IT Rules Archive

This is something I've been toying with doing for a long time but now that I've had a chance to be involved directly in the ITAC, I'd like to find a way to build a historical archive of the IT rules.

To that end, I want to come up with a scheme to archive every old ITCS, going back to the very beginning. I also need a copy of the This is IT article that appeared in SportsCar back in 1984 or so.

Ideally, it would be cool to PDF all of these docs and make them available in perpetuity to the ITAC and interested members.

Who's got old copies? Who would be willing to help out? I think it would be very helpful to policy conversations to be able to see where we've come from...

K

***I also need a copy of the This is IT article that appeared in SportsCar back in 1984 or so.***

K, I have no info for you. I do have the 1997 SportsCar article "Back to the Basics" with reference to the Production LP cars. It is very amusing to go back & read the article stated original philosophy while today Production LP rules skate down the rules path. Kind of like the IT suspension Spherical bearing.;) I hope all that the ITAC has defined stays in place with with well thought out changes/additions.

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Originally Posted by Knestis

...I want to come up with a scheme to archive every old ITCS, going back to the very beginning. I also need a copy of the This is IT article that appeared in SportsCar back in 1984 or so.

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An absolutely stellar idea! Put me down as someone that will help. I'm just not sure how I could help... I have no PDF creation software. :(

K: I have a Xerox copier here at work. If you send me 8.5x11 sheets, it'll make PDF files as fast as they can be scanned in. They can be one page per pdf, or if you have ten pages, all ten can be one document. I also have many back copies of the GCR & ITCS (have to see how far back).

THAT's great Bill. Mine only go back to 03 with a possible smattering from the 90s.

That would be great, Bill. In thinking this through another step, it occurs to me that (a) we might want to check with the Club Racing office and let them know that we'd like to violate their copyright on these docs, and (b) that before we do that, maybe we should check and see if THEY have them. I'm going to email Jeremy T. and see if he knows anything.

In the meantime, if interested parties could check their inventory and post what year(s) of ITCS they have on hand, we can do an inventory and see where we are.

Thanks!

K

Jake: I know I have some going back to the 90's, maybe even the 80's. I always bought a GCR when I was Chief of Sound Control ('86-2002)

***post what year(s) of ITCS they have on hand, we can do an inventory and see where we are.***

I have the simple end of ITCS, 2000 through 2008. Asking people about SportsCar from mid 80's looking for the original article.

The years that I have immediately on hand is 2000 - 2008, also. I will have to check with my archiveist - but she is out of town for the next couple of days.

About the Sports Car articles, why don't you try Pete Hylton, the Club Historian.

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Originally Posted by Knestis

I'd like to find a way to build a historical archive of the IT rules.
K

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I have the "way" :023:
The IT.com wiki is installed and will be available for exactly such documentation.
PDFs will be able to be integrated with it as well as text, images & HTML.

Kirk I can discuss with you "offline" and give you and your 'librarians' access to the wiki if you would like. IM me if you want to persue it.

........cooooollll...........

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Originally Posted by webmaster

I have the "way" :023:
The IT.com wiki is installed and will be available for exactly such documentation.
PDFs will be able to be integrated with it as well as text, images & HTML.

Kirk I can discuss with you "offline" and give you and your 'librarians' access to the wiki if you would like. IM me if you want to persue it.

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Got the first doc for our archive - that original SportsCar article about the NEW IT category. You've got PM, webmeister...

K

Now this is good work. Thanks for doing this guys.

Grand Poobah of the Web, when do you think the wiki will be open to us to add stuff?

I REALLY want to read that first article on IT at the time of Genesis. ITC Renault Encores in the Garden of Eden. Kirk as Adam? lol...j/k Kirk......

You can get IT here.

Don't want to keep Jeff waiting. And it was an Alliance. And there was no snake.

K

Thanks man. Dem apples tasted gooooooooood.......

Seriously, thanks for doing this.

Wow. One page of rules. Kirk, did you help write those? 3 classes, minimal cars. Still, what interested me the most was that those cars pictured didn't look all THAT different from IT cars of today......maybe things haven't changed as much as we thought?

I was on the rules writing team (aka three friends, several pizzas, and a bunch of beer) that were working on the NW Region IT rules when the Club Racing office announced it was going to release National Regional-only IT rules. We bagged it and went with the new plan but I got a dispensation from our Competition Director and RE to enter my Alliance it ITC.

Nobody cared.

There were only a handful of cars in the class between NW ane ORE regions - a Fiat 124 Coupe, a Corolla, a couple of Datsun 1200s, and a cheated up Nissan Sentra that sounded like a Formula Atlantic and kicked everyone's asses. They were all glad to have another car around to beat. :)

I wonder, looking at these rules and presuming that what's written here were enforced, how different would things actually be today if they hadn't changed at all in 22 years?

K

EDIT - a couple of interesting quotes leap out at me, including

"...the powers that be in Denver want all regions using a common set of rules, because it seems possible there could some day be a big push to make IT a country-wide regional or even national class."

Or, "Naturally, as more racers come into IT, the competition will heat up and the pressure will increase. There are already complaints that some people are winning races with cars that don't meet the spirit or even the letter of the rules."

And this when the category was literally BRAND NEW. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Knestis

"...the powers that be in Denver want all regions using a common set of rules, because it seems possible there could some day be a big push to make IT a country-wide regional or even national class."

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ah HA!!!


The smoking gun!

Kirk, how long before the class "caught on" so to speak? When did the car counts start to reach the 10 to 15 car range?

Also, when S come along? That article explains a silly question I always had which was, why A-B-C-S? Obviously, no S with A as the top class when IT got started.

When S came along did you guys hve the same argument "against" it as we did with R? Cars too powerful/too heavy/too expensive?

Thanks again for this. MOST interesting.

ITS was always there in my recollection but it might be because we had a de facto regional IT category before the National rules came out, based on CalClub's plan as I recall. OR because it happened the next season.

I was surprised too, to see that S isn't listed in the article. I guess the next question is what did the first ITCS look like? It would have followed this article by half a year or so by my reckoning...

K

EDIT - recognize that at the time, ITS was pretty much ONLY Z's and RX7s, so it would have NOT have been a hard sell. Those were the preeminent "sports cars" of the period, noting too that cars needed only be 3 years old, and the OLDEST make/model listed was only 15 years of age. (That's by the proposed rule set. I don't remember what the first official book said, but we'll find out).

Time to get the Capri back into "C" ;)

Kirk, this is cool stuff!!!


One thing I noticed was that cars had to remain suitable for both normal road use and speed events.... We are a long way away from that now.

Raymond

Since cars had to be 3 years old, ITS RX-7s didn't race until '89 at the earliest...

The dual purpose aspect remained in place for quite awhile. I remember driving my car(And RX-7) in '93 from CT to New Hampshire and having to0 stop every 5 gallons, cuz the extra weight rubbed the tires too much, (where the "I thought those were crap when I welded them in" Ground Control panhard rod brackets ripped out making the car go all "railroad car" crabby,) and to Lime rock (where I won MONEY!!!!), and to Pocono, where I totalled it in my school, (but still got my lic) and to the Glen where I done blowed up the motor, (and rented a car to get home, then "borrowed" my bosses van the next weekend, and found out why you need trailer brakes on a crappy van when I ran thru the stop at the bottom of the hill leaving the Glen and drove over the funeral homes sidewalk..and I swear I never went over 30 the whole hill.)

Yup....dual purpose race cars. good idea!

Jake, Jake, Jake, lest ye forget! The 12A 1st Gen RX7 was originally an ITS car....

Kirk, back before the Zs got developed to the max, were the Z and the 1st Gen RX7 pretty evenily matched?

Oh, I remember, good point. I keep thinking 2nd gen when I think ITS. Kirk Weiss, (not so long ago ex-CRB grand poobah) once told me that the unofficial "method" that once existed for classing cars in IT was to "put 'em in ITS and see how they do"...

When I first landed in SCCA roadracing (after wasting too much time and money in autocrossing) the 1st gen was in, and had been, in ITA. That was 92-93.

Cool stuff for sure Kirk!

Anybody know when it went from 3 to 5 years? And when they opened it up from '70 to '68?

I went to my very first track event in '87 at Pocono (EMRA event) and was totally bitten. And spending $5k on a race car was soooooo much money! What's funny is, that same $5k buys you pretty much the same race car, today.:D

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Originally Posted by JeffYoung

Jake, Jake, Jake, lest ye forget! The 12A 1st Gen RX7 was originally an ITS car....

Kirk, back before the Zs got developed to the max, were the Z and the 1st Gen RX7 pretty evenily matched?

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I first started going to SCCA races in 86 at CMS, Rockingham, Rd ATL, RR, and even then a RX7 couldn't keep up with a Z. The RX2/3 was the king in ITA. And I recall the 200SX and the Volvo were the cars to beat in ITB.

When the RX got moved to A (early 90s?), was it an overdog? I would think it would have been, at the time...interesting.

We still have a fast RX3 in ITA in the SEDiv....red one...shows up at Roebling every once in a while. As I understand it though, it's pretty much sidelined due to total inability to get rear brake parts. Crazy.