Originally Posted by
TomL
How about the fact that for most of the last dozen years IT7 has been the fifth most popular SARRC class. Even with a drop off in IT7 numbers in the last 3-4 years, it's still the seventh most popular class we have. And a large percentage of those numbers (AKA entries and money for the regions) would disappear if they got stuck back in ITA again. Don't believe it? I refer you back to when IT7 started - in 2000, there were 248 entries in IT7, 239 in ITA (487 total). In 2002, there were 263 IT7s and 234 ITAs (497 total). In 2001, SEDiv followed your advice and eliminated IT7. The combined ITA (including RX7s) dropped to 334 entries for the year. So about 150 entries went away because we got rid of an "unneeded" class.
Remember why IT7 exists. A hugely popular car was rendered effectively uncompetitive in ITA when CRXs and the like got dropped in. Either IT7 happened or a large percentage of RX7s would have disappeared. Yes, I know the "process" has helped with competitiveness (but I think it's silly to argue that a 100 pound weight loss that is difficult to achieve restored the RX7 as a truly competitive ITA car). I've seen discussion that the RX7 would be a very good ITB car at close to its previous weight, but no one in authority seems interested in actually putting it in that class. And, yes, IT7 is declining in numbers, but at last check there are 37 other classes that draw fewer cars.
Its always easy to get rid of somebody else's "unneeded" class. Maybe we should combine ITR with ITS. After all, with all its growth, ITR now up to almost half as many entries this year as IT7, so surely it would be a prime candidate for "unneeded". And ITRs and ITSs are very close in speed whenever they run together, so what objection could the ITS guys have?