How do you age an IT car from competition?

Not wanting to clutter up another thread too badly, I decided to start a new one to discuss something that I think is timely, maybe not, but it is the off season and it is far better than bashing >insert racing class or car< during the off time.

Seriously though, how do we age out a car in IT?

I don't want to stop racing my Z and I am sure there are some 510, RX7, Borgward, etc. drivers that want to continue, but how do we limit when a car must stop racing?

Do we simply make concessions, when parts are NLA, to keep them racing? Can we create a "process" by which a car should be aged out?

Is it even in the best interest of the club to consider aging out cars?

Thoughts?

I think the lack of parts is a good way to phase a car out. When you start allowing different mods to certain cars to allow them to continue, it could start a slippery slope as many would go against the idea of IT.

Similiar things have happened in the Prod side (See old british cars)

Ignore it. When it starts showing up with not stock/legal stuff peer pressure /and or protest, will retire it to the vintage ranks. Not a real problem. IMHO. MM

I agree with Mike...let things run their course.

Given the economy, we must be concerned with car counts and letting (and encouraging) folks to continue to run their cars in the classes they have run in.

We are not looking to retire cars by age; Heck, I just built my brand new race car based on a 1982 shell!

If it were possible to get accurate records, at some point - say after 3 years without an entry - I think a car should fall out of the ITCS. Josh S. (I think) had a good idea - that this step take the form of the weight column entry being replaced with a note explaining that the car had aged out but might be reinstated if a member could provide the data necessary for determining a race weight.

Of course that was back in the heady days when we thought we could do that kind of thing - set race weights - in some comprehensive fashion. ;)

K

Paul, I think it has to happen naturally. RX3s are a good example. They used to be fairly popular in ITA; my understanding is that rear brake parts are not available anymore and the cars have disappeared.

I would not support an exception for replacing NLA parts for older cars. You can always replace and run in ITE for example.

Paul: As Jeff said, things can happen naturally. In my case, the car I race - an '83 Dodge Shelby - is also classed in F Prod, E Prod, and GT3. So, if stock parts were to become unavailable, and I still wanted to race this car, I could always jump into another class that allowed different parts.

My last car aged out when it hit a wall at Road Atlanta.

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Originally Posted by Tom Donnelly

My last car aged out when it hit a wall at Road Atlanta.

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:happy204:

When you can no longer source front brake shoes or rear wheel cylinders or correct spec SP rotor housings for it :rolleyes:

The final time I took the car out, I actually ran it with a first gen RX-7 transmission in it because I couldn't afford to lose an RX-3 trans. Do you know how hard it is to find an RX-3 trans?

I really wish I had enough money to keep the RX-3 and just go nuts with it and run an SPx class with it. That's what the current owner is in the process of doing.

So, in short, run it until you find yourself having to "cheat" to put it on the grid. The good news is, the Z's won't ever have a problem sourcing rotor housings:D

I had written a long response and then lost the electrons, oh well. I don't have a problem with they way things are, really, I don't. If an essential part becomes NLA then it is time to move on.

My real reason for starting this topic was an effort to discuss another means of attracting the younger crowd to IT. Let's face it, a bunch of us are north of 50 and are perfectly content to race our 3 decade + old car that has ZERO appeal to the the younger crowd. Perhaps it is time to think about other ways of keeping the "club" young.

That said, forget I even asked the question. IMHO, until we see some changes at the management level, i.e. BoD, CRB, etc. the "club" isn't listening to those of us trying to push the envelope and create a better club, and good racing, for the overall health of the club. No wonder we loose so many entry level people to other racing organizations.........

Back to regularly scheduled programming and griping about Spec pinata's and production cars holding us up in the corners.....:D

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Originally Posted by pballance

No wonder we loose so many entry level people to other racing organizations.........

Back to regularly scheduled programming and griping about Spec pinata's and production cars holding us up in the corners.....:D

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Well, there are a number of reasons for that. Chief among them is the financial realities that people discover when they actually start racing, I bet.

But your point should not be lost, or minimized by such examples. Those examples only prove how important it IS to listen to the customer.

Of course, the customer often has conflicting goals, AND the customer often presents a myriad of inputs. But, when the customer is clear and has a unified voice, yeah, listen up.

CRB members should be required to go to a NASA event. Walk around tech, look at the cars, the ages, the popular classes. They spend more $ per car, have younger and better looking girlfriends, all important stuff. Really, more cash, younger racers , newer cars. They find a class for a super charged 65 Mustang.
NASA has a trophy presentaion , with beer, SAt PM. That is how it should be done,IMHO. NASA cost has higher entry fees.

We lose new kids because of the threads like,: "who has a horn?" Is my air damn legal?
Come on kids. Is it really a problem?
Will my car be faster if the drum brakes are off of a Dodge Omni ,instead of a Datsun? Will I spend 20k to make it a FP car, because the brakes dont work? Not likely.
We should be happy to see the cars out there,not worried about the rear drums. IMHO.
Are'nt we a little too serious for a regional event that is supposed to be fun?
Does it really matter if I have a 16V spoiler on my 8V car?
The rules say that I can add one, in front of the original? That is the kinda crap that drives them away. MM

I agree with what Mike Ogren has said. I beleive we get way too eaten up with nonsense items that, don't make a "tinker's damn's difference" with regards to a vehicle's performance. I sometimes think we show are age, and our inability to think outside of the box, when good, common sense, cost effective ideas, are immeadiately discounted because they "don't" fit some mode or mold. I for one don't bother to offer my ideas to the CRB / or ITAC anymore.

David Ellis-Brown

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Originally Posted by Flyinglizard

CRB members should be required to go to a NASA event. Walk around tech, look at the cars, the ages, the popular classes. They spend more $ per car, have younger and better looking girlfriends, all important stuff. Really, more cash, younger racers , newer cars. They find a class for a super charged 65 Mustang.
NASA has a trophy presentaion , with beer, SAt PM. That is how it should be done,IMHO. NASA cost has higher entry fees.

We lose new kids because of the threads like,: "who has a horn?" Is my air damn legal?
Come on kids. Is it really a problem?
Will my car be faster if the drum brakes are off of a Dodge Omni ,instead of a Datsun? Will I spend 20k to make it a FP car, because the brakes dont work? Not likely.
We should be happy to see the cars out there,not worried about the rear drums. IMHO.
Are'nt we a little too serious for a regional event that is supposed to be fun?
Does it really matter if I have a 16V spoiler on my 8V car?
The rules say that I can add one, in front of the original? That is the kinda crap that drives them away. MM

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He makes a good point. The NASA PT point system with HP/WT limitations seems to work well. Sure there are rules, but since they allow replacement cams, for instance, it's easy/cheap to make HP. Make too much, and you get bumped to the next class.

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Originally Posted by EV

He makes a good point. The NASA PT point system with HP/WT limitations seems to work well. Sure there are rules, but since they allow replacement cams, for instance, it's easy/cheap to make HP. Make too much, and you get bumped to the next class.

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And that's why there are horses of different colors. The NASA system may appeal to some. But it is a complicated system. I looked at it and decided that it would be too complex to decide what change would give me the most speed for the weight.

Not saying either system is right or wrong, just different. It is up to us to be able to explain the advantages/disadvantages of each and why we made the decisions we did, to seduce potential newbies to our side. For me, it was the relative simplicity of the rules.

If I wanted to race a supercharged Borgward, I would probably go to NASA.

I'm very intrigued by the PT approach and will be interested to see how it evolves as people get more serious about competing within that structure. I have a sneaking suspicion that when - or if - the pool gets deeper and people start getting really into maximizing their advantages, we'll see some changes. Time will tell, though.

K

I contemplated responding, but decided I had to get work done, LOL. It does center around the term "serious". Things will be different should it become popular and people get serious, and the cornerstone might need to be examined.

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Originally Posted by RacerBill

And that's why there are horses of different colors. The NASA system may appeal to some. But it is a complicated system. I looked at it and decided that it would be too complex to decide what change would give me the most speed for the weight.

Not saying either system is right or wrong, just different. It is up to us to be able to explain the advantages/disadvantages of each and why we made the decisions we did, to seduce potential newbies to our side. For me, it was the relative simplicity of the rules.

If I wanted to race a supercharged Borgward, I would probably go to NASA.

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Nitrous on your supercharged Borgward? I was thinking about tubbing out my Isabella and running it in SPO.

[QUOTE=pballance;301488

Back to regularly scheduled programming and griping about Spec pinata's ....:D[/QUOTE]

Hey Paul,

You can come on over tothe "PINK" side:p

Todd