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Originally posted by Matt Rowe:
There are guys with limited budgets running regionals and having fun in production. But wait isn't that what IT is supposed to be for, fun and relatively cheap. Maybe some of those production guys could tell us if they would like to have a chance at a win at a regional if the national level cars were exlcuded. I'm willing to bet they would. And that is essentially what we already have in IT.
Matt,
I'll give you that, you don't HAVE to spend a ton to go from l-p to Prod. But you do if you want to win. But, you already have to do that if you want to win in IT, especially ITS and to somewhat of a lesser degree, ITA. And yes, IT IS supposed to be fun and inexpensive (at least that's what the book says). Sorry to say, but that's gone by the boards, if you want to win.
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Finally, consider SS, a class with VERY limited modifcations. But the cost to compete is so high. Why? Because as a national class more is at stake. We all know that rules don't limit spending. What limits spending is the return on investment that keeps big money out of a series that only offers 5 dollar trophies. But offer the chance to be a "National Champion" and a line to starts to form of people willing to buy that.
Another thing that contributes to the higher cost of SS is that the donor cars are usually a lot of money. Not to mention that they have a defined, finite life span. I don't know what's a base BMW Z4 w/ the 2.5 liter motor go for? How about a new Miata (which you probably won't buy, if you want to win SSB this year)? To say that SS is so expensive because it's a National class is not really accurate. If it's about 'buying' a National Championship, a FV or SRF are cheaper.
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A $37,500 BMW is a bit much but how many are there in the country? If you go national that number will at least triple which means the little guy is no longer fighting for third, he's fighting for 8th or 12th or worse. It may still be fun, but it's not as fun and there is already a place for those guys to run.
Probably a lot more than you think. Look at the top ITS cars in the various Regional Series along the East coast (MARRS, SARRC, NARRC, etc.) There are probably a good 10 - 12 right there. I really don't think the folks that will spend the money to win a National Championship are also going to spend extra money just to go win a bunch of $5 trophies by racing against a group of (percieved) lower talented drivers in lesser prepared cars.
Nobody has said anything about turning IT into Prod. Making IT National doesn't make it Prod. Nice try, but you'll have to do better than that.
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