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I've read an awful lot on this site about IT going national, the pros and cons of staying regional only and going national and even the suggestion of desolving national or regional status for all classes. I do NOT want to rehash that debate. What I am curious about is why IT was originally created with regional only status? Valid thinking in present day terms or not, what was the purpose?
The answer is very, very, very simple: it was a way to standardize rules nationally for a popular class.
Improved Touring was an idea that sprang out of a desire in many circles to create a category of prep slightly above Showroom Stock (itself only about 10 years old at the time) where old SS cars (who had a rules-limited finite life) could go to play. The original rules required full interiors, didn't allow welded-in cages, and in some limited cases even required street tires. It was popular up in the Pacific Northwest (called RS Touring, wasn't it?) and soon gained popularity in several different areas of the country (I raced in IT in Texas in the mid- to late-80s...)
This created a twofold problem. First, rules were not consistent across the country, so someone could not take their RS Pinto and run it in IT in Texas, for example. Second, SCCA Colorado (HQ was in Englewood at the time) did not want to add Improved Touring to the GCR to nationally-standardize the rules because all GCR-printed category specs made the car eligible for the Runoffs; Englewood didn't want to add another category to the year-end SCCA Runoffs.
So, the infamous "Regional Only" status was developed. Improved Touring was the first class to gain "Regional Only" status in the General Competition rules, which allowed Topeka to print a nationally-standardized set of rules for everyone to follow, yet not worry about having to add the category to the Runoffs. In fact, if I recall correctly it wasn't until the publication of Spec Miata rules that any other class had the "distinction" of a nationally-standardized set of Regional-only rules in the GCR...
So there you have it: it was just a way to standardize a ruleset nationally. Of course, being so unusual, and exacerbated by the SMs gaining National status so quickly after gaining Regional-Only status, this whole situation has gained a life of its own over its roughly quarter-century existence...
oh yeah..... now I get it. I knew the history of where the class came from, evolving from retired SS cars, and I had a feeling it had something to do with run off spots. boy... what a cluster
Anyhow thanks for the history lesson Greg
andy
The concept of IT came out of California, to accomplish what Greg describes - affordable racing and a place for aged-out SS cars to live. The Club saw the writing on the wall and got out ahead of the regions by coming up with a standard set of rules for everyone. I was on the committee in NW Region working on our version of the IT rules when the first ITCS trumped our efforts by coming out sort of by surprise.
That RS class (Radial Sedan) that we had in WA/OR actually post-dates IT by just a couple of years. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of people who wanted to be able to play with their cars more, that wanted to run cars too new for IT, or that didn't like some of the specific restrictions of the new rules. Some of the same people worked on that plan and came up with rules that were quite literally just one page. They've morphed over the years, too but RS is still relatively popular in the Northwest, albeit more with ICSCC than with SCCA - which is troubled in that area.
K
PS - there was an issue of SportsCar (from 1983, I think) that featured the new category - "This is IT" If someone could source a backcopy of that mag, it would potentially clear up a lot of controversy about what the Founding Fathers envisioned for the category. I check eBay regularly but everyone should keep their eyes open.