Big Picture of IT - Share Your Opinions

[Knestis]

I feel a compelling need to relay some facts for consideration by interested IT racers, without imposing any interpretations or inferences of my own:

1. Almost 20 recommendations for weight changes to IT cars, each made in response to a member request, have been sent to the Board since the ITAC's April conference call.

2. While other recommendations have been sent up, voted on, and published in Fastrack during that time, none relating to weight specification have been acted on - include a couple that were corrections of very recent mistakes WE MADE and fully accepted responsibility for.

3. The last recommendation of this nature that was voted on, was a correction to the Golf and Jetta II. Our recommendation was to reduce the weight 10 pounds. The board voted against that change (May Fastrack).

4. (Some inference here.) This recommendation was seen by members of the ITAC as significant because it was the first application of a revised practice that ignored the traditional "close enough" guidelines. That is to say, the ITAC ran the numbers, determined the weight, and recommended exactly that weight - as opposed to subjectively deciding it was "close enough to not bother changing."

5. Finally, the Comp Board has formally asked the ITAC to explain and defend its current process and practices, finalized internally over the past few months and just recently finished and codified.

The upshot of this is that - for good, bad, or otherwise - conversations about the IT category are happening among the Club leadership. If you have opinions about issues relating to IT rules, classifications, specifications, or philosophies now would be a very good time to voice them. Get involved and be heard.

K

[shwah]

I guess I'll post here what I did elsewhere, and give some thought to the content of a letter on the general subject of IT to the powers that be. It's hard for me to do that because many of the issues I see are larger than IT, and require a re-consideration of the Club Racing structure as a whole (dump Regional/National, have 'Races', invite top 20 classes in participation to the Runoffs the following year, invite the rest to ARRC, treat all the classes equitably and make the effort to make them all competitive places to race - maybe apply some of what makes IT so good to other classes).

As far as what appears to have brought this conversation to the fore:

If the intention was to make a number of changes around 'target' cars to improve equity in the class, it seems putting that together as a package would have made the concept easier to communicate to the decision makers.

Of course I am still in the position currently that we need to address the 'standard of evidence' issue for alternative process inputs. If you guys get a car wrong on the heavy side, people will be incentivised to send in data showing a lower than assumed power gain, and that data can easily be skewed. If you guys get a car wrong on the light side, people will not be incentivised to share any data - I know I am not going through a 10/10ths build of a competitors power plant to prove the mistake, and they certainly are not dumb enough to share it. You are setting yourselves up to create overdogs by not addressing this issue first because the correction mechanism available won't be triggered (unless you start to consider 'on track performance' - which is a bad idea in most cases).

Since the A2 Golf/Jetta weight 'inaction' was precipitated by my request early last year, I'll speak to it. While I agree with the philosphy of classing the cars where they land, and on this basis wish the change were approved, I could care less about whether I get a 10 pound reduction, because the reality is that the car is closer to 10 times that far off achieving equitable power/weight compared to the other front runners in the class. At this point the issue is dead to me and I'll find a way to win with what I've got (EDIT - it has been suggested to me that the expectation was that other cars would move the other direction putting them in closer to equitable positions). Building and testing several custom headers now, flow testing several heads, manifolds and throttle bodies now, whatever it takes to remove any possibility of not having everything legaly possible out of the car. This is why I have not raced this year. I don't want to bring a knife to the back straight at MO or RA next year. My position is certainly not impartial on this particular case, so my opinions are likely skewed at least some on the subject.

I have heard rumors of other requests that were not acted on, and they have raised my eyebrows a lot. To the point that I would lose a lot of faith in the category if they went through. Thus my beating the drum of knowing that we know what we think we know, rather than knowing what we were told, before taking action. It will be harder to fix a mistake than I used to think IMO.

[rsportvolvo]

IMSA, NASA, and other racing organizations thrive due to the shortcomings of the SCCA. These alternate organizations would not exist had SCCA done a better job.

My recent request for the Volvo 240 is not a weight reduction request, but a line item review as some information listed is flat out wrong (i.e. exhaust valve size is 35mm, not 37mm!). If the weight changed, good. If not, at least I can build a legal car using OEM parts. I'm not sure if my request was denied. If it is, I will be writing a letter.

Same crap happens in SCCA Pro-Racing too. It's unfortunately the SCCA way.

Has the ITAC written down their philosophies and practices? If not, now is a good time since they are under scrutiny.

[JeffYoung]

There will always be alternative motorsports organizations due to differing cultures. There are things that frustrate people about SCCA; there are things that frustrate others about NASA.

The Volvo request has been looked at several times and is being worked on. It has not been denied.

I certainly agree that, at a minimum, the "Process 2.0" for determining a car's race weight should be published.

IMSA, NASA, and other racing organizations thrive due to the shortcomings of the SCCA. These alternate organizations would not exist had SCCA done a better job.

My recent request for the Volvo 240 is not a weight reduction request, but a line item review as some information listed is flat out wrong (i.e. exhaust valve size is 35mm, not 37mm!). If the weight changed, good. If not, at least I can build a legal car using OEM parts. I'm not sure if my request was denied. If it is, I will be writing a letter.

Same crap happens in SCCA Pro-Racing too. It's unfortunately the SCCA way.

Has the ITAC written down their philosophies and practices? If not, now is a good time since they are under scrutiny.

[tnord]

and would someone like to lay out just what version 2.0 is? it'd be kinda nice to know before i try and give feedback on it, and to see if i need to put the car i just built up for sale

[chuck baader]

More than anything, I think a potential competitor should be able to go to the rule book and either find his/her car or be able to run the process on a new car to ascertain the class in which it would run. Other organizations mentioned have that capability without jumping through hoops. Hopefully, process V2.0 will alleviate some of the angst in car selection.

NASA has thrived on the GTS front on HP/WT but I think interest in that class is waning. People are starting to realize that classification solely depends on money, as does competitiveness. I am seeing a lot of NASA drivers looking hard at IT. As they say, "come on down". Chuck