ITAC News.

[JoshS]

Can we get a rundown on last night's conference call?

Yes you may!

First of all ... everyone who had a letter on the agenda last night except for a couple in which we're still working out some final follow-up, should have already received an automated notice from the letter-tracking system that their letter was either forwarded to the CRB, or tabled. By the end of the week I expect that the remaining couple will be handled too.

In a few cases where there are multiple letters asking for effectively the same thing, only the first one received will receive a notification when things are tabled.

That said, we had a late start last night due to issues with the SCCA voice conferencing system (3rd month in a row we've had something go wrong with it), and we didn't really get started with a full slate of voices until about an hour late. So we didn't get to nearly as much as we would have hoped.

We had spirited discussions on all of the rules-change letters, which included requests for:

• Alternate motor mounts
• C-clip eliminators for live axle cars
• Relocation of the engine reference sensor from the distributor to the crank (which turned into a discussion about ignition system allowances in general)
• Battery relocation
• Short shifters
• Relax the roll cage mounting points limits
• Forced induction cars in IT

A running theme during all of the discussions above was about the philosophy of IT and its place in the whole club racing program, with input from our CRB liaisons, of course. We discussed who our members are, who we want our members to be, etc.

All of these issues reached a conclusion in the ITAC last night and have been forwarded to the CRB for action. But understand that a couple of these are not slam dunks and if you haven't weighed in yet, your additional input could still be valuable as the CRB will have to weigh in on the ITAC recommendations at their next meeting.

I am going to avoid posting how things were concluded by the ITAC until the CRB acts on them, but I will present what I believe to be the strongest arguments on either side of a couple of these items. Note that this is the written policy that all committee members agree to when they join, and it's nothing new. Please understand that although these items have moved to the next step, these are still open items until they reach a final conclusion, which will be published in Fastrack. All rules changes ultimately need approval by the ITAC, the CRB, and the BOD.

On motor mounts, the strongest argument for the allowance says that alternate mounts, or just reinforced stock mounts, are a cheaper, easier way to relieve the pain of replacing fragile stock mounts on a regular basis. The strongest argument against the allowance is that this rule is unnecessary because there is already a very effective and inexpensive rule in place that will alleviate the same pain, and there is no need to advance our way down the slippery slope of rules creep. That's a gross summary of the discussion, there are a tremendous number of nuances and other arguments both pro & con. Most of them have been seen on various forums already.

The roll cage question was a fun one. On the negative side, there is a concern that allowing additions to the roll cage (tie to the pillars/roof, or extend to the front strut towers, etc) would change the game in IT builds quite a bit, and a lot of existing drivers might feel that we are just forcing them to spend money to be competitive. But on the pro side of the argument, there was a recent anecdote of a car that wanted to cross over from another club into IT, but its cage well exceeded IT rules, so the owner was told he'd have to remove all of that extra stuff. Had he done so, and had an injury-producing accident, could the club be held liable? And to what extent should the club be holding the line on safety mods? But, might a really extensive cage in a unibody car be LESS safe, due to the impact it would have on the original crush zones? Interesting discussion.

Due to the late start and the complex nature of some of the rules allowance questions, we were only able to close out a couple of the car classification letters before we quit at 11:30 eastern, and the rest were tabled for next month. I apologize to those of you waiting for action on those. We are doing our best and we will lead off our next meeting with those!

As always, please feel free to contact me privately to discuss any of these issues or anything else you've got on your mind. You can contact me through this forum and I will send you my phone number, or give me a number and a time to call you and I'll do my best to make it happen.