-strategic ring to it, there&#39;s no real practicality in it. Nor is it something that the membership may really want.

And I won&#39;t go into my thoughts on the whole Regional/National thing again. I&#39;ve made my position very well known on that issue.

And as Greg said, one of the important things to do, is not dork up IT. I think the ITAC have done a good job in balancing the need to fix some issues w/o going too far and just opening the flood gates (ECU issue notwithstanding).

It&#39;s really too bad that we can&#39;t drive a bottom up strategic plan for IT. And it can&#39;t be done in isolation, it needs to be part of a larger plan for all of the production-based categories, and Club Racing as a whole, above that.

My 5-year vision for what the production-based landscape will look like:

Prod pretty much is gone
BP/DP (and probably AP and CP) are the &#39;new&#39; GT
T1-5 align w/ ITR-C (not directly, but you get the point from my post above)
SS is gone
Regional/National distinction is gone.
ITR, S, and A have the largest fields at the Runoffs.
SM is gone, as all but three of the cars have been wadded up. :rolleyes: :lol:

The one key area that I didn&#39;t mention above is AWD/forced induction. SOMETHING will need to be done to get those cars into IT. The mfg&#39;s are offereing more and more cars w/ this configuration. They&#39;re already in T. Not finding someplace for them in IT will be a big mistake.

[ddewhurst]

***SM is gone, as all but three of the cars have been wadded up. :rolleyes: :lol: ***

& they were racing wheel 2 wheel :014: when they did it to each other. ;)

[Andy Bettencourt]

While I agree 110% that running your PDX&#39;s in conjunction with races is th e&#39;right&#39; way to do it, I submit that at the size the SCCA Regionals are now, it is impossible. NASA can do it because their events are small enough so that they can have two things going at once. An entire run group dedicated to a PDX is impossible in certain areas of the country. In those that it isn&#39;t impossible, it should be done, no doubt.

Creating a road from Touring to IT would result in some more IT classes. T3 cars barely fit into ITR now, nevermind the forced induction/AWD cars that reside in T2. I do think &#39;TTX&#39; could be successful, but if I was interested I could just create it Regionally.

T1-T5 has always been a good idea.

It&#39;s all very interesting and it&#39;s good to see some lurkers weigh in. I think we can just leave IT alone and help the CRB with some ideas on how to get the REST of the house in order.

[Bill Miller]

Andy,

I agree with you. In this case, size does matter. One of the reasons that groups like EMRA and NASA can run their &#39;dual events&#39; is because they&#39;re not drawing huge crowds. But, if you look at what some people say about some of the SCCA races, they&#39;re not drawing huge crowds either. I know that&#39;s not the case on the East coast, but I&#39;m sure that there are plenty of Regions that could integrate a PDX event into a Regional weekend. Of course, that means less track time for the racers, but that should be offset by lower entry fees since they&#39;re spreading it around to the PDX folks.

I&#39;d love to hear from someone that had a lot of experience w/ Solo I. Did anybody ever do an analysis as to why it failed?

And I said that T1-5 is not a direct ITR-C alignment, today, but we should be able to get close. T1/ST should become the new TransAm. Start running production-based cars again and see if you can&#39;t get the mfg&#39;s interested again.

Not perfect Andy, but it&#39;s a place to start. Think about where we started and how we got to PCAs. That took a couple of years and a LOT of work.

[gran racing]

While I agree 110% that running your PDX&#39;s in conjunction with races is th e&#39;right&#39; way to do it, I submit that at the size the SCCA Regionals are now, it is impossible. [/b]

If it&#39;s the right way to do it (which I believe it is), we need to give further thought to how it can be done. I really think there are ways to make it happen which will vary from one region to another. If the event size is too large, make the event a restricted regional. Maybe in some instances it means that there is only one PDX group out on the track, be it novices or experienced, and they only get two run groups during the day but it is priced inexpensively.

I still think a mentor program should be developed.

[Andy Bettencourt]

I think my point is in Region where you can&#39;t fit it, it may not be needed. Push the smaller Regions to incorporate this stuff and build upon their ranks.

[Zneed4speed]

While I agree 110% that running your PDX&#39;s in conjunction with races is th e&#39;right&#39; way to do it, I submit that at the size the SCCA Regionals are now, it is impossible. NASA can do it because their events are small enough so that they can have two things going at once. An entire run group dedicated to a PDX is impossible in certain areas of the country. In those that it isn&#39;t impossible, it should be done, no doubt.

It&#39;s all very interesting and it&#39;s good to see some lurkers weigh in. I think we can just leave IT alone and help the CRB with some ideas on how to get the REST of the house in order.
[/b]

Being an SCCA guy and a Solo guy first I always wondered why the Street Prepared and IT rules couldn&#39;t parallel more so SP could feed IT.

PDX&#39;s/ DEs are "the" thing for this decade. Some good points about how running them with a race can pull people into racing. My Region(I&#39;m on the Board) will hold our 2nd this year 12/1 at Barber. The only issue we have is getting instructors to ride in convertibles without rollbars or cages(we do require arm restraints).
Can&#39;t do them at regional races because we have so many groups and we have the " they can&#39;t be combined even it there is only 2 in that group" mindset. SCCA, though we have mostly reasonable entry fees, also offers less track time than other clubs already. So yeah it&#39;s currently impossible, but the NASA events in the Southeast aren&#39;t small Andy. Two events I ran in this year had over 200 entrants. You can&#39;t compare SCCA events to NASA events. We maybe able to learn from them but at this point there is no comparison. Rather than chance offending anyone here I&#39;ll send that note directly to the ITAC.

Jake mentioned the "low cost" issue again. Maybe the word comparitively should be inserted somewhere there.

[Knestis]

Size isn&#39;t the primary factor in my direct experience, between NASA and SCCA scheduling - looking at NASA MA vs. NC Region. It&#39;s about the schedule.

NASA MA does an amazing job of getting stuff done during the day. An NCR race by comparison is a HUGE amount of sitting around. There are issues at both ends of the continuum of course, and room for criticism of NASA&#39;s safety practices where the schedule has the potential to drive decisions about hot pulls; the roll-on, roll-off process; and other issues. Worker rest is a topic of conversation but at the end of the day, even the huge SARRC/MARRS Double at VIR has the capacity (in terms of track time replacing "dead air") to host PDX or similar activities, if it were a priority.

K

[Andy Bettencourt]

RL - note I didn&#39;t say they were &#39;small&#39;. I said they were "small enough" to use a run group for the PDX. Some SCCA regions can do that, some can&#39;t. As it is now in the NE, many want restricted regionals that cater to the large classes for more track time.

[tnord]

Here in the KC region, we do run PDX&#39;s in conjunction with our regionals. in the past, the regional has been held in july when the days are long. we typically have 6 run groups, and the PDX group is #7. the PDX guys have classroom in the morning while all the racers are going through qualifying, and get a 20 or 25 min session before lunch, and the first session after lunch. the 6 race groups run after that, and the PDX guys get the last session of the day. i think the idea is to get them back after lunch for their session, and they&#39;ll stay around and watch all the races. i think we charge like $175 total for sat and sun. we usually get around 20 entries, so it certainly helps from a financial perspective.

it&#39;s probably not possible in many other regions, but i would further suggest combining race groups in order to fit a PDX group if at all possible. imo, it&#39;s important enough that some small sacrifices are worth making in order to recruit new drivers/racers. do other divisions run single regionals? are the single regionals or nationals smaller events? pick the smaller events, run the PDX groups on sat during practice/qual, and let them run for FREE if they work the event on Sunday.

i used to do solo 1 type stuff with Midwestern Council. i did it in a street car that the bank owned. iirc, the SCCA solo 1 rules required a roll bar/cage. that just doesn&#39;t work for the majority of people interested in DE events.

i love the trans-am idea Bill. somebody work on that.

i did start a bit of a mentor program this year, and think it warrants further development next year.

[gran racing]

I think my point is in Region where you can&#39;t fit it, it may not be needed.[/b]

I&#39;m curious how you are defining "may not be needed". Is it simply that these regions are currently getting enough entrants? If you take a look at our club&#39;s membership, it is not growing and our membership base is not exactly young. Since we&#39;re talking strategic planning, I do think this is needed across the club&#39;s regions even where many events do well. Take a look at the demographics chart (page 9). 30% of our membership base is over the age of 46 years old. I can&#39;t help but chuckle that at NASA events I feel pretty old and SCCA events I feel young. (I&#39;m 33.)

SCCA Demographics (http://ams.scca.com/netforum/eweb/scca_content/2007convention/membership%20demographics.pdf)

[Jeremy Billiel]

Since everyone knows that ITC is all but dead, what would happen if you put them in ITB at the lower process weight?

While we are not talking about IT, get rid of the 8,000 open wheel classes with 1 entry each.

Here is my wish list
1. Remove the National/Regional differences
2. Top 25 classes go to the runoffs
3. Eliminate many undersubscribed classes across the club
4. Eliminate SS
5. Create a feeder into IT and from IT into something else
6. Simplify Production rule set
7. Develop a better HPDE program
8. Reduce the # of races in each region to minimize the financial losses and draw better car counts/event.

Done - I am now off of my soap box. :happy204: :happy204:

[Andy Bettencourt]

I&#39;m curious how you are defining "may not be needed". Is it simply that these regions are currently getting enough entrants? If you take a look at our club&#39;s membership, it is not growing and our membership base is not exactly young. Since we&#39;re talking strategic planning, I do think this is needed across the club&#39;s regions even where many events do well. Take a look at the demographics chart (page 9). 30% of our membership base is over the age of 46 years old. I can&#39;t help but chuckle that at NASA events I feel pretty old and SCCA events I feel young. (I&#39;m 33.)

SCCA Demographics (http://ams.scca.com/netforum/eweb/scca_content/2007convention/membership%20demographics.pdf) [/b]

What I mean is that it may not be needed to &#39;force&#39; a PDX into a Regional event by giving it it&#39;s own run group. Seperate days like we have up here can fill the pipeline. In areas where the pipleline flow needs to be bigger, they probably have events whee they can fit in an extra run group.

[lateapex911]

Interesting list, Jeremy. We&#39;ve seen some good discussion here, but it&#39;s interesting that it&#39;s been mostly non IT related, as evidenced by the above list. I will certainly boil it all down in case the CRB wants to see it.

Since most of the discussion has centered around larger club issues, I urge you all to take a moment and shoot your friendly BoD person an email. They are charged with governing the direction of the ship.

Finally, merging ITC into ITB is tricky, as many ITC cars can&#39;t get to ITB process weight...which is why they are in ITC to start with. And adding weight to all the ITB cars to hit ITC performance is going to hurt the many to serve the few. I&#39;d suggest that the class will eventually run itself to extinction, but for now, it doesn&#39;t hurt anyone, and it helps entries.

[Matt Rowe]

I&#39;d love to hear from someone that had a lot of experience w/ Solo I. Did anybody ever do an analysis as to why it failed?[/b]
Who said it failed? It and the ruleset it was based on was used as one of the cornerstones of the Time Trials program of which those events continue to grow. The success of the Solo I program (and TT level 3&4 events they have become) are highly regional though due to the efforts of people within those regions to grow the programs. At heart the ruleset isn&#39;t a problem and neither is the PDX rules that are also part of the time trials program. Yes there can be improvements made in the ease of implementation and those are ongoing but the single biggest thing holding us back are getting more people to organize and staff these events.

The customers are out there. Dates can be hard to get but they can be found. Initial profitability is an issue, you have to have a region that afford to lose a little at first while they establish that customer base and their reputation. But ultimately it comes down to having a core group of people that decide to put together these events and target that market.

There are a couple strong Solo I programs (now TT) that continue to bring in new drivers and they exist primarily through the efforts of a few core people. As an example in my own area we have a pool of roughly 300-400 drivers entered in TT events over the last 5 years and out of that group I can think of at least 15 that have gone on to participate in club racing, myself included. Meanwhile the other drivers are still generating revenue for the club and more importantly increasing exposure to SCCA among the automtive savvy public.

My point is the tools are there. They need polishing but there is no need to reinvent the wheel. What we need is people who will pick those tools rather than stand back and say the work needs to be done. That is not directed at anyone in particular but you can&#39;t expect national to put on events. Even the regions don&#39;t put together events, it is people that spearhead them and without people stepping up to make this happen it doesn&#39;t matter what the plan is, it is not going to succeed

[shwah]

To the discussion about T ->IT progression.

Does it really matter if ST, T1 and T2 don&#39;t fit well into IT? At the budget required to run those cars, I don&#39;t see nearly as many folks looking to move to IT when they age out. They will just build current cars and keep going. Further down the food chain T3 (and maybe a feed T2) could feed ITR, T4 (and maybe a few T3) could feed ITS, T5 (and maybe a few T4 could feed ITA), maybe a few T5 could feed ITB.

It would not have to be a class Tx=class ITx deal. Just run them through the process and class them automatically 1 year before they age out if they are in the top 5 of T class car counts.

[JoshS]

A couple of points about SS/T:

It&#39;s the SS competitors, not the manufacturers, who didn&#39;t want to see SS rules merged with T (i.e., they don&#39;t want SSB/SSC to become T4/T5). That&#39;s because it&#39;ll raise costs -- whereas people must run stock shocks now, under the T rules, they would have to go out and buy expensive aftermarket shocks. So it was the members who put the kibosh on that idea.

What the manufacturers didn&#39;t like was the proposal that along with the abovementioned plan, SSB and T3 were to merge ... in other words, SSB cars would be slotted into T3, and SSC would be T4. The manufacturers wrote a letter to the CRB/BOD stating that they didn&#39;t want their SSB cars competiting with their T3 cars (i.e., SSB MX-5s competiting against T3 RX-8s, SSB Civic Sis competiting against T3 S2000s, etc.)

On the topic of progression from SS/T to IT, aged out cars, and cars too fast for ITR: it is getting cheaper and cheaper to campaign a 10-year-old C5 Corvette Z06. These are getting relatively inexpensive (not by SSC standards, for sure, but not bad compared with newish T3 cars), and are getting slowly less competitive, and aged out, of T1. While I agree that most of those drivers are likely to move on to bigger & badder T1 cars, there is about to be a glut of Z06 Corvettes in race trim on the market with nowhere to race them. Why *not* IT? In the larger sense of a club-wide classing system, it&#39;s only appropriate that all aged-out SS/T cars have an appropriate place to play in the same club, and I can&#39;t imagine why we IT people wouldn&#39;t want to welcome them with open arms.

[Bill Miller]

A couple of points about SS/T:

It&#39;s the SS competitors, not the manufacturers, who didn&#39;t want to see SS rules merged with T (i.e., they don&#39;t want SSB/SSC to become T4/T5). That&#39;s because it&#39;ll raise costs -- whereas people must run stock shocks now, under the T rules, they would have to go out and buy expensive aftermarket shocks. So it was the members who put the kibosh on that idea.

What the manufacturers didn&#39;t like was the proposal that along with the abovementioned plan, SSB and T3 were to merge ... in other words, SSB cars would be slotted into T3, and SSC would be T4. The manufacturers wrote a letter to the CRB/BOD stating that they didn&#39;t want their SSB cars competiting with their T3 cars (i.e., SSB MX-5s competiting against T3 RX-8s, SSB Civic Sis competiting against T3 S2000s, etc.)

On the topic of progression from SS/T to IT, aged out cars, and cars too fast for ITR: it is getting cheaper and cheaper to campaign a 10-year-old C5 Corvette Z06. These are getting relatively inexpensive (not by SSC standards, for sure, but not bad compared with newish T3 cars), and are getting slowly less competitive, and aged out, of T1. While I agree that most of those drivers are likely to move on to bigger & badder T1 cars, there is about to be a glut of Z06 Corvettes in race trim on the market with nowhere to race them. Why *not* IT? In the larger sense of a club-wide classing system, it&#39;s only appropriate that all aged-out SS/T cars have an appropriate place to play in the same club, and I can&#39;t imagine why we IT people wouldn&#39;t want to welcome them with open arms.
[/b]


And that&#39;s what killed the plan. The mfg&#39;s held the club hostage. They threatened to withhold support for racers. In essence, they were going to take their ball and go home.

[pgipson]

I think we can just leave IT alone and help the CRB with some ideas on how to get the REST of the house in order.[/b]

In the thread on the Strategic Vision for IT, that has to be the defining quote.

My perspective on NASA is a bit different I guess, and is certainly colored by own experiences over the years. My experiences tell me that NASA cares not one whit about racers. Their bread and butter is HPDE. They will cut racer track time and run groups in order to make their HPDE schedules and make room for outside (paying) groups. Try running every closed wheel class at once on a 1.5 mile roval track. Out here racecars are about 15 % of the NASA entrants.

The other thing that often goes unnoticed is their scheduling plan. Track time starts when the prior group&#39;s checker falls. So if takes 5 minutes to get everyone off and on the track, and you have 20 minutes guess what you get?

[Dave Zaslow]

Recruiting new members, whatever age they might be, is always needed.

The NASA HPDE&#39;s I&#39;ve been to had a TT attached to them. No separate TT practice, just the last runs of the day were the TT. Any signed-off driver doing the HPDE could sign up for the TT. This kept things interesting at the end of the day when the HPDE drivers were getting a bit tired. That is one way to &#39;add value&#39; to a PDX day. Another might be a restricted regional where only one or two race groups were sent out to put on a show for the PDX&#39;ers.

The new members may want a wider/different choice in the cars they want to race. We should be proactive in looking at the cars aging into IT availability and classing those cars as it is a big hurdle to a newbie. Faster may not be better as it will require the IT ruleset to look at the safety requirements that go with those faster cars. I would look at taking a wide spectrum of cars within the existing classes


DZ

[flaboy]

I hate hearing all this talk about ITC being all but dead....it&#39;s still pretty strong in the south east. I quess we&#39;ll always be "red headed stepchild" to the other IT classes.

Tim

[tnord]

i don&#39;t think i&#39;ve seen an ITC car all year Tim. it&#39;s not the read headed stepchild, it really is dying a natural death. if it can survive in your area for another 20 years, more power to you, but it&#39;s pretty much gone around here.

[gran racing]

Here&#39;s a little project for you guys. Create a VTS for Improved Touring cars or at least define the fields that are required on the existing VTS. Based on previous discussions, there are a several fields on that darn thing that you do not need when classifying a new car. Having been through the VTS process myself, it is a bit intimidating and even more challenging trying to locate this information (even with a factory shop manual, a Honda dealership willing to assist in providing the information).

[Chris Wire]

I&#39;d hate to see an age limitation on cars. I actually think it&#39;s pretty cool to see the mix of cars and ages out there all racing against each other. As others have said, I don&#39;t think older cars should be thrown a bone for various parts allowances but don&#39;t ban them from the category.
[/b]

+1 - Well said. :023:

[jlinfert]

I hate hearing all this talk about ITC being all but dead....it&#39;s still pretty strong in the south east. I quess we&#39;ll always be "red headed stepchild" to the other IT classes.

Tim
[/b]
Tim,
As you well know ITC is NOT dead or even dying here in Central Florida. I mean 11 cars and 14 drivers signed up for Daytona next week! It&#39;s a pity that it seems to be dying elsewhere. Our slow little momentum cars are fantastic trainers for good driving skills.

[Ed Funk]

ITC isn&#39;t dead in the Northeast either, except where being forced to run with the Spec Pinatas!
8 ITC&#39;s at Watkins Glen last weekend in a 4 class field of 27 cars. ITB had 15.

[Stan]

Point / Counterpoint

1. NASA now has 14 and still growing. I do agree that 3 min per race is simply not too much to ask.

2. In big regions this works VERY well. We couldn&#39;t have an all in one here in the NE. Simply not enough time.

3. Bids were submitted, Topeka was chosen. It hasn&#39;t worked well and I bet they learn from their mistake.

4. NASA is no different. Competitors police their own patch. You see something wrong, fix it.

5. Consolodation could certainly happen in some areas. Those regions need to make a business decision.

6. You don&#39;t HAVE to go for two weeks. It IS the National Championship after all.

7. Prepared? PERFECT for NASA types. Check out the rules. Motor swaps, wings etc.

IT has no real problems on the grand scale. The problems are in other classes and the lack of participation. The old gaurd hangs on with a white-knuckle grip which really prevents new cars being built. Trying to listen to the legacy customers while creating opportuinty for newbs is tough. NASA doesn&#39;t have this problem - YET.
[/b]
Well said, Andy. I especially like your conclusions, where I think you hit the nail squarely on the head.

I had a good chat with Bryan Cohn about the NASA Championships the other day. Bryan is NASA&#39;s National Competition Director...sort of Terry Ozment, Jeremy Thoennes and the CRB all rolled into one. Anyway, NASA has 39 nation-wide classes (compared to 36 IIRC for SCCA), and like us they are struggling with consolidation and the proliferation of local-Regional classes.

In SCCA only 2 of the 26 classes competing for a spot in the 2008 Runoffs failed to hit 3 entries per race, and GT3 was at 2.9. Even if we winnow down to 24 classes we are right back to where we were before, with several classes perennially squeaking by at the minimum participation level to retain their National status. That "complacency" is why I think all GCR-recognized classes should have the opportunity to run Nationals and compete for a spot at the Runoffs. IMO it is simply not in the best interest of the Club to have classes with 50 or fewer active members holding the Runoffs hostage to their dreams of a National Championship.

Stan

[Stan]

While we are not talking about IT, get rid of the 8,000 open wheel classes with 1 entry each.[/b]
It&#39;s not the formula classes you should be worried about, Jeremy. Here is a list of all Runoffs eligible classes and the total number of individual drivers who entered a National race in 2007. As you can see, only the brand new FB class is down near the bottom. The other 8000 formula classes are all relatively healthy compared to a number of sedan classes. ;)

Formula classes in BOLD.

SM 460
SRF 364
FV 140
GT1 122
FA 114
FC 114
EP 113
FF 109
FP 99
FM 94
DSR 88
GT2 81
F5 79
AS 78
CSR 71
S2 70
FE 70
GTL 65
HP 64
T2 64
SSB 61
SSC 57
GT3 53
T3 46
T1 45
GP 37
BP 19
DP 14
FB 9
ST 9

[planet6racing]

And, FB is a very new class and I know many people (myself included) are waiting to see how these things run. My interest is definitely picqued by this class...

[gran racing]

Those number surprised me a bit. What are the participation numbers for IT?

[Andy Bettencourt]

Stan may have them but understand there are WAY more Regional races than National so the comparison may not be apples to apples.

BUT, having said that, in the 13 NARRC races this year, ITA has had 208 entrants. IN JUST THE NARRC. I laugh at national participation numbers...but then again, IT is the best ruleset for me.

[tnord]

wtf is FB?

i consider myself pretty in tune with this stuff, and i don&#39;t even know what FB is. is that the new F1000? why do they keep changing the names? FSCCA became FE, and F1000 into FB?

[lateapex911]

That "complacency" is why I think all GCR-recognized classes should have the opportunity to run Nationals and compete for a spot at the Runoffs. IMO it is simply not in the best interest of the Club to have classes with 50 or fewer active members holding the Runoffs hostage to their dreams of a National Championship.

Stan [/b]

You hit the nail on the head there Stan...

It can be argued whether adding IT to the Runoffs eligible mix would be good for IT or not, but this current path of protecting the ever decreasing numbers is clearly not going to end well.

Now, IF IT became eligible, would you see good IT fields and races at the Runoffs? In Kansas? I dunno.... At Mid Ohio? Abso- freakin-lutely.

On one hand, in the big picture, the club would be well served by allowing the market to decide. But, on the other, the club needs to accurately address the larger issues and resolve those, because it needs to understand why things are the way they are, and rulesets are just part of the equation.

[Stan]

Bill, about 30 FBs have been homologated so far (most in the last half of the season), with a number of others in the works. I predict that by the end of 2008 we will have near 50 folks running FBs.

Dave, the Club only started counting Regional entries last year, and we do not yet have good numbers on individual Regional classes...of which the Club tracks 72 plus Vintage. :o

Andy, I am interested in where you find that 208 number for the NARRC ITA championships. The NARRC points page (http://www.scca-nnjr.org/download/narrc-points.pdf) lists 73 competitors through 13 races (congrats on your Numero Uno spot!). Am I missing something?

That said, I count 300 ITA competitors in just the SARRC, MARRS, NARRC and San Francisco Region. Based on that there must be at least 500-600 ITA drivers nation-wide. If a quarter of them were interested in running Nationals (about the ratio of SM drivers who run Nationals) then ITA could rank in the top 3 or 4 classes if the current GCR Regional-only classes could run Nationals.

Travis, FB and FE are the GCR 9.3.28 required identification markings for their respective classes.

Stan

[Andy Bettencourt]

Andy, I am interested in where you find that 208 number for the NARRC ITA championships. The NARRC points page (http://www.scca-nnjr.org/download/narrc-points.pdf) lists 73 competitors through 13 races (congrats on your Numero Uno spot!). Am I missing something?

[/b]

I was quoting the total number of starts. I had 12. Isn&#39;t that what you guys count in participation numbers? ITA in the NARRC had a 13 starter per event this year.

[Stan]

Thanks Andy. Yes, for many purposes the Club counts entrants as you use the term. However, that number can be deceiving about how deep the pool of talent is in a class. For instance, GP had 162 total National entries this year, but those were accounted for by only 37 drivers nation-wide. Add in Regional-only drivers and we are at maybe 50. ITA has ten times that many drivers, but we might not know that if we only had access to the total number of entries. That&#39;s why I am trying to actually count the drivers.


It can be argued whether adding IT to the Runoffs eligible mix would be good for IT or not, but this current path of protecting the ever decreasing numbers is clearly not going to end well.[/b]
Exactly, Jake. While many National racers argue passionately that the Club should stop adding new National classes, it is only by adding classes that the National program remains viable at all. This graphic illustrates where we&#39;d be had the BoD not added new National classes over the years. BTW, the lines point to the END of the first year of National eligibility for the class in question. As you can see, most of the time adding in a new class adds to the total without a corresponding drop in other classes. In other words, adding new National classes brings in new drivers, not just steals drivers from existing National classes.

http://www.dauntlessracing.com/forums/Forums/Total%20National%20Paticipation%2083-07.GIF


Now, IF IT became eligible, would you see good IT fields and races at the Runoffs? In Kansas? I dunno.... At Mid Ohio? Abso- freakin-lutely.[/b]
It&#39;s not just IT guys, Jake. The overwhelming input I see from National racers is that they&#39;d like to see the Runoffs move to someplace further east towards the center of gravity of the membership. I like to use this graphic to illustrate the point. This map shows population density by county. The darker the color the denser the population. Topeka may be near the geographic center, but clearly just lengthens nearly everyone&#39;s tow.

http://www.dauntlessracing.com/forums/Forums/SCCA%20Map.GIF

And yes, there are larger issues at play than just some rule sets, but that&#39;s a good place to start. To me it is axiomatic that a healthy Runoffs emerges from a robust National racing program. In turn a healthy National program has to have a healthy Regional program or it cannot last. And finally, adding in the currently Regional-only classes is the long term fix that I believe the Club needs to assure a healthy Regional to National to Runoffs paradigm.

Stan

[Zneed4speed]

Wow great graphics Stan!
A West coast guy that hears the East coasters too.

[JoshS]

Wow, great stuff, Stan! That first chart is pretty telling.

BTW, I just wanted to say that a couple of months ago, we were able to count at least 25 ITR drivers so far this year, halfway into the class&#39; first season. Seems to be good compared to the national drivers in the other new 2007 classes you counted, but I&#39;m not sure if it&#39;s reasonable to compare regional drivers to national. Any feeling for that?

[Stan]

Well, I&#39;m pleased you guys appreciated the graphics. As they say, a picture&#39;s worth a thousand words.

WRT moving the Runoffs further east, I don&#39;t know that I "get it" so much as I understand and agree with the larger issues. After all, HPT is a day&#39;s drive closer for me each direction. That said, it makes sense to me that the Club should place the event so as to attract as many racers as possible, and HPT just isn&#39;t that place IMO.

Josh, IIRC I&#39;ve counted up at least 30 ITR drivers so far, and that&#39;s with the season still underway. ITR may never rival ITA for total numbers, but I&#39;m guessing it&#39;ll be a solid class.

Stan

[RX3]

Stan

Why don&#39;t we just drop National racing all together? National races for the most part do not make money and come with lots of baggage that makes them harder to put on. And we could let the classes with the most cars in them go to a championship race. If IT cars are is not eligible so be it. But get ride of the national racing program. The tail should not wag the dog.

[gran racing]

One issue with that is how would regions handle race weekends? In some areas, this would cause scheduling issues.

[Stan]

Whether Nationals make money for the hosting Region is highly variable. In some parts of the country they do not, while in other parts of the country Regions vie for National races to make any money at all, as on average Nationals attract about 25 more entries than do Regionals (~150 versus ~125). That said, Regional races are the bread-n-butter for most Regions, as there are more than three times as many Regional races held each year than there are National races. In the end, the National racing program has been the focus of the Club for 60 years, and I think you will find stiff resistance to doing away with it.

To get back to Jake&#39;s original question, "...what ARE the problems facing IT?", I agree with Andy&#39;s assessment that there really aren&#39;t any immediate major problems facing the category. ITC is struggling due to a couple of factors, but not because there is any real flaw to the class. THE growth in new IT cars is with guys picking up a 4-6 year old used street car to built to run in ITA or ITS, while there is a perceived lack of attractive cars like that for ITC. Every class in the Club that does not have a ready and affordable supply of new cars it is potentially facing the same challenge.

IMO the one thing that I think puts a cap on IT&#39;s ultimate potential is not being able to go to the Runoffs. Judging from the ARRC, there is clearly interest among a strong contingent in each IT class in a National Championship, yet the category is arbitrarily kept on the second string, at least so far as the prestige of its championship is concerned. Contrary to some fears, permitting SM to go National has not damaged the class. Folks are still building and racing them in great numbers. The rules have tightened up from when it was Regional-only. And Regions have to figure out ways to fit them all in ... a delightful problem to have! If all GCR-recognized classes were eligible to contest the Runoffs, there would still be a dozen that don&#39;t make the cut, and just as today, those could go to the ARRC.

Stan

[Andy Bettencourt]

there would still be a dozen that don&#39;t make the cut, and just as today, those could go to the ARRC.

Stan [/b]

...or the Mid-Ohio IT-Fest...or something we may be cooking up at WGI.... :)

[RX3]

I have over 250 cars for my regional race this weekend. I will most likely have 300 in October and 400 car in November. I never see that many car at a national. And i have been doing this for some time now. A 150 field is no a good turn out, but will most likely get the bill payed if you charge enought.

[Stan]

Yep...I was using ARRC in a generic sense. :birra:

[RX3]

Let SSCA PRO Racing put on the National Races. That way it will not take long for it to go down the tubes.

I am going to race more cars this weekend than they did at the SIC last weekend. Why is that?

[Stan]

Yeah Robin...we know you got it good out there. Same as us in SFR, where we had 397 at our Regional a couple of weeks ago.

No need to be hate&#39;n on our less fortunate brethren, though. :D

[tnord]

Contrary to some fears, permitting SM to go National has not damaged the class. Folks are still building and racing them in great numbers. The rules have tightened up from when it was Regional-only. And Regions have to figure out ways to fit them all in ... a delightful problem to have! If all GCR-recognized classes were eligible to contest the Runoffs, there would still be a dozen that don&#39;t make the cut, and just as today, those could go to the ARRC.

Stan
[/b]

as someone who has very closely watched SM for the last 4-5yrs, i think you&#39;re way off. ever since SM went national, we&#39;ve seen participation fall off by about 30% in this division. overall participation numbers may be steady or slightly falling, but look at the #&#39;s for the first to the second year of nationals, i don&#39;t think it&#39;s good. i tried to find it on SCCA.com, but it appears the link has been taken down. i do know the runoffs entries are about 30% lower this year.

even the rules adjustments that in and of themselves were positive moves (cam clarification, clutch rule) have ended up hurting the class because they&#39;ve all been against the bread and butter 1.6 car and put it at an overall disadvantage. the cost to be competitive has tripled for the car itself, and around 7x for consumables like tires.

the regional classes like SSM have maintained the &#39;spirit&#39; of the initial SM class better than the national ruleset, and i think is very much like the current IT crowd, thus their strong numbers. still very competitive, but national SM is whole nother prep level above, which i don&#39;t think even most of the big names on the national IT scene quite understand.

just like going national i don&#39;t think was healthy for SM, i don&#39;t think it would be for IT either. but, taking every class in the GCR and taking the top 25 to the big show would be healthy for the club overall, and that i would support.






I have over 250 cars for my regional race this weekend. I will most likely have 300 in October and 400 car in November. I never see that many car at a national. And i have been doing this for some time now. A 150 field is no a good turn out, but will most likely get the bill payed if you charge enought.
[/b]

and if it wasn&#39;t for national racing in the kansas, nebraska, iowa, missouri, oklahoma, tennessee, and arkansas quadrant, we wouldn&#39;t have racing at all.

we would LOVE it if we could get 150 entrants for every national event, and even 100 for every regional. as it is now, we probably stand at an average of 130 per national, and 75 per regional event (which lose lots of money, subsidized by the nationals).

[lateapex911]

I have to be honest that I don&#39;t know the myriad of rules and requirements for going to the Runoffs, but I find it hilarious when I go to a National, say at Lime Rock, where we have a pretty good number of competitors, and I watch guys pull off after the middle of the race. In perfectly good cars
.
"Why did he do that" I ask my seasoned National friend watching with me.
"Because he only needs XX points/starts/whatever to qualify for the Runoffs."

Huh?

Then I look at Runoffs results, and I see lots of classes with HUGE time spreads, and they aren&#39;t filled...or in some cases, even close to being filled.

To me, that seems like a broken system.

For the club as a whole to flourish, it needs to allow those that want to race, to race. Having guys show up and run a half race the bare minimum of times just so they can go to the Runoffs....and finish well back (for the example I noted earlier) seems silly.

Anothe issue I used to think was important, but is slipping more and more into oblivion every year, is the fact that our little club racing world gets put on TV once a year.

I watch the races, and sometimes I wonder what the average interested, but not indoctinated into SCCA viewer thinks. "Yawn"? "Is this vintage racing"? Some races play well on TV, but there sure do seem to be lots of less than full fields. Thats a big waste of precious media exposure.

Even me, an SCCA guy, if faced with the prospect of setting my TIVO for a British Touring Car race or an SCCA Runoffs race, would probably choose the BTCC on the odds that the racing would be better.

And thats not what our National Championship should be.

To me, it&#39;s clear making IT National would help the club. Whether it would help IT is, maybe, a slightly different story.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Trav - what are the numbers telling you?

1. If 100 drivers entered SM before it went National and now those 100 drivers are just split between national and regional, then there was no net loss.

2. If entrants are down a certain % across the board this year due to economic factors, then you have to consider that decline as well.

3. The first year SM went national (2006), a decent amount of drivers ran both a national and a regional program. This year they made a decision on where they want to spend their money.

I contend SM participation is not down at all, it&#39;s just measured in two different buckets now. That coupled with the overall decrease in participation due to gas prices etc, makes it look like numbers are lower. They may be, but not significantly.

[tnord]

Trav - what are the numbers telling you?

1. If 100 drivers entered SM before it went National and now those 100 drivers are just split between national and regional, then there was no net loss.

2. If entrants are down a certain % across the board this year due to economic factors, then you have to consider that decline as well.

3. The first year SM went national (2006), a decent amount of drivers ran both a national and a regional program. This year they made a decision on where they want to spend their money.

I contend SM participation is not down at all, it&#39;s just measured in two different buckets now. That coupled with the overall decrease in participation due to gas prices etc, makes it look like numbers are lower. They may be, but not significantly.
[/b]

andy the numbers tell me things are significantly worse. but i acknowledge and recognize our huge land mass in the center of the country can be different than *everywhere else.* i also tried to address my post to the national portion of SM, not the class as a whole. even if the numbers are the same as before, further dividing up the class is not good imo.

20 entrants in a single class > 10 entrants each in two classes. we all know this.

the year before it went national, we&#39;d usually get 25-35 and our own run group. a year after nationals, entries are in the 10-18 range for a national race not at topeka, and 5-8 SMs for a regional race.

[Dave Burchfield]

I think Jake&#39;s comment goes quite to the point. Yes, IT going National would be good for "The Club"
However, I feel more strongly than Jake that, considering the current state of affairs in the club, I fear what may happen to IT if it does go national.

To speak to the matter of what is wrong with IT, I am at a bit of a loss to think of anything of any significance. After competing in the class for over 15 years, I enjoy the stable rules package, change that is slow to happen, and a logical evolution of the classes.

My greatest fear is if IT does go national, the powers that be may begin making changes to the IT rules to allow for a "more logical progression" to the current National classes. We may be just best left alone.

[JoshS]

I have to be honest that I don&#39;t know the myriad of rules and requirements for going to the Runoffs, but I find it hilarious when I go to a National, say at Lime Rock, where we have a pretty good number of competitors, and I watch guys pull off after the middle of the race. In perfectly good cars
.
"Why did he do that" I ask my seasoned National friend watching with me.
"Because he only needs XX points/starts/whatever to qualify for the Runoffs."

Huh?[/b]

In my corner of the world (NorPac/SoPac, SS and T classes), I&#39;ve never seen anyone do that. Maybe that&#39;s only in the classes with more fragile cars?

I do know SS/T folks who do the minimum number of races (I&#39;ve never been one of them) ... but I&#39;ve never seen anyone quit a race in the middle because he didn&#39;t need to finish it.

[tnord]

I think Jake&#39;s comment goes quite to the point. Yes, IT going National would be good for "The Club"
However, I feel more strongly than Jake that, considering the current state of affairs in the club, I fear what may happen to IT if it does go national.

To speak to the matter of what is wrong with IT, I am at a bit of a loss to think of anything of any significance. After competing in the class for over 15 years, I enjoy the stable rules package, change that is slow to happen, and a logical evolution of the classes.

My greatest fear is if IT does go national, the powers that be may begin making changes to the IT rules to allow for a "more logical progression" to the current National classes. We may be just best left alone.
[/b]

don&#39;t forget Runoffs/Rewards Weight for who ever wins.




In my corner of the world (NorPac/SoPac, SS and T classes), I&#39;ve never seen anyone do that. Maybe that&#39;s only in the classes with more fragile cars?

I do know SS/T folks who do the minimum number of races (I&#39;ve never been one of them) ... but I&#39;ve never seen anyone quit a race in the middle because he didn&#39;t need to finish it.
[/b]

i&#39;ve seen it happen more than once.

[Andy Bettencourt]

don&#39;t forget Runoffs/Rewards Weight for who ever wins.

[/b]

Not in IT. The rules don&#39;t allow for it...thank god.

[tnord]

Andy as someone who was involved with the add&#39;l weight on the 1.6 after the runoffs, what in SM allows this to happen but prevents it in IT?

[Andy Bettencourt]

Andy as someone who was involved with the add&#39;l weight on the 1.6 after the runoffs, what in SM allows this to happen but prevents it in IT? [/b]

The rules. Weight changes in IT are established unless there is some sort of class equity issue. No tweaking to get everyone on the head of a pin.

[tnord]

how are the weights any less established in SM?

[Andy Bettencourt]

how are the weights any less established in SM? [/b]

Read the ITCS Trav. It&#39;s specifically called out.

[Z3_GoCar]

...
It&#39;s not just IT guys, Jake. The overwhelming input I see from National racers is that they&#39;d like to see the Runoffs move to someplace further east towards the center of gravity of the membership. I like to use this graphic to illustrate the point. This map shows population density by county. The darker the color the denser the population. Topeka may be near the geographic center, but clearly just lengthens nearly everyone&#39;s tow.

http://www.dauntlessracing.com/forums/Forums/SCCA%20Map.GIF

And yes, there are larger issues at play than just some rule sets, but that&#39;s a good place to start. To me it is axiomatic that a healthy Runoffs emerges from a robust National racing program. In turn a healthy National program has to have a healthy Regional program or it cannot last. And finally, adding in the currently Regional-only classes is the long term fix that I believe the Club needs to assure a healthy Regional to National to Runoffs paradigm.

Stan
[/b]

I think you&#39;re dealing with a chicken-egg situation concerning national class racing and moving the run-off East. Do more national class racers live East of the Mississippi because the run-off&#39;s, with the exception of the last few years, have always been there? Or would moving the run-offs further West encourage even more participation from West-coast members? What I do know is that there&#39;s more Cal-club members going to Toepeka this year than last; probably more then ever attended than when it was at Road Atlanta. I like the split traveling run-off idea. Imagine the a run-off at Laguna-Seca, Infineon, or Miller. Miller&#39;s full course would make an awesome run-off track, too bad it&#39;s not East of the Mississippi though.

[Andy Bettencourt]

I think you&#39;re dealing with a chicken-egg situation concerning national class racing and moving the run-off East. Do more national class racers live East of the Mississippi because the run-off&#39;s, with the exception of the last few years, have always been there? Or would moving the run-offs further West encourage even more participation from West-coast members? What I do know is that there&#39;s more Cal-club members going to Toepeka this year than last; probably more then ever attended than when it was at Road Atlanta. I like the split traveling run-off idea. Imagine the a run-off at Laguna-Seca, Infineon, or Miller. Miller&#39;s full course would make an awesome run-off track, too bad it&#39;s not East of the Mississippi though. [/b]

James,

That map is not representative of drivers who attend the runoffs, but of pure population density. Would more Left-Coasters attend if it was at Laguna? Sure - but at what cost to the vast majority of members?

It&#39;s a tough call. Indy baby!

[Z3_GoCar]

That&#39;s why the rotation. All GCR defined classes would have a place, to run; split between a Formula RO, Production/GT racing slick RO, and Stock/Touring radial tire RO. Three years East, Mid-West, and West. With fewer classes to run each event, dates are easier to book for just a long three day weekend. I know the BOD won&#39;t go for it. It&#39;s further fragmetation, as if there&#39;s not enough of the production vs formula as it is. Still, more room for more classes, 6/9 years your run-off is within 1000 miles, more track variety, and higher RO participation nationally. There&#39;s some really good reasons to consider it, there&#39;s also some down sides to consider. There&#39;s no better recruiting tool than an accessible national championship.

[gran racing]

Even me, an SCCA guy, if faced with the prospect of setting my TIVO for a British Touring Car race or an SCCA Runoffs race, would probably choose the BTCC on the odds that the racing would be better.[/b]

Probably? You&#39;re so full of it. ;) Then this year being at Heartland Park - a track I find boring to watch racing to begin with...

[shwah]

Well, it is nice to see that in general we think that IT is pretty healthy.

As to the &#39;new&#39; topic that has developed - National Club Racing.
I love the idea of a rotating, or multi-event National Championship. Lots of tracks come to mind right away - both RAs, Mid-O, VIR, Laguna. I think the geography is against us on creating a 3 race championship points series (3 weeks apart in different areas) to decide the champ, but man that would be cool if we could pull it off - the front runners will find a way to get to each event, you could split the classes and run fewer groups at each location to cut down on time required to make the show each time out, more local mid packers will make the event.... But yeah that would not work.

I don&#39;t buy that National will kill IT, but do agree that it would do more benefit for National Club Racing than for IT.

The class proliferation is stupid. I don&#39;t care how well people think FE or FB look in the first year, we should not be creating classes without a plan to consolidate/eliminate old ones (although at least FB was created based on member input, rather than an extention of Enterprises).

&#39;Race&#39; classes
FF, FC, S2 are running antique power plants that are not reasonable to prep and maintain.
FB addresses much of this, as does the current DSR, with motors designed to be light, high revving, reliable and powerful for thier weight - without being outrageously stressed.
FV, SRF are competitive, but again are running a power plant from another era.
FA, CSR, SE, FM
Why can we not make:
Fast and slow wing cars = FA, FB
Spec wing cars = FE
Fast and slow bodied cars = CSR, DSR
Spec bodied cars = SRF w/Zetec power plants (see FC alternative power plant), hell these could be bone stock and last forever...
OK - 6 classes with lots of choices for people that want &#39;real&#39; race cars.

&#39;Production&#39; classes
Who in the membership was asking for Prepared, or ST?
Why do we have SS and T classes
Why is there no alighment between SS/T>IT>P>GT?
Narrow this down to 3 prep levels. SS or T (pick one) > IT > P or GT (pick one)
The nearly stock crowd needs to reel in the RR shocks.
The IT ruleset acomplishes what was attempted with LP Prod.
The full prep Prod cars are as developed as GT cars, why do we need both.
5 classes at each prep level gives us 15 total. Add in SM (when this dies create another &#39;spec&#39; class - I think it is good to have one spec type production car class), and we have 16.

Look at that 22 classes, and a designed progression for mass produced cars from lowest to highest prep level.

Next project - reel in the million classes in AutoX and create some alignment w/Club Racing.

[lateapex911]

I think you&#39;re dealing with a chicken-egg situation concerning national class racing and moving the run-off East. Do more national class racers live East of the Mississippi because the run-off&#39;s, ...........[/b]

I doubt that people are moving east because of National racing, but, I do think that the national racing crowd has been nurtured more in the east due to the long standing Road Atlanta, then Mid Ohio Runoffs location.


Or would moving the run-offs further West encourage even more participation from West-coast members? What I do know is that there&#39;s more Cal-club members going to Toepeka this year than last; probably more then ever attended than when it was at Road Atlanta
[/b]

As Andy points out though, the net/ net might not be positive, if comparatively less East coasters go. The Rockies make the miles count as double, as well.



I like the split traveling run-off idea. Imagine the a run-off at Laguna-Seca, Infineon, or Miller. Miller&#39;s full course would make an awesome run-off track, too bad it&#39;s not East of the Mississippi though. [/b]

That brings up an interesting and difficult to estimate factor. Desirability. IF I were a Runoffs candidate, (A guy in a class that went, I qualified, and I had the money and time) would I drag myslef out to Topeka? Maybe. That track looks crappy, and there&#39;s no "Pull" getting me there other than the event itself. Road America? You betcha. Mid Ohio? In a second. Road Atlanta? I tow nearly the same distance to do the ARRCs now, so sure! Miller? Doubtful, even if I were in California. That place looks boring. Flat and featureless. One corner after another sterile corner. Barber? yes sir. And VIR too. Laguna? I&#39;d try to wrangle some kind of deal.You get the idea...

In my mind, these factors would make the Runoffs much more successful:
Classes of cars that want to race. That means well subscribed classes.
A desireable desination. (Desireable to the racer, not the National staff)
Less time. It&#39;s too darn long for me now. Taking 10 days off in a row? Are you f-ing kidding me? Who can do that? (Retired and really rich people)
If the time factor is controlled, then so too is the money factor, to a degree, all else being equal.
-

[shwah]

OH and let&#39;s leave the HPT bashing to the prod site please.

I went to MidO and HPT runoffs and watched great racing at both venues. People just don&#39;t like change, but do like to whine. I thought overall the racing was fun to watch last year. EP was phenomenal, but there will always be races that are less than exciting when you are watching 25 of them.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Chris,

I am with you on most stuff but want to make a point: Maybe the point of DP/DP/ST is to attract NEW members. If you look at the rulesets, they are designed to give a spot to some really cool cars that are already built as well as allow some pretty common hybrids that proliferate NASA.

As far as your &#39;one in, one out&#39; theory on classing, how is the club supposed to grow? Is it not possible to KEEP who you have AND ATTRACT new blood?

I temper my comments by stating that I do believe we should raise the minimum participation numbers back to a respectable number for a Runoffs spot. Reward the participants but give everyone a place to play.

And while *I* would like IT to go National, and I do think it would be great for the SCCA, I do realize it may not be great for IT on the whole.

[AntonioGG]

Interesting thread. For those of you with strong regional divisions, just so you know, there are divisions like MIDIV and SOWDIV that are much stronger in national than regional races. 200 vs. 100 entries. That was true even before SM went national.

To Andy, regarding SM participation decline, around here, the numbers are slightly down. I can tell you many hardcore SM racers that were around since the beginning have stopped racing, or race maybe a couple of times a year now. We had a very successful cross-sanctioning-body regional racing series that went away after SM went national. Things are most definitely not the same. National guys only do nationals, and they save their car and their money for the Runoffs so they won&#39;t do regionals unless they have a spare car or need to tune on their Runoffs car.

To those in SFR and up in the Northeast where you get 300-400 regional entries at great tracks. Stop complaining about where the Runoffs are (if you are, I believe most of you don&#39;t really care). You don&#39;t know what you have until you come race a regional with us at MSRH or TMS. If I lived in SFR, I wouldn&#39;t give a rats behind if you moved the Runoffs to Miller MP, when I can have great racing, lots of entries, relaxed atmosphere at a regional at Laguna, Thunderhill, and Sears Point...and I can make a "long" tow to a track in the PNW for fun. Same for you guys in the northeast with your great tracks and great # of entries. Actually the guys in the SEDIV don&#39;t have it bad either with great regional series and great tracks (at least one of them). CENDIV had it good until the split I think...b/c they have great tracks and had great entries, but that looks to have changed. For the most part, it&#39;s us in the plains and south plains that are screwed, right Travis? :)

I think the Runoffs are for people with big egos (racing egos...we all have one after all), or people looking for a pro-ride, or people whose classes are all but dead, and the Runoffs are the only time the really get to race. I say eliminate them altogether (as a championship, you can still have the race there if you want), have a few big races around the country just for fun (ARRC, Spec/IT Fest, etc.)...it is what we&#39;re in this for after all right? Imagine if you free all those racers from a 2 week commitment, all the extra money they&#39;ll have, and they&#39;ll actually have to decide what class to race in (if they really want to race), or just do HPDEs if they don&#39;t have to take into consideration making it to the Runoffs.

[Stan]

as someone who has very closely watched SM for the last 4-5yrs, i think you&#39;re way off. ever since SM went national, we&#39;ve seen participation fall off by about 30% in this division. overall participation numbers may be steady or slightly falling, but look at the #&#39;s for the first to the second year of nationals, i don&#39;t think it&#39;s good. i tried to find it on SCCA.com, but it appears the link has been taken down. i do know the runoffs entries are about 30% lower this year. [/b]
Yes, SM National entries are off 30% in MWDiv this year, down from 250 in &#39;06 to 174, but your experience is not typical. Overall National SM entries are down less than 15%. As Andy notes, there has been some churning in the National SM ranks as guys figure out where their racing program really belongs. That&#39;s perfectly normal IMO, and I expect it to take another year or two to settle down. OTOH, Runoffs entries are down 8.6% from last year, not 30% (713 in &#39;06 vs. 652 this year). Even with the expected drop-outs we won&#39;t come anywhere close to a 30% decline.


even the rules adjustments that in and of themselves were positive moves (cam clarification, clutch rule) have ended up hurting the class because they&#39;ve all been against the bread and butter 1.6 car and put it at an overall disadvantage. the cost to be competitive has tripled for the car itself, and around 7x for consumables like tires. [/b]
How does tightening up the damper, cam and clutch rules put the 1.6 cars at a disadvantage? We didn&#39;t apply them to just those cars. Are you saying that we should give a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to those cars?

Yes, it costs more to compete for a Runoffs win than it does to be a purely local Regional guy. No surprise there.


the regional classes like SSM have maintained the &#39;spirit&#39; of the initial SM class better than the national ruleset, and i think is very much like the current IT crowd, thus their strong numbers. still very competitive, but national SM is whole nother prep level above, which i don&#39;t think even most of the big names on the national IT scene quite understand. [/b]
There are very large differences of opinion about SSM vs SM, Travis, and I&#39;ll take you statement of your opinion as just that. I do agree that competitive National racing is more expensive than hanging mid-pack in one&#39;s local Regionals, and that&#39;s part of the reason we&#39;re seeing some churning of the National SM ranks. It will play out as everyone figures out where they belong.


just like going national i don&#39;t think was healthy for SM, i don&#39;t think it would be for IT either. but, taking every class in the GCR and taking the top 25 to the big show would be healthy for the club overall, and that i would support. [/b]
I see a dichotomy here, Travis. How do we let all classes compete for a spot at the Runoffs without letting them all run Nationals?


we would LOVE it if we could get 150 entrants for every national event, and even 100 for every regional. as it is now, we probably stand at an average of 130 per national, and 75 per regional event (which lose lots of money, subsidized by the nationals).[/b]
I can&#39;t help you there, except to cheer you up the news that Colorado Region would love to average 75 entrants at a race...ANY race! :023:

Stan

[Andy Bettencourt]

How does tightening up the damper, cam and clutch rules put the 1.6 cars at a disadvantage? We didn&#39;t apply them to just those cars. Are you saying that we should give a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to those cars?

[/b]

No effect on the shocks, but the &#39;cheater&#39; cams were only in the 1.6&#39;s and the $1200 lightweight clutch was also only available for the 1.6. Not to say the others wouldn&#39;t have evolved but on-track performance was being measured and recorded with those &#39;advantages&#39;, then they were taken away.

Small stuff, yes but perception was hurt. Just wish the 99 had never entered the mix. Trying to equalize 4 different cars in a Spec class is tough.

The beauty of it all? IT doesn&#39;t have these issues.

[tnord]

Yes, SM National entries are off 30% in MWDiv this year, down from 250 in &#39;06 to 174, but your experience is not typical. Overall National SM entries are down less than 15%. As Andy notes, there has been some churning in the National SM ranks as guys figure out where their racing program really belongs. That&#39;s perfectly normal IMO, and I expect it to take another year or two to settle down. OTOH, Runoffs entries are down 8.6% from last year, not 30% (713 in &#39;06 vs. 652 this year). Even with the expected drop-outs we won&#39;t come anywhere close to a 30% decline.
[/b]

i meant runoffs entries are down 30% for SM, not overall. i anticipate total cars taking the green will be about 625, or 100 less than last year.



How does tightening up the damper, cam and clutch rules put the 1.6 cars at a disadvantage? We didn&#39;t apply them to just those cars. Are you saying that we should give a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to those cars?

Yes, it costs more to compete for a Runoffs win than it does to be a purely local Regional guy. No surprise there.
[/b]

because the cam and clutch clarifications all functionally went against the 1.6 only, as it was the only car that had &#39;developed&#39; cams and clutches available at the time. so during the 2006 season it lost 1-1.5hp for the cam, it lost it&#39;s lightweight clutch, it had 25lbs added to it after the runoffs as a reward for winning, i believe the 1.8 had 25lbs taken off, and the 99 had 50lbs removed. guess what happened? SURPRISE! everyone built 1.8s and 99s. just take a look over at sm.com classifieds and look at how many 1.6s are for sale.

not only does it cost more to compete for the runoffs relative to a local regional guy, it costs more in SM to compete for the runoffs than it does to win the NE/SE divisional title and the ARRC.

i&#39;m leaving the rest of the &#39;philosophy of the class&#39; IT/SM stuff alone for now. the philosophy of both classes was pretty close upon inception, but the reality of SM has deviated from that in great part due to it&#39;s national status. translation - you can&#39;t have a popular, low cost, and be a national class all at the same time. pick two.

[Andy Bettencourt]

i believe the 1.8 had 25lbs taken off, and the 99 had 50lbs removed. guess what happened? SURPRISE! everyone built 1.8s and 99s. just take a look over at sm.com classifieds and look at how many 1.6s are for sale.

[/b]

No weight was taken off the 94-97 cars.

BRING IT BACK TO IT.

[Stan]

I&#39;m heading over to Sears Point, so I gotta make this quick...

Tightening the rules was to pull back the 1.6 guys and to preclude the same rules interpretation creep from spreading to the two later gens. Tightening the specs and the weight adjustments were the result of talks between the SMAC and the CRB all summer long, and specifically were NOT rewards weight for Runoffs performance. If in retrospect the SMAC wants to revisit the issue, I encourage them to do so.

This is a dynamic situation, guys, and it will take a try or two to get it "right". Fortunately, we are talking balancing 3 cars in a class ... not 30. :happy204:

Stay the course. :cavallo:

[Bill Miller]

Stan,

First off, thank you very much for that data, it sure does say a lot, especially the chart w/ the actual individual drive data. Could you do me a favor? Could you add the regional data for the National classes to that, and then slot in the Regional-only data? I find it very interesting that of all those National classes, you&#39;ve only got 8 classes w/ more than 100 drivers, and only 4 w/ more than 115 drivers. It gets even more interesting when you look at the fact that of those 8 classes w/ > 100 drivers, 4 are formula classes, and the top two (by a HUGE margin) are spec classes. Discounting SM, EP is the only production-based class w/ over 100 drivers (GT1 is not a production-based class, they have their own unique rules, even among the rest of the GT category). I think it will be interesting to look at where the number of IT drivers for the 5 IT classes fall.

As far as the population density graph, I took that to be SCCA membership population density. What would be an even more interesting graph to look at would be population density based on National comp. license holders (and while you&#39;re at it, can you do one for Regional comp. license holders). The geographic concentration of National license holders should have a significant impact on where the Runoffs are held. Club or not, you market your product to your broadest customer base.

Travis,

You continue to show that you don&#39;t pay attention to anything that contradicts your view.

[Knestis]

...How do we let all classes compete for a spot at the Runoffs without letting them all run Nationals? [/b]
This presumes that the National/Regional distinction continues, which is a sacred cow to a lot of folks but setting that first principle free REALLY deserves some serious consideration.

If I were king, I&#39;d actually KEEP the terms but make a National a "coefficient 5" event, and a Regional a "coefficient 3" event (or whatever combination) - creating points multipliers weighted toward the a few higher profile events in each division, with longer race formats. Make all races count for national championship points, have classes qualify for the RubOffs based on participation, and drivers within those classes by total points.

The same points would count for regional and divisional championships, with events eligible only within the geographic locale of the championship. If this looks a little like rallying did 20 years ago, it&#39;s not a coincidence.

The real kicker for me would be that the National Championship event wouldn&#39;t be the ONLY factor. It would be a super points race (say a coefficient 20) but would add to the year-end points total, which would define the Winner. It would be necessary to both do well at the finale AND have a competitive season, if one wanted to win a title. You couldn&#39;t back-door into the big show, then put your whole budget into that one race for the medal...

K

[Stan]

Stan,

First off, thank you very much for that data, it sure does say a lot, especially the chart w/ the actual individual drive data. Could you do me a favor? Could you add the regional data for the National classes to that, and then slot in the Regional-only data? I find it very interesting that of all those National classes, you&#39;ve only got 8 classes w/ more than 100 drivers, and only 4 w/ more than 115 drivers. It gets even more interesting when you look at the fact that of those 8 classes w/ > 100 drivers, 4 are formula classes, and the top two (by a HUGE margin) are spec classes. Discounting SM, EP is the only production-based class w/ over 100 drivers (GT1 is not a production-based class, they have their own unique rules, even among the rest of the GT category). I think it will be interesting to look at where the number of IT drivers for the 5 IT classes fall.[/b]
I do not yet have complete Regional driver data, but in round numbers I would estimate that there are about 600 ITA drivers, 400 ITS drivers, 200 ITB drivers and 100 ITC drivers. There are some 1500-2000 SM drivers, and about a quarter of them entered at least one National race last year. If one presumes that a similar percentage of IT racers would enter Nationals if given the chance, you can plug in the numbers: 150 ITA, 100 ITB, 50 ITB and 25 ITC. Those are just wags, of course, but it seems clear to me that ITA and ITS would qualify for a Runoffs spot, if given the chance.


As far as the population density graph, I took that to be SCCA membership population density. What would be an even more interesting graph to look at would be population density based on National comp. license holders (and while you&#39;re at it, can you do one for Regional comp. license holders). The geographic concentration of National license holders should have a significant impact on where the Runoffs are held. Club or not, you market your product to your broadest customer base.[/b]
I found that population density graph on the US Census website, and it shows the general population density of the county in question as of the 2000 census. Although SCCA membership generally follows the general population, there are enough differences that it&#39;s worth a separate map. I shared this map with the Staff and they are trying to develop a similar map based on members&#39; zip codes. It&#39;ll be very interesting to see.

Stan

[Stan]

Bill, sorry I missed your question about the Regional drivers in National classes. Again, I don&#39;t have complete data, but from even my incomplete picture, it is clear that there is a lot of variability among classes. Generally speaking, National classes with large driver and entrant counts tend to also have substantial Regional presences, while classes down in the lowest half-dozen or so do not. In short, classes down near the bubble tended this year to self-organize to concentrate on doing as many Nationals as possible. I am personally a good example of that. Last year my son and I did 6 Regionals and 4 Nationals in my CSR. In contrast, this year we did 8 Nationals.

Knestis, yes, there are alternative ways to organizing our racing, and the one you suggest is worthy of consideration. Please do flesh it out and send it to the CRB at [email protected].

Stan

[Bill Miller]

Stan,

Thanks for being so forthcoming w/ that information. Even if you use the SM ratio for Total/National (which I don&#39;t think is actually a valid comparison, as the SM numbers would be considered an outlier for both Regional and National participation numbers), ITB would have had more drivers than T1 or GT3.

I think that having the total Regional + National numbers will give better insight into where things fall. And I don&#39;t think you can use SM as the gauge. I honestly wouldn&#39;t be surprised if there turn out to be more total ITB drivers than there are total EP drivers (and EP had the most National drivers of any production-based class outside of SM).

Probably some of the best data yet as to how much making IT National would benefit the Club. And, you have to wonder how many Prod guys would run IT cars if they had a chance to go to the big dance. Things that make you go hmmm.....

[lateapex911]

Stan,

T And, you have to wonder how many Prod guys would run IT cars if they had a chance to go to the big dance. Things that make you go hmmm..... [/b]

Hee hee...that&#39;s kinda funny. Bet they all wear bags over their heads so as to be incognito, LOL.

[JeffYoung]

How about an alternative......

I frankly am scared to death of "national" SCCA politics (no offense Stan, especially since you seem to me to be part of the solution and not what some of us newer guys perceive as the problem) and what it might do to my outlaw regional class (ITS) that to me has the best amateur racing around. I want no part of runoffs, or qualifying for them or having Topeka try to monitor the competitiveness of my class.

But I would like a national championship.

So what do to do?

We&#39;ve had an "unofficial" national championship for years, that while a great event, has been problematic because of location. Atlanta is a LONG ways from the western divisions. MOreover, there is no national organization for IT other than the ITAC, which is focused more on rules than administration of a national type championship.

So what if we created one? What if we took a regional rep from each region and put them on a say "Championship IT" committee, with the goal of establishing a "moving" national championship race. Say it took the top 3 or 4 cars from each regional IT championship series (the SARRC, MARRS, NARRC, NYRSSC, etc.) and worked to smooth out any irregularities and differences between the two. We then hold our own championship race at a rotating location -- Road Atlanta, Mid-Ohio, Laguna, THunderhill, etc.

Possible? A pipe dream? Thoughts?

[Bill Miller]

Hee hee...that&#39;s kinda funny. Bet they all wear bags over their heads so as to be incognito, LOL.
[/b]

Now there&#39;s a comment from an ITAC member that&#39;s sure to promote harmony among the IT and Prod communities.
:happy204:
:wacko:

[Stan]

You&#39;re welcome, Bill. As a numbers guy, I thrive on data (just ask any other CRB member... :P ) and feel like having the numbers out there for everyone to see and think about is the best way I know of to avoid people arguing from pure emotion. I guess that&#39;s why I&#39;m such a strong supporter of the way the ITAC recommends car classification...the subjective element has been largely purged from the process. And that would continue if IT ever went National.

If there are any data I have that folks want to see, you are welcome to it. Information is power, baby! ;)

And you are right that my estimate of the percentage of IT racers who would start entering Nationals could be wide of the mark. That&#39;s why I called it a wag ... a wild-ass guess. :lol:

OTOH, surely more would do that than currently cross over to DP to "experience" a National. So, whether ITB would beat out T3 is beside the point. The point is that all GCR classes would have the opportunity to enter Nationals and compete for a spot at the Runoffs on an equal basis, thereby strengthening the National program, assuring the strongest classes in the Club are at the National Championships, and providing an uninterrupted progression from Regional -> National -> Runoffs competition.

Jeff, thank you for the kind words. In my mind there is nothing wrong with classes which don&#39;t go to the Runoffs having their own off-site championship. And in fact, that status is codified in the Club&#39;s relationship with the ARRC. The only issue I might have with more of that sort of championship is that as more are added, the value of the major ones decline. Carry that far enough and the Runoffs could eventually become just one of many championships, with no particular cachet. The flip side of that comment is that right now we have GP going to the Runoffs where 25 or so guys (from a total of 37) will contest a National Championship, lording it over the 600 ITA guys who merely won the ARRC. I don&#39;t think that&#39;s healthy for the Runoffs or for the Club as a whole.

Stan

[Bill Miller]

Careful Stan, I&#39;ve heard that the emperor doesn&#39;t like to be told he&#39;s standing there butt-naked! ;)


Seriously, having data is a good thing. Would love to see the geographic distribution of licensed racers.

[Z3_GoCar]

How about an alternative......

I frankly am scared to death of "national" SCCA politics (no offense Stan, especially since you seem to me to be part of the solution and not what some of us newer guys perceive as the problem) and what it might do to my outlaw regional class (ITS) that to me has the best amateur racing around. I want no part of runoffs, or qualifying for them or having Topeka try to monitor the competitiveness of my class.

But I would like a national championship.

So what do to do?

We&#39;ve had an "unofficial" national championship for years, that while a great event, has been problematic because of location. Atlanta is a LONG ways from the western divisions. MOreover, there is no national organization for IT other than the ITAC, which is focused more on rules than administration of a national type championship.

So what if we created one? What if we took a regional rep from each region and put them on a say "Championship IT" committee, with the goal of establishing a "moving" national championship race. Say it took the top 3 or 4 cars from each regional IT championship series (the SARRC, MARRS, NARRC, NYRSSC, etc.) and worked to smooth out any irregularities and differences between the two. We then hold our own championship race at a rotating location -- Road Atlanta, Mid-Ohio, Laguna, THunderhill, etc.

Possible? A pipe dream? Thoughts?
[/b]

Neat idea Jeff, just that we need a championship series West of the Rockies. How do the other groups do it? I was thinking that maybe certain regional events should be designated as having championship points then the placing in those events ranks those entered. Not everyone running may be entered, as it&#39;ll still be a regional and there may be those who just care about racing in only their region. Anyone from SFR, Nor-Pac, and RMDiv want to collaborate?

James

[JeffYoung]

James, what we have here in the east and Midwest are divionsal/regional championship series. These are a bit of a patch work and in some places (the NARRC and the NYRSSC I think) overlap. But the gist of it is that IT and the other regional classes crown a champion based on a series of points paying races for that regional class over the year.

I can tell you that the SARRC championship is hotly contested and considered in our region by many to be as much of a feather in the cap as the ARRC, because it is a series of races instead of one.

You can go here: www.sedivracing.org to take a look at the SARRC rules. I would think that a national championship race that invited contestants based on a top 4-5 place finish in a regional series (and that number might have to be weighted based on the number of participants, meaning more cars from the higher participation regions) would be a thing of beauty. I might actually pay to have my car shipped to say Thunderhill to run in a National Championship race - once.

Your thoughts?

[JoshS]

Neat idea Jeff, just that we need a championship series West of the Rockies. How do the other groups do it? I was thinking that maybe certain regional events should be designated as having championship points then the placing in those events ranks those entered. Not everyone running may be entered, as it&#39;ll still be a regional and there may be those who just care about racing in only their region. Anyone from SFR, Nor-Pac, and RMDiv want to collaborate?
[/b]
As someone who has competed for NorPac Divisional points for the last few years, I&#39;d say that we would not want ONE west-of-the-Rockies series. That&#39;s just too much area to cover. Even for the allure of a National Championship, you&#39;re not going to see very many "regional" drivers travel to tracks more than 6 hours away if they already have a great regional series.

That means that AZ people might go to Southern CA and vice-versa, there might be some swaps between Southern CA and Northern CA people, but likely very little-to-no-crossover between those in the Pacific Northwest and anywhere else. Oregon Region and NW Region would likely have crossover though.

I wouldn&#39;t anticipate that very many people from CO/UT would head west, nor would anyone from the coastal states head east. Those are very tough tows, just like those between the PNW and Northern CA.

I know -- in my quest for a National Championship in SSC and T2, I did all of that travelling. What was I thinking?

So, my first reaction to reading your post was that we already have at least 2 regional IT Championships: San Francisco Region and CalClub. Arizona (and AZBorder) regions could combine for one, and maybe they already do. Oregon Region and NW Region each have independent ones now as well.

If that&#39;s too many, find a way to combine Oregon and NW Region into a PNW championship, find a way to combine SFR and CalClub, and find a way to combine AZ and AZBorder. For regional racing, no one from SFR is going to the PNW, no one from SFR is going to AZ, but there is already cross-pollenation between CalClub and AZ, and also between OR and NW.

[pgipson]

Neat idea Jeff, just that we need a championship series West of the Rockies. How do the other groups do it? I was thinking that maybe certain regional events should be designated as having championship points then the placing in those events ranks those entered. Not everyone running may be entered, as it&#39;ll still be a regional and there may be those who just care about racing in only their region. Anyone from SFR, Nor-Pac, and RMDiv want to collaborate?[/b]

We used to have the SPRRC -- the SoPac Road Racing Championships. had a decal for the car, a touring championship series, the whole thing except a season ending double points race like SARRC has (I started in NCR and crewed for a friend that won the SARRC GT3 title a couple of times). We could never get enough crossover between divisions to keep it alive. Now we have essentially lost SDR as a racing region, and LVR can&#39;t muster the necessary support for a racing program it leaves AZ and Cal Club. And there is just hardly any cross region racing anymore. It&#39;s a 8 or 9 hour tow from PHX to Cal Speedway, more to the desert tracks. I don&#39;t know what the answer is, but it sure doesn&#39;t seem like there is much interest.

And, there used to be the PCRRC -- the Pacific Coast Road racing Championship. A one shot semi-invite for all racers west of the Rockies. SFR put it on, at LS I beleive. Then I think it moved to T&#39;hill one year and died.

[dsmith]

Back to IT, I don&#39;t know what the question is, but I&#39;ll add my take by telling my story. I currently race a 1983 911sc. Why? Because I want to. Not b/c it&#39;s fast, or a winning car, but b/c it&#39;s an interesting car to drive. Guess what, though? Lots of parts are becoming NLA, and CIS FI parts are getting outrageous. I&#39;m saving for a conversion to carbs, so I can economically keep the car running in the future. When I do that in the next year or two, guess where I won&#39;t be racing? SCCA. I have a 10yr history with SCCA, have run programs and been on Region Boards. Nothing against SCCA, but there is nowhere to run a carbed 911sc that is otherwise built to IT rules (all glass, no window tabs, all lights, street legal even). So, I&#39;ll have to run NASA GTS Challenge, plus get a national championship race. I have several friends who don&#39;t race SCCA for the same reason. They race NASA.

So, my suggestion is to discuss what IT would look like in the future if a rule set such as GTS Challenge was used, or even NASA PT. That is, about 6 classes based on power to weight from dyno runs/scales, and we don&#39;t care what you add or remove from your car or where you source parts. Decide if you want to allow forced induction, AWD, electronic aids and such, limit to DOT tires and even keep the 13/13 rule as a token to not wreck each other. Simple, scalable run whatcha brung classing. Very much like G5 and G2 rally rules too (displacement and # of drive wheels-class prep is about half a page in the rule books and doesn&#39;t even specify makes or models).

So, instead of me trying to outspend the next guy to try to win ITR, I can choose to add weight to my car or change motors and run at the top of a slower class in GTS. Those who want to go all out, be my guest, those who don&#39;t can be competitive too.

I really don&#39;t see the future in these complicated, car specific rule sets for club racing; never liked them, never will. I say let the pro racers and manufacturers worry about that stuff.

-Do something like these rules, cut the Regional/National distinction and have 1 or 2 IT Runoffs races of the top class finishers in the country. Easy transition, nobody has to build new cars, and those otherwise not racing SCCA will become potential customers without having to change cars.

Every theory has its holes, but still, it really doesn&#39;t have to be this complicated to have fun racing at a grassroots level.
David

[lateapex911]

I hear you David, but NASAs system is not without issues as well.

The PT thing is interesting but very difficult to police. Even worse than IT. Much worse. Actually, it&#39;s a cheaters paradise.

And the dyno thing is very tough to do on a large scale. IT&#39;s costly, time consuming, and...again, a cheaters paradise.

I know EMRA has a similar setup, (sans the dyno) and they have good success with it, but I think the scale of the club has much to do with that. It&#39;s an interesting idea, and it&#39;s been discussed, but .......

You want to race your car. Others want to race a car. See the distinction? SCCA & IT will never be everything to everybody.

[JoshS]

You want to race your car. Others want to race a car. See the distinction? SCCA & IT will never be everything to everybody.
[/b]
I offer below a copy of one of my favorite posts of all time related to this topic. It comes from an autocrossers mailing list, the date was June 1994, over 13 years ago. This is a response to a post from someone who was frustrated that his car was classed uncompetitively, and he was frustrated that attempts to correct it appeared to be ignored by the powers that be.

So this particular thing was from autocrossing, but it&#39;s directly applicable.

The writer of this was Scott Fisher, who was an club racer and autocrosser with a pathological love for MGs.



Tim&#39;s penny drops:

~ I feel what drives SCCA events is not a love for cars, but a love
~ for winning.

For several years, I&#39;ve talked about exactly this dichotomy, one that
I felt most strongly in the two years I spent chasing the road-racing
dream. I observed that two types of people were attracted to racing
(or autox or probably rallying as well). At the extreme ends of this
dichotomy, you have the following two vastly oversimplified profiles:

- People who like cars, usually a particular marque, and who are
attracted to racing/autocross/etc. as the ultimate expression of
that aspect of their vehicular mania

- People who like to compete, who are attracted to racing as a
way to drive not merely fast, but *faster than someone else*, and
who view the car as an expendable and fundamentally uninteresting
appliance for doing that.

You and I, Tim, get to raise our hands, jump up and down, and go
"Me! Me! Over here!" when they call the roll for the first group.

But by their basic nature, *competitive motorsports are oriented toward
the latter category.* That&#39;s what the "competitive" and "sports"
mean. On the other hand, marque clubs are oriented toward the former
category. So is Vintage Racing, for the most part.

The SCCA is not a marque club. It has the unenviable job of trying
to balance, as reasonably as possible, the conflicting desires of
people from all ends of this spectrum. If it&#39;s also hard on people
who don&#39;t happen to have the optimum vehicle for a particular
class, well, all you can really ask is that the rules be the same
for everyone.

I&#39;ve heard a couple of people say, somewhat peevishly, that to be
really competitive, you have to buy the right car. Welcome to
racing. Ask Michael Andretti or Damon Hill how important the right
car is to winning. It&#39;s not important to the Porsche Supercup, or
the IROC series, or Spec Racer, or SS, but to everything else, the
simple fact of the matter is that some cars are just faster than
others, and if you haven&#39;t got one of the faster cars, there&#39;s
no amount of bitching about it that will take a tenth of a second
off your lap times. Either buy a faster car, or work on
your driving, or look for other ways to enjoy yourself on course --
there are other things that make autocrossing fun besides two-dollar
bowling trophies or stopwatches with "1st" on them.

~ There is just an apparent Solo II mentality which I do not subscribe
~ to.. the Solo II mentality I dont like is :
~
~ 1. you need the car (equipment) of the year
~ 2. you need the tires (equipment) of the year

This is why it&#39;s a Sport, and not a Game. This is why it&#39;s called
Competition, and not Participation. This is why it&#39;s called Winning,
and not Playing.

Lest anyone (especially Tim, who probably *still* has grease from my
hopelessly uncompetitive car under his fingernails) think I&#39;m coming
down too hard on Tim -- I&#39;m firmly entrenched in the cars-for-fun
camp. I&#39;ve seen what it takes for me to win -- drive someone else&#39;s
Miata and bingo, trophy time. I don&#39;t currently have one for a lot
of reasons, some rational, some bordering on reason to call the wagon
full of men with nets. But it&#39;s *my* decision, not the SCCA&#39;s.

If you want to win, well, YES, you have to have the right car, and
the right equipment, as well as the right skill. One of the nicest
parts of autocrossing is that the skill is probably still the largest
component of success (if you measure success by trophy size), and you
can gain skill in any car, even something as hopelessly oversized and
clumsy as a Volvo or as antiquated and outclassed as an M.G. The
real trick, as David Blanchard pointed out the last time I raised this
point, is to balance the needs of the sport -- with the emphasis on
competing to win -- against the egos of newcomers who happen to have
bought the wrong car (in addition to being on the hard slope of the
learning curve, being newcomers).

I think we&#39;ve all been brain-damaged by reading one time too many about
how Nuvolari won the &#39;36 (or was it &#39;37?) Nurburgring in a two-year-old
Alfa, simply by driving harder than the Mercedes and Auto Union teams.
We all want to be Nuvolari, when in reality we&#39;re lucky if we&#39;re Marco
Greco. (Wasn&#39;t it Chuck Slana who used to call himself "The Dale Coyne
of autocrossing?" :-)

~ What dismayed me was a gentlman I met starting out autocrossing his
~ Jag XJ6 returned the next year in a Geo Storm, another retired a
~ lovely 2800CSi for a Civic. Why? Obviously because of pressure to "win."

And who applied that pressure? Not the SCCA. Not the SEB. Not even
the people who bust their butts to put on the event for these two
drivers. They must have decided that the cars they bought were more
"fun" than the cars they sold. Who made that decision for them?

One of the hardest lessons in racing is that the only person you have
to blame is the one holding the steering wheel. Or maybe writing the
checks...

~ My value judgement is such that I have the opportunity to spend the last
~ weekend in July at a) the Canadian Volvo Club meet or B) the Finger Lakes
~ Grand Prix. I choose (a). I&#39;m into Volvo&#39;s first, autocrossing second.

It&#39;s pretty clear where my heart lies as well -- we spent a couple of
weekends installing a new 1.8L motor in a 2100-pound two-seat open
sports car with 14 x 5.5" wheels and 185-60HR-14 tires on it. If I
wanted to win, that would describe a Miata (well, maybe 205-55s).
As it is, I&#39;m going to be running in OSP against 1200-pound cars with
fully independent suspension and mid-mounted 150-bhp motors. I&#39;m
into M.G.s first, autocrossing second.

~ Basically, I have aired what turned me off about SCCA Solo II racing as a
~ hobby.

Ah, that&#39;s it. SCCA Solo II isn&#39;t a hobby, it&#39;s a sport. It has a
clear goal -- completing a given course on a given day in less time
than anyone else. I happen to think that it&#39;s possible to pursue
autocross as a hobby within the structure of the SCCA&#39;s sport of Solo
II competition, but I also think that NCSCC does a better job in
the Bay Area of addressing the *hobby* autocrosser. We&#39;ll take in
a NCSCC event sometime soon. Anyone have a schedule?

~ I&#39;m sorry is such anarchic thoughts irritate you. But Solo II is not
~ the only place to do performance driving, and the rule book is
~ at many times arbitrary.

I disagree. The rule book does a reasonable job in allowing modifications
to cars that aren&#39;t pathological. You and I, Tim, happen to like cars
that are pathological for autocrossing. I&#39;ve won autocrosses, and I&#39;ve
driven and worked on M.G.s, and I&#39;ve decided which makes me happier.
I&#39;ve also already worked myself *through* the stage of bitching at the
rulemakers because they didn&#39;t craft the sport for the sole purpose of
letting me win, or bitching at people who beat me because they make
whatever sacrifice is necessary (including the unthinkable one, to me,
of not driving an M.G.!) in order to be competitive. I&#39;m now at the
stage where I&#39;m having fun coming in fifth out of twelve in a car I
like and puffing up my own ego by pointing out that the top four all
have R-compound tires and Flavor Of The Month cars in the class,
therefore I must be a Better Driver for getting so close to their
times in an outclassed vehicle. That&#39;s not a bad way to average it
all out. And it&#39;s a lot more fun than eating the lining of my stomach
because the mean nasty Solo Board has classified the MGB opposite
cars like the Honda CRX, the Saturn, and now the Neon.

"My mother used to say, &#39;Elwood&#39; -- she always called me Elwood --
&#39;in this life you can be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant.&#39; Well, for
the better part of forty years I tried to be oh, so smart. I recommend
pleasant." -- from the movie Harvey.

--Scott "And I *know* overweight, clumsy, antiquated and outclassed" Fisher
[/b]

[dickita15]

WOW. thanks Josh for saving that. :023:

[Knestis]

With some luck, IT in 20 years will look (conceptually) a lot like IT does today - except with newer cars. If we don&#39;t keep the barn doors closed, it will look more like the Production category did about the time LP became the change du jour. NASA PT in 20 years will be VERY different, if it goes the way history suggests it should.

The PT system works GREAT right now - when participation numbers are low and competitive pressures even lower - but as people get more serious, I guarantee you that the rules-makers will start doin&#39; their thing, making new rules. Allowances will get more prescribed, more things will be PROscribed, and the rulebook will get thicker and thicker.

People will find magic combinations that work better than others, and others will lobby to rein them in through adjustments made to cars&#39; initial classes, to points allowances, and eventually to the fundamentals of the system itself.

Eventually, it will get changed dramatically - probably to multiple spec classes like the ones that the new category is supposed to absorb - or it will collapse under its own weight.

Kirk (who&#39;s pissed that he didn&#39;t commit his prognostications about factional fighting in Iraq, backlash to the Blackwater mercs, and the unintended consequences of high-stakes student testing to print when he first made them)

[dsmith]

I was really speaking on GTS rules, not PT. PT rules give me a headache and are car specific, so I don&#39;t like it. I still like power/weight.

I still don&#39;t know what the question is. Until then, I&#39;m out of ideas for answers. I guess I&#39;m a worker bee on this one, but I don&#39;t know who the decision makers are, what, if any, problems they think there are with IT, and what they want from me to help solve the problems.

What I do know is that NASA makes it easy to race, SCCA makes it difficult. In TX, lots of new racers going to NASA, few to SCCA. Not a good trend for Sowdiv SCCA.

Cheers,
David

[RX3]

SCCA does not make it difficult. The region putting on the event and Steward make it difficult because all they know is (this is the way we have always done it.) :dead_horse: They do not think out side of the box. There are many things that can be done to make the weekend fun and easy for people to get on the track.

[dsmith]

SCCA does not make it difficult. The region putting on the event and Steward make it difficult because all they know is (this is the way we have always done it.) :dead_horse: They do not think out side of the box. There are many things that can be done to make the weekend fun and easy for people to get on the track.
[/b]

SCCA makes it difficult b/c of the National/Regional class distinction rules. Can&#39;t run the two together, so depending on how many Regional vs National racers there are for a period of years, One or the other suffers. Right now in TX, SM went National, which took a huge chunk of regional racers, leaving behind a skeleton of a regional program that supposedly can&#39;t support itself. So, mostly R/N race weekends for 2008, which will thin the regional ranks even more. If we could only change the GCR to qualify and run the "like" National/Regional classes together, then our SOWDIV problems would be largely solved.

So, SCCA IS making it difficult for club racing to survive in TX. Too few racers are willing to travel past their home track for 40 minutes of track time for $175.

[dlg208]

RE: the 20 year rule...



That&#39;s brilliant. I&#39;m looking at registration for the final MARRS race this weekend and guess what? This rule would reduce ITB entries from 16 to 4. I&#39;m sure you&#39;re thinking that those guys would build a newer ITB car but I don&#39;t think so. Those guys like racing rear wheel drive cars. Most would either go to Spec Miata or Production. That won&#39;t help IT.
[/b]

+3....Yes!

As in my Brother, our best friend and I all run 79 Pintos.

Throw us a bone for crip sakes.....

It sucks running 4 seconds slower than visiting V Dubs at our home track.

We are seriously talking SRF.....Or cheating our asses off.

Yea we bought the wrong car to be competitive but hey.....We raced 8 events each this year & are helping to keep ITB alive.

[lateapex911]

RE: the 20 year rule...





Throw us a bone for crip sakes.....

It sucks running 4 seconds slower than visiting V Dubs at our home track.

..........Or cheating our asses off.

Yea we bought the wrong car to be competitive but hey..... [/b]

I&#39;m not sure i follow what that has to do with the 20 year rule....

That said, if you think the cars are so well prepared, to the letter of the rules, and so well driven,and you need to "cheat your asses off", then something is amiss. Perhaps a better option (Cheaper certainly, and better if you prefer not to cheat) would be to first request the car be looked at by the ITAC. Thats not to say they will magically fix everything, but it couldn&#39;t hurt to have it reviewd. Certainly that&#39;s a better solution than the ones proposed.

4 seconds off the pace .....if accurate...and if they are full builds and driven by Stigs, (Not that results are the prime determining factor for the process) is a lot. What times does ITC run there?

[mbuskuhl]

SCCA makes it difficult b/c of the National/Regional class distinction rules. Can&#39;t run the two together, so depending on how many Regional vs National racers there are for a period of years, One or the other suffers. Right now in TX, SM went National, which took a huge chunk of regional racers, leaving behind a skeleton of a regional program that supposedly can&#39;t support itself. So, mostly R/N race weekends for 2008, which will thin the regional ranks even more. If we could only change the GCR to qualify and run the "like" National/Regional classes together, then our SOWDIV problems would be largely solved.

So, SCCA IS making it difficult for club racing to survive in TX. Too few racers are willing to travel past their home track for 40 minutes of track time for $175.
[/b]

dsmith - There are many of us who feel the same way as you, I know I do. I don&#39;t think the majority wants us, it&#39;s a national division. I&#39;ve given up on trying to change SCCA and instead myself and many others are running a full NASA schedule next year. I may not even make a SCCA race as there aren&#39;t many to choose from. I&#39;ll be posting more info in the Southwest section of these forums here soon, basically you are looking at 6 weekends, 5 tracks, 6-7 sesssions per weekend, contingency, etc. etc. all for the same cost.

[dlg208]

I&#39;m not sure i follow what that has to do with the 20 year rule....
[/b]
We wouldn&#39;t even be racing if the 20 year rule was in effect


That said, if you think the cars are so well prepared, to the letter of the rules, and so well driven,and you need to "cheat your asses off", then something is amiss.........



4 seconds off the pace .....if accurate...and if they are full builds and driven by Stigs, (Not that results are the prime determining factor for the process) is a lot. What times does ITC run there?
[/b]
Agreed...Over their long history (at least 15 yrs and 3 log books for me) everything has been tried.
Many people better than me have driven them and not managed to match the ITC track record ( 1:21.000)
BTW....We are ITB and the track record for us is 1:18.100
My best is 1:22.100 but I&#39;m not setting the world on fire.
The other 2 I race with are quite good and they have come very close to 1:21.000



Perhaps a better option (Cheaper certainly, and better if you prefer not to cheat) would be to first request the car be looked at by the ITAC. Thats not to say they will magically fix everything, but it couldn&#39;t hurt to have it reviewd. Certainly that&#39;s a better solution than the ones proposed.[/b]
That is the next thing we are going to try.....
We just rebuilt our engines legal and have no real intentions of cheating yet
Pinto racing so far is like :dead_horse:

Except when it rains..... :D
So we&#39;ll keep doing the Pinto rain dance

[tnord]

what in the world would posess a person to race a pinto?

that&#39;s like trying to fly a car to the moon. :eclipsee_steering:

[dlg208]

RWD.....Everything I have ever driven is RWD

FWD cars feel funny <_<

Oh-yea.....& they are chick magnets

[mustanghammer]

what in the world would posess a person to race a pinto?

that&#39;s like trying to fly a car to the moon. :eclipsee_steering:
[/b]


I heard they have explosive performance :D

[Rabbit07]

what in the world would posess a person to race a pinto?

[/b]

RWD, SLA front suspension, Plenty-o-aftermarket parts, very reliable powertrain, ect. They were competitive in ITB at one time.

[dlg208]

They were competitive in ITB at one time.
[/b] <_<


I heard they have explosive performance :D
[/b]
Yes it is legal to race a 71 Pinto with an ORIGINAL gas tank in ITB...

Cpt Sparkles (Kyle # 99 red/grey) does NOT have a fuel cell. :D

(but it does have a windscreen washer bottle so don&#39;t even think about protesting :P )

[lateapex911]

Just out of curiosity, what HP did it come with stock? (I&#39;m assuming the number is SAE net, not gross, right? post 73)) Weight? How low can you get the weight legally? Engine size? Brakes? What are it&#39;s strengths and weaknesses?

[dlg208]

We can basically hang with just about anyone in the corners, even though we have live axles & leaf springs.
Although I think IRS would help at Nelson ledges on account of it being so bumpy.
(It&#39;s our home track so we pretty much know what places to avoid)

The problem is the straights....We get murdered there.
Huge bummer pulling off the perfect pass only to be out-dragged on a freak&#39;n straight.

The problem isn&#39;t the block, head [mostly], gears, or welded rear (no LSD available)

The intake runners & bowels are really ugly & the valves look like they came out of a tractor.
The intake manifold is so convoluted it&#39;s like drinking a milk shake through a bar straw.
And you ought to see what kind of tool box we have devoted exclusively to the DGV tuning.
(That thing is possessed)

Oh yea....And we weigh 2490 (124hp +/- 2)

None of us has ever passed another Pinto on the straights.....We are dead even on power.
And maxed out on rules.

Now that they have opened the ECU.....I think we&#39;re toast!!!

[mustanghammer]

<_<

Yes it is legal to race a 71 Pinto with an ORIGINAL gas tank in ITB...

Cpt Sparkles (Kyle # 99 red/grey) does NOT have a fuel cell. :D

(but it does have a windscreen washer bottle so don&#39;t even think about protesting :P )
[/b]

Eeew, stock gas tank in a Pinto race car. In that case the best paint job for a Pinto would be black with hot rod flames........that start at the back and go forward!

For what it worth I always thought that Pintos made cool looking race cars. Especially in prod and GT with fender flares and fat tires.

[lateapex911]

What would the minimum weight a Pinto could acheive be?

[dlg208]

Eeew, stock gas tank in a Pinto race car.
[/b]
Yea....We&#39;ve been trying to talk sense into him since he bought the car.


What would the minimum weight a Pinto could acheive be?
[/b]
Most everything is gone now...
All I have is the bare heater core bolted to the firewall & the hoses connected to it.
That is the only non-essential part left inside.

And I have 60# of ballast which made me less than 10# over, once this year. (Mid-O)
I could take out the passenger&#39;s side glass and save maybe 20# w/ the mechanism & all.
If I looked elsewhere.....I might be able to put fatty on a diet and make 2400#

Keeping in mind, a fresh ITB legal Pinto engine makes very close to 124 hp.
Where do we stand as far as power to weight in comparison to the GTI&#39;s?

[Andy Bettencourt]

Wheel HP or Crank HP? If wheel, what type of dyno?

[JoshS]

I have found several sites on the web that say that the original &#39;71 Pinto coupe had a curb weight of 1950 lbs. Apparently being sub-2000 was one of the Iaccoca design goals.

Apparently later cars got quite a bit heavier.

But it seems like it shouldn&#39;t be too hard to get REALLY light if one started with a &#39;71.

[dlg208]

Wheel HP or Crank HP?
[/b]
Crank...But that was before we switched from Holly to Webber.
And we want to take all 3 to a chassis dyno before next season to compare them on the rolling road.


Apparently later cars got quite a bit heavier.
[/b]
SCCA has 2230# for the 2L and 2490# for the 2.3L

Now here is the catch....The 2L makes a little bit more hp.....Like 5-10
(Better head & intake + it spools up faster)

[Gary L]

If I&#39;ve followed this correctly and done the math half right, this all adds up to 18.0 lbs per IT-prep&#39;d flywheel horsepower. That&#39;s 146 at the flywheel for the Volvo... I&#39;ll take it! Must be something else seriously wrong here; brakes, chassis, aero?

[thedemoguy]

what in the world would posess a person to race a pinto?

that&#39;s like trying to fly a car to the moon. [/b]

Don&#39;t cut these guys short, all three of them drive very well,...exsepte "Krazy Kyle", sometimes I think he closes his eyes... :bash_1_: but he&#39;s sometimes the fastest one...

I race with all three of them and can tell you that in the corners, there very fast,... my car was built for nelson and had the track record for a long time, till the builder helped his buddy set-up his car and that car now has the record, I don&#39;t know how the hell I&#39;ll ever match that but he work&#39;s in racing professionally and may have a trick or 2 up his sleeve...

Any way as for competitive if your in the 121&#39;s you have as much chance to win as the next guy, you just need to do it the hole race and can&#39;t make a mistake and on a track like Nelson, a little mistake in the wrong place can cost you a lot of time, the bitch about it is there are a couple places that you need to hold back in the corner so you can go faster coming out and faster coming out is the key to speed on a track like that, it&#39;s easy to get all pumped up in a race and go way to fast in a critical corner, killing your exit speed, witch in return kills that lap all together.
3 or 4 of those and you may as well go to the pits...lol

A lot of the time I have a on board video camera not for the entertainment value but for self analysis, you can tell me how I suck in a corner till your blue in the face, but win I see it for myself on tap over and over and over........I can see it and make the necessary adjustments.

I know,.. theres the new guy trying to tell me how to drive, those new guys think they know every thing...
And for that I apologize, forget very thing I just told you it&#39;s all bullshit... :023:

[lateapex911]

Crank...But that was before we switched from Holly to Webber.
And we want to take all 3 to a chassis dyno before next season to compare them on the rolling road.

SCCA has 2230# for the 2L and 2490# for the 2.3L

Now here is the catch....The 2L makes a little bit more hp.....Like 5-10
(Better head & intake + it spools up faster) [/b]

Go to a dyno that bolts to the hubs, like a dyanpak. Much better and it eliminates vaiables.

Second, SCCAs weights are not curb weights, or what the car can get down to in race trim..they are weights designed to fit the car to the class. (THat the club thinks are acheivable,) How low CAN you go? Work with me here!

[AjG]

OK demoguy, let me get this straight....
You just started this year, you bought the fastest car in the area, a car &#39;built for Nelson&#39;, a track record holder, built by a pro.
You have this professional as crew.
You have the communication system, your crew relays other driver&#39;s lap times to you (from the icard you also have) He tells you how to scrub in you new Hoosiers and he still has some &#39;tricks&#39; for you.
You&#39;ve got the big-ass, diamond-plate encrusted, enclosed trailer.
Got the canopy, got the nice 4-wheeler to cruise the paddock.
Got the onboard video for &#39;self analysis&#39;
Seem to get into arguments with everyone you race with.
Got out qualified by a $2500 Pinto two weeks ago, and you&#39;re handing out driving advice?!?
Wow, that is.... just ... wow

exit speed dude!
I&#39;m outta here!

[LMan]

LOL :lol:

[thedemoguy]

Well Aaron, that&#39;s all correcter, except for this.

Seem to get into arguments with everyone you race with.[/b]

I don&#39;t arguments with any one, including you, as a matter of fact I like you, your brother and Kyle, well I like your brother more then you and Kyle but that&#39;s just because he never hit me win I was passing him with my,

the fastest car in the area, a car &#39;built for Nelson&#39;,[/b] ...LOL
I&#39;m starting to feel that you and I are developing a good relationship hear and for that I&#39;m very grateful.

Now I know my communication skills leave a little to be desired, maybe you can help me out by telling me how you feel I&#39;m argumentative.

http://www.mylaps.com/search/advancedSearc...p?memberlogin=1 (http://www.mylaps.com/search/advancedSearchResults.jsp?memberlogin=1)

Now don&#39;t take this the wrong way but you ran your fastest lap at 121.776 your average is about 123, at the same time my car skipped timing by one tooth, but it&#39;s fixed now isn&#39;t it...My average time is 120 to 121...and I&#39;m very inconsistent, a lot of room for improvement, with me that is, give me time and I&#39;ll get better.

[dlg208]

If I&#39;ve followed this correctly and done the math half right, this all adds up to 18.0 lbs per IT-prep&#39;d flywheel horsepower. That&#39;s 146 at the flywheel for the Volvo... I&#39;ll take it! Must be something else seriously wrong here; brakes, chassis, aero?
[/b]
Is that a basic ITB car?.....20 lbs per hp?

Let&#39;s say a 2000 lb car has 100 hp at the crank which = 20lb/hp...is that what everybody seems to have.

In that case my car is 124hp & 2500 lbs = 20.16 (that&#39;s pretty darn close)

I mean...There is a difference between getting passed on the straight and getting smoked.

We&#39;re getting smoked by a few V-Dubs.....And it ain&#39;t exit speed.

We&#39;ve had some of our best races with Volvos & BMWs.
It&#39;s like what I imagine SRF would be like.

[thedemoguy]

Dave

I think the ford engine makes more power at the bottom end and the VW&#39;s don&#39;t start making power till they get to about 5500 rpm&#39;s
If I was you I would leave the dark side and buy my VW Rabbit, I&#39;ll be at Nelson Friday afternoon and Saturday PRACTICING...if you would like to give it a try.

are you serious about the SRF because I&#39;ve been looking at them for a while now, it&#39;s that or the Spec Miata.
ITB&#39;s fun but I would like to race in the national races as well as the regional stuff.

[Gary L]

Is that a basic ITB car?.....20 lbs per hp?

Let&#39;s say a 2000 lb car has 100 hp at the crank which = 20lb/hp...is that what everybody seems to have.

In that case my car is 124hp & 2500 lbs = 20.16 (that&#39;s pretty darn close)

I mean...There is a difference between getting passed on the straight and getting smoked.

We&#39;re getting smoked by a few V-Dubs.....And it ain&#39;t exit speed.

We&#39;ve had some of our best races with Volvos & BMWs.
It&#39;s like what I imagine SRF would be like.
[/b] Somewhere along the line, I mistakenly understood that you had an early Pinto with 124 flywheel hp. That&#39;s where the 18 lbs per hp number came from. Having re-read your posts, I now understand you to say the early car has more than 124 flywheel hp in IT prep? And the later car is 260 lbs heavier, with less hp? This despite 15% more displacement and higher compression ratio? Man, some things here are just not adding up. :blink:

[dlg208]

Some of us can&#39;t afford to race but race anyway...

Contingency Kumho bucks are the difference between 6 & 8 races for me.

Otherwise....I&#39;m going SRF and answer the question once and for all....

HOW GOOD AM I ACTUALLY

WTF.....$40.000.00 ITB cars???

This is entry level racing....

You can tear down my engine any time you want on Saturday eve.
(Just put it back together by Sun am)

I&#39;m gonna be :birra:

[dlg208]

And the later car is 260 lbs heavier, with less hp? This despite 15% more displacement and higher compression ratio? Man, some things here are just not adding up. :blink:
[/b]
I kid you not....
(this is of course on account of the best hearsay I am privy to.....I have never actually owned one)
Although...Any dedicated Pinto racer that I have heard from would insist on a 71-72

Carl Holbrook has the ITC record at Nelson and would ONLY race an early one.
(Of course he races a Renault.....He must not be in his right mind) :D

[shwah]

Dave

I think the ford engine makes more power at the bottom end and the VW&#39;s don&#39;t start making power till they get to about 5500 rpm&#39;s

[/b]
ON a tangent. All the crossflow 8v 1.8L VW motors I have dynoed tend to have torque peaks around 4500.

[thedemoguy]

Chris

Out of curiosity, can you show me some of that dyno data of a VW 1.8 8v engines that you have...

I know my 1.8 8v pulls very well from 5500 to 6500 rpm&#39;s but your saying peak is 4500 rpm&#39;s.
Knowing the torque curve of the average 1.8 8v would help, Maybe adjusting my gear ratio just a little would give me that last second or one and a half I need to beat the track record... :unsure:

[ScotMac]

Geez...all this talk about 18-20lb/hp (crank) ITB cars has me really thinking that i have the wrong car. My fiero was recently dyno&#39;d at 94rwhp. That probably means around 110 crank hp (tops). At a spec-line weight of around 2550, that puts it at 23.2lb/hp. No wonder i am getting killed by the 2002&#39;s and volvos on the straights!!! I guess i should feel lucky that we don&#39;t have any v-dubs to *also* kick my a$$!! ;)

I know this is a particular example, and not necessarily representative of all ITB Fiero&#39;s, however can someone from the ITAC please tell me if the ITB fiero was eval&#39;d via the process. ie, is it one of the ones that they just haven&#39;t got to yet? Or does the process somehow add 3lbs/hp for a mid-engine?!!? :blink:

Sorry, i know it is way off topic. :024:

[thedemoguy]

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s104/thedemoguy/georgeBushOfficialPostCard2.jpg

OOUNT Vee have vay&#39;s of makingk them run...