That's why. Our class is balanced on a razor's edge, with cars like the Miata and CRX having the advantage in the corners and cars like the NX and Integra having the advantage on the straights. Versus the Integra my NX has superior torque with the Integra having a better suspension, thus needing to keep their speed up through the corners. If you toss in a lot of similar-speed top-10 ITS traffic that is very fast on the straights but balks the leading ITA cars in the corners (I finished 12th in ITS in 2003 and I'm much faster now) it becomes a competition of who has the most grunt out of the corners; all of these other cars are toast.

Having your races decided by cars not within your class is not racing. If you think that's the case, then why have four IT classes; let's lump everybody into one pot and call it simply "Improved Touring"! If I were in ITB I would MUCH rather run with the ITS guys so the speed disparity is more significant and conflicts are minimized; for the same reasons if I were in ITC I'd much rather run with ITA. Screw the loss of a lap, that's a much lower price to pay.
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Greg-
Well, I see your point and completely understand and your example is great, but.... I guess I have even a better advantage than you as the Audi's have a lot of grunt compaired to any other car than a volvo in ITB. We loose it in the turns and in braking, so I guess we should want to run with ITS, but honestly, you need to experience it, if you think it is bad with ITS/ITA cars try being a "B" car and gaining 5-7 car lengths in a turn catch a car at apex and still not have a chance to cary enough speed to make a pass as the HP between classes is so different.

Glad to see not wanting to run for first in mid pack is not an issue, I appologize if I went a little overboard with that comment... I to enjoy finishing in the to 5 or 10 overall with an ITB car in an ITB/ITS field!!!


Kevin- thank you for thinking clearly and telling us the true issue:

I don't think the problem is in what classes to group together, but as to why we're having to group these classes together. Are there more regional only classes that we need to squeeze into our regional only classes championship weekend? No, in fact there's less. So where's the issue? The issue is in the "other coimmitments".

Raymond