Jim will really try to see all sides of most issues so I would say he will be a friend to the IT world.
From what I heard at the meeting I feel progress on a mandatory rule will move forward, but with a lot of fact gathering. The one thing that kept coming up was "Industry Standard". And in our racing world the "Industry Standard" for safety items seems to be SFI rating. That kept coming up in conversations from several speakers from the floor. I brought up that a number of IT racers are huge fans / users of the Issac and don't want to be forced to change. (That didn't get a very positive response due to folks not having the info that is on here.)
Peter was there and probably has a better recall of what was said. I left feeling that at somepoint H&N will probably be required, but it may take time to get it all sorted out.

The so called Big T in the punch bowl seems to come from the SFI stuff, which due to most all organizations recognizing that as the "Industry Standard" sort of forces our organ ization to fall in line. (JMO)

As I said above, Jim is a very good guy and is grassroots racing to the core. I think with the addition of him to Peter & Chris we have some very IT friendly folks in a good position.