Also the founding fathers of IT also apparently didn't want people running small diameter wheels since they explicitly put in a rule that says that you can't use a smaller diameter than that listed on the spec line. I'm not sure of the intent of that rule, since gearing is free (was gearing always free?) Sure, a smaller wheel has less spinning weight, but, so what if people squeeze small wheels over their brakes?

Final drive gears have always been "free-ish" (originally restricted to a maximum numerical value of 4.11) but back in the olden days, there just weren't many - if any - options for final drives for most cars.

K