Originally posted by Bill Miller@Nov 2 2005, 11:35 AM
Mike,

The fact that some of those top E36 cars have survived ARRA post-race tech, notwithstanding, you might want to re-think your above comments. You are, in pretty much so many words, calling a LOT of folks cheaters. That's a pretty serious allegation, and something that shouldn't just be casually thrown around. I have no idea what the prep level of your car is, or who built it, but unless it's a 10/10ths effort, it's pretty disingenuous to hint that the top guys are cheating. And if you think that restrictor plate 'suddenly appeared' this year, you haven't been following this site much.

As far as how to get the weight up, you just add lead. The 100# max ballast rule has been lifted.
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Hi, Bill.

What's ARRA? American Road Racing Association? Another back-east local org, aren't they? Why is their tech inspection relevant to a car's legality for SCCA ITS competition?

I would have hoped you had read my note as carefully as I had written it. I'm not calling a lot of folks cheaters; I'm suggesting that a few folks are runining outside the rules, knowing it or not, and upsetting the balance for the rest of us.

That is, I wonder if this problem is local to several of the regions back-east regions. Out here, there's no issue. I went back two years and I can't find any lap times for for a BMW in an SCCA ITS race in the Oregon region. I found a few BMW times for the Pacific Northwest region, but that car was unopposed in the races I found.

So as I mentioned, I'm not really sure the "data is obvious". If it's obvious, let's trot it out into the bright sunshine and see if it survives a peer review. Meanwhile, this comes off as ranting buy guys who haven't posted times in a while, people who are protecting business interests, and those who can't stand technological change.

To put a finer point on it, repeating "it's obvious!!1!" isn't helpful. Providing some discussion points and hard data would be.

Indeed, I don't follow this forum for rule changes; I read about them in the FastTrack, which made no mention of considering a restrictor plate for the E36 until it was announced as required in the January, 2005 issue. Prior to that, they'd solicited input once and discussed only weight changes. To me, that's sudden: I don't know whe I would have been able to offer input or response to the competition board.

That brings up one of my questions, though; who are the "we" and "us" that Darin keeps referring to? Am I really to trust this stale old website for official news about ITS rules in SCCA?

It's good to hear the ballast restriction has been lifted -- I guess it had to be done, if these adjustments really have to be made. The difference for me is 150 pounds; I'm sure it's more for other cars and drivers. If my calculations are right, 150 pounds of lead at a density of 11.3437 g/cm^3 has a volume of about 6 liters, or just less than a gallon and a half.

Even if I were to stipulate that the E36 is an overdog, I think undermining the car is the wrong idea. It seems to me that the older and less advanced cars in the class should be retired to a lesser class where they're more competitive. Any other proposal makes me wonder about the longevity of the solution. The problem is that the SCCA hasn't ever made good competition equality adjustments in these classes; it wasn't a part of the class charter until recently. The problem won't be fixed by overloading one of the more modern cars in the class.