Did you read the Member Advisory concerning the Touring and Showroom Stock categories in the CRB Minutes? That tells you (and everyone else) how the CRB plans to manage those categories after 2012.Originally Posted by Bill Miller
Dave
Senior Member
Did you read the Member Advisory concerning the Touring and Showroom Stock categories in the CRB Minutes? That tells you (and everyone else) how the CRB plans to manage those categories after 2012.
Dave
Senior Member
Since I don't want IT to be made up exclusively of ancient drivers, I'm mostly ok with this.
Visiting a NASA paddock is eye opening. I'm still confident the best competition is to be found with the SCCA, but the average age of a NASA racer has to be 10, 15 maybe 20 years less than at an SCCA event.
When you talk to the younger guys about IT, what do you hear? Yeah, they complain some about limited aero mods and no engine swaps and stuff, but mostly it is about "BS rules" like the washer bottle or the nonsense (my opinon) with engine mount material.
That to me seems like a significant impediment to getting and keeping the younger crowd in IT.
Over the last 2-3 years, I've seen a trickle of drivers start to come back to IT from Spec Miata. Couple that with making our class even somewhat attractive to the PT racer from NASA and I think you will see us growing again if the economy starts to turn.
We are still the biggest class after SRF and SM and the biggest multi-marque class in SCCA. The question is how to keep that healthy and growing. 15 car fields at VIR this year were encouraging. But we can't stagnate. I see three ways to continue to grow:
1. A "real" national championship. Check. ITNT on tap.
2. Promotion. We have some of the closest multi-marque racing out there that is very different from spec class racing. Moser and Price at the ARRC. The multi-car battles from start to finish in ITS in the SEDiv this year. The ITB guys at the Labor Day Double at Summit. Pretty amazing racing.
3. Modernization. I'm not here to run off the old cars, like some folks think. But I don't think our class can survive if we spend a lot of time and squeeze on keeping drum braked, live axle, carbureted cars from the 70s competitive. Not saying they can't be competitive, just saying in my opinion we should not be going out of our way to make sure a TR8 or a 240z or Volvo 142 or a BMW 2002 is on more than a roughly even power to weight playing field with newer cars.
And Modernization includes rule modernization. There is a tension -- a needed one -- between making sure creep doesn't do to us what it did to Prod, and having stasis kill the class. If we had the ruleset we had in 85, this class would be dead. We have addressed AWD, and we are going to have to deal with Turbos.
Which is why in the grand scheme of things I'll never get the idea that the washer bottle is some line in the sand. The core values are. They have remain unchanged and if we keep a nice rolling transition on the ITAC with the more experienced folks getting the newer guys up to speed on the Ops Manual and how we work we should be fine.
The present ITAC is an EXCELLENT group. We work well together, and have the excellent tools provided to us by Jake, Andy, Kirk, Josh, and crew. I'm very confident these guys will carry this thing on into the future without any hitches.
I've always felt membership on these committees should have a shelf life, and my time is approaching -- next year will be my fourth on the committe and my last. There are two things I want to achieve next year. They are:
1. A development of an IT "core values" document like the Ops Manual that will make it clear to future ITACs what the guys in the past thought we should not touch.
2. A plan for a class above R, and turbos.
We'll see how it goes.
But I don't get the angst, at all, over washer bottles, or even the perception allowing their removal creates.
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Senior Member
Nice job. I have been hoarding the 13x6 wheels (JW) and scared about not having my rear window wiper on. I am pretty sure that my charcoae thing is in there someplace.
It is about time that SCCA has let the racers decide what is the best way.
Mike Ogren , FWDracingguide.com, 352.4288.983 ,http://www.ogren-engineering.com/
Senior Member
Bookmark this post, as I'll stand by it 5 years from now: Additional allowances will not decrease the mean age of IT entrants in a statistically significant way between now and 2016.
The only thing it will do is shift what some minority of people will complain about, from washer bottles to stock bodywork, boring old stamped steel control arms, glass windows, and stock brakes. Will the ITAC accept requests for those changes when they are the "only thing keeping young racers from racing in IT?"
NASA's advantage in the market has one primary cause: Their integrated HPDE and racing programs, that make it very easy for someone to learn and make the transition to W2W racing if they want. That new NASA racers trend younger than SCCA is largely because it's a newer organization, they are better at attracting new racers of all ages, and new racers tend to be younger than those who have done it for a long time. (That should be largely self-evident.)
And with respect to history, the B Spec rule set looks VERY much like IT c.1990 or thereabouts (post seat and headliner allowances; big whoop). It will be a success despite those "primitive rules."
K
Senior Member
Will we ever be able to proved statisically that eliminating the washer bottle rule caused x number of younger races to race SCCA? No, we won't -- I agree with you on that.
Is there a perception that the SCCA is an unfriendly, hard to deal with, anachronistic organization that is not racer friendly? Yep. Is the washer bottle rule in IT one small part of that? Yep.
We all have a different vision of the fringes of what IT prep should look like, but we aren't talking about the things that continually get listed as the "next step" in IT allowances and when they are brought up -- cams, wings, fiberglass body panels -- they are almost unamiously shouted down.
The B-Spec ruleset may appeal to some, or even a lot of folks. Will be interesting. I have no interest because I have no desire to race that type of car, but I'm not sure why it has anything to do with IT. It looks like it is going to be a close-ish to showroom stock series with manufacturer support for econoboxes. Again, that doesn't interest me, although I wish it well, but I see little if any parallel to IT.
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Senior Member
Just my opinion here, since someone brought up the difference between NASA and SCCA. What I see as the big difference is that NASA allows racers to make the changes that they feel will make their cars faster with a structure that provides for a driver to determine what class he wants to run in, where SCCA provides a class structure that defines what you can do to a car to make it faster and you build within that framework. Two philosophical positions. Not saying if one is better than another. I prefer the SCCA framework. Others will like NASA. I do agree that we need to do a better job getting drivers to move up from autocross, to PDX, to W2W.
Bill Stevens - Mbr # 103106
BnS Racing www.bnsracing.net
92 ITA Saturn
83 ITB Shelby Dodge Charger
Sponsors - Race-Keeper Data/Video Aquisition Systems www.race-keeper.com
Simpson Performance Products - simpsonraceproducts.com
Senior Member
Soapbox moment:
"We get the IT we want"....
Who is we"?
Well, it's this ITAC, the last ITAC, the ITAC before that, the ITAC before THAT, (which are, lets call them: the Sirota ITAC, the Bettencourt ITAC the Jordan ITAC, and the Pocock ITAC, going backwards (2011- 1999 or so)....and the CRBs before that, going back to 1984 or so.
Time marches on and the current ITAC rules over a category of over 300 cars, spanning 25 plus years of technological changes.
ANY category with such a broad base and deep history will have issues and MUST change to remain relevant.
Jeff, we've been nailed by the words our predecessors used. And we've had to do things we didn't want to. The spherical situation is a classic. When they wrote the rule they wrote, nobody in their wildest dreams would have jumped to the spherical conclusion. If the ITAC failed, it was not reacting fast enough. But as Andy points out, apparently the PTB were fine with the situation.
The ECU was another. The Jordan and Bettencourt ITACs inherited wording regarding the ECU that was untenable. Trust me, I certainly didn't want to go where we went, but as you know, I championed the rulechange, I felt it was the best option. Had to do it. And as for the option you suggest of just saying "No"?!
Uh, respectfully, are you nuts? LOL. After telling the membership for a number of years that they are allowed to do XYZ, and watching them spend tens of thousands doing XYZ, you're not going to have me tell them to pound sand, take it all out and put the old stuff they sold on eBay back in!. Talk about sending members to NASA!
It's one of the costs of maintaining a 300 car, 25 yr old category.
"B Spec" category rules is easy peasy in comparison!
So, to sum up, we (the collective 10 yr ITAC s), tripped over ourselves on the ECU, but, in the end it's where it should be.
In contrast, we allowed "Any shock" back in the early days. Then people started putting on mega $ Remote res dampers. Rather than swallow hard and wait for the infant technology to come down in price and let it be, they decided to outlaw them. And I can name guys who said "FU!" and walked away. Not that waiting for the cost to drop was important, because if you want to spend $ on dampers, there's nothing stopping you from doing so with single double or triple adjustable versions, now or then.
(If we want to contain damper return on investment, we will draw the line at coupling the front chassis structure to the cage forever, as it leaves the chassis as a big undamped spring, negating super high spring rates and somewhat makes super pimpy dampers a waste of coin. Effective rule that, but we'll forever have people wanting to change it to make their cars 'more like a real race car" and they'll play the safety card as well. )
We have to be smart enough not to let the Genie out of the bottle in the first place, but realize, times change and the ruleset must adapt or the category will die.
I'm with Andy on the whole lap sim thing. We had FWD adders. They make sense. They are used by Pro Racing orgs to equalize competition. They were our best estimates. Lap Sim was used as another source to back up those numbers. Even so, I'm not sure I see absolute parity, even now, for FWD cars in ITS, or ITR.
I'd certainly say that using Lap Sim was in no way rules creep, nor has it resulted in a mistake in classifications resulting in overdogs.
Overall, IT is in good shape. That our average racer isn't a young gun is not symptomatic of issues with the IT ruleset. As Kirk points out, NASA has a MUCH better entry into racing system than we do.
1- MANY people who are 'casual' racers want to race their favorite car, with their favorite mods. MANY racers fit this category. NASA PT fits them well. Ultimately, it's a gameable category, but, it works for a lot of people at a certain level of competitiveness.
2- The entire "car guy" crowd and mentality has shifted. We are an entitled society. EVERYone gets trophies and awards at school these days...for showing up to whatever event is handing out awards. "Participation" trophies...makes it fun for everyone. I think we see that in the Drivers Ed mentality...buy more power and keep the little guys behind you. "I won the National HPDE ChampionshiP! Weeee!"
3- Guys who want to race...to prove they are legitimately and measurably better, don't whine about wings or washer bottles. They get busy. But that population, in general, is getting scarcer, I think.
SCCA is trying to cater to both crowds, and it's tough. There will be fallout.
Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
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New England Region
lateapex911(at)gmail(dot)com
Senior Member
I won't even as for attribution - or even correlation with "age" as a single factor. I'll bet you a nice dinner that IT entrants won't be any younger in 5 years. Period. I'll kind of win either way because we'll get to have dinner but I'll buy the drinks and be designated driver, too.
The problem here is that if "attracting youth" is the rationale for "updating" the rule set, we're setting ourselves up for an ongoing game of Whack-a-Mole. New racers will bring incremental desires to continue that process and will simply - I guarantee it - ask for whatever is next. If the rationale for the policy holds today, it will hold in 2 years. You haven't removed the line in the sand; you've just moved it to a new arbitrary location. And most new drivers won't last more than 3 years anyway, so you're writing rules that will barely have a chance to be read before your target audience has moved on to mountain biking or some such.
Spec B doesn't appeal to you (Jeff) because of the type of car that's involved. Point, Kirk. It's not the rule set that makes the final determination of popularity. It's the sum of a complex pile of factors. I absolutely do not believe that, had this most recent set of new allowances been in place 3 years ago, that IT fields would be any larger than they are now. Viewed differently, the rules, while someone can ALWAYS find something to whine about, have not in and of themselves chased off anyone who wouldn't have gone to do something else anyway. And new classes simply further dilute the existing pool of willing racers.
But again, it's all academic at this point. We haven't done ANYTHING to change the root causes of the big issue - unfriendly, hard to deal with, anachronistic - so we're chasing shadows.
K
Last edited by Knestis; 11-23-2011 at 08:54 AM.
Senior Member
This has been a good discussion.
Let me try to sum up one thing though. I'm not in favor of just granting allowances whenever asked. But I'm also not in favor of a completely static result that is not in some way responsive to member input.
There is a tension there and a needed balance between a 'whack a mole" situation where we are updating the rules every 2-3 years on the one hand, and a situation where we make no changes over a 20 year period and drive members off in frustration.
I'll be honest -- I think I show respect for the reasons why we don't want the former, but soemtimes I think there is a willing to die by principle in favor of the latter.
Let me expound a bit on B Spec. The car set doesn't appeal to me, and neither does the ruleset. That's not a knock on B Spec, it is just a personal preference.
Maybe there is an interest in a showroom stockish type situation like that. I don't see it. At least on the regional level, showroom stock is not doing well and racers appear to prefer a different level of prep.
I do think this. I think a reasonably updated ruleset that does address some member's concerns is a pretty key part of addressing the "anachronistic, unfriendly, ...." issue.
I am not one of the NASA Haters, but I do find their rulesets goofy, too fluid and too willing to create-a-class on a whim. That said, there is SOMETHING going on over there that we could learn from without destroying our culture, and to me the key thing is doing what we can to keep rulesets reasonably "fresh."
Josh was absoluitely right that one of the things we must do is work to ensure that IT does not become a vintage class. Sometimes I think it is in danger of that, and then I see things like what has happened in B, and is happening in S, with newer cars coming in and being very competitive.
Dinner and beers on me. I owe you and Andy and Jake -- with the process in place we now actually finish our ITAC calls early, get cars classed quickly, and the CRB loves us!
I won't even as for attribution - or even correlation with "age" as a single factor. I'll bet you a nice dinner that IT entrants won't be any younger in 5 years. Period. I'll kind of win either way because we'll get to have dinner but I'll buy the drinks and be designated driver, too.
The problem here is that if "attracting youth" is the rationale for "updating" the rule set, we're setting ourselves up for an ongoing game of Whack-a-Mole. New racers will bring incremental desires to continue that process and will simply - I guarantee it - ask for whatever is next. If the rationale for the policy holds today, it will hold in 2 years. You haven't removed the line in the sand; you've just moved it to a new arbitrary location. And most new drivers won't last more than 3 years anyway, so you're writing rules that will barely have a chance to be read before your target audience has moved on to mountain biking or some such.
Spec B doesn't appeal to you (Jeff) because of the type of car that's involved. Point, Kirk. It's not the rule set that makes the final determination of popularity. It's the sum of a complex pile of factors. I absolutely do not believe that, had this most recent set of new allowances been in place 3 years ago, that IT fields would be any larger than they are now. Viewed differently, the rules, while someone can ALWAYS find something to whine about, have not in and of themselves chased off anyone who wouldn't have gone to do something else anyway. And new classes simply further dilute the existing pool of willing racers.
But again, it's all academic at this point. We haven't done ANYTHING to change the root causes of the big issue - unfriendly, hard to deal with, anachronistic - so we're chasing shadows.
K
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Senior Member
The primary influence on ANYTHING participation-wise right now is the economy. It would take "new cars" - not young drivers - to keep IT from vintification but there's zero motivation to build "new cars" at the moment, with the combination of tight discretionary-money situations and a glut of useful cars on the used market.
I was a little surprised to learn this week that a perfectly reasonable, early MINI can be had now off the street for less than $3000. It's essentially the same beast as is in the dealers today but nobody is going to build one.
...but y'all have what we call in my business a "lack of consensus regarding your theory-of-action." You're using the rules as a policy lever to result in SOMETHING - you all just aren't in agreement what it is, and how removing the washer bottle gets us there. Put differently, it's called "strategic ambiguity." It allows deflection of one closed argument of logic to be deflected to another. The less clear we are about how the action is supposed to influence the outcome - with more factors and logical paths to results in play - the less we can be sure we know what we are trying to do. It's easier to defend but less likely to be efficacious.
K
Senior Member
i am not sure why but it bothers me that i think i understood this....
1985 CRX Si competed in Solo II: AS, CS, DS, GS
1986 CRX Si competed in: SCCA Solo II CSP, SCCA ITA, SCCA ITB, NASA H5
1988 CRX Si competed in ITA & STL
Senior Member
Honestly, in a lot of ways "strategic ambiguity" = "commitee work."
NC Region
1980 ITS Triumph TR8
Senior Member
.
Amen.... I call this the difference between:
people who want to race, and
people who want to be racecar drivers
and I find it very difficult to believe that you will ever create/modify a ruleset
so that both groups are happy...
For GSMmotorsports, Bob and I would race RX7s, or Ford Fiestas, or
John Deere Lawnmowers, it is the competition that matters, not the tool...
and so leave in or take out the washer bottles, either is fine.
change the wings, or the motormounts, whatever.... it merely changes the cost....
I understand the philosophical wrangling, and even think it is healthy, but in the end,
after the rule changes are made (or denied) there will be whiners, and racers
Glenn
.
Glenn Lawton
GSMmotorsports
#14 ITS RX7
NARRC ITS Champion 2012
NERRC ITS Champion 2013 12 11 10 09 08
NERRC STU Champion 2010
__________________
Senior Member
True dat.
The challenge is steering the committee around to being wobbly about HOW something will be accomplished, rather than WHAT accomplishment is desired. It's interesting to force individuals to be explicit about how they really define "success" - and how they will measure it - from any initiative.
K
Senior Member
I'm usually on the anti-creep side of things, but I don't have an issue with removing the washer bottles, carbon canister, or other ancillary crap. If it makes space for someone to put in a pimpy intake then so be it. I was against the motor mount rule as I thought it was unnecessary, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
I agree with Jeff that there is set of core attributes, like motor, body, suspension, etc., that should be closely guarded. I thought the ECU rule infringed on these and was adamantly opposed to it. I thought (and still think) the new ECU rule was a mistake and should have been left alone. Yeah, the old one had a loop-hole, but it was the same loophole for everyone. The new rule is what it is, though, and we all have to deal with it now. I do think we're approaching a point where there's very little fat left to carve off the ruleset. I don't see a whole lot of washer bottle type situations left in the rules. I think we're close to having a core set of rules that won't change except when new things like turbos get addressed. Having said that, should I submit a rule request to allow short-throw shifters?
ITA 240SX #17
Atlanta Region
Senior Member
Even better. I meant to write 'compete' but got lost in my other mental diarrhea, LOL
Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
for sale: 2003 Audi A4 Quattro, clean, serviced, dark green, auto, sunroof, tan leather with 75K miles.
IT-7 #57 RX-7 race car
Porsche 1973 911E street/fun car
BMW 2003 M3 cab, sun car.
GMC Sierra Tow Vehicle
New England Region
lateapex911(at)gmail(dot)com
Senior Member
One 'easy' answer to making a committee more 'pure' is keeping the size appropriate. I've come to feel that I'd MUCH rather have 4 or 5 good sharp guys who know the subject on the ITAC rather than 7 or 8 guys who are showing up most of the time.
(But then I'm the kind of person who only votes on things he feels he's researched and understands )
Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
for sale: 2003 Audi A4 Quattro, clean, serviced, dark green, auto, sunroof, tan leather with 75K miles.
IT-7 #57 RX-7 race car
Porsche 1973 911E street/fun car
BMW 2003 M3 cab, sun car.
GMC Sierra Tow Vehicle
New England Region
lateapex911(at)gmail(dot)com
Member
I thought I would contribute a little bit since Im a newcomer at 31 y/o and fit into this so called crowd of new members that are wanted I assume by some in the club.
Feb I will be going to get my license so Im as green as it gets outside of HPDE's.
In my case I originally looked into IT classes because thats what my friends were running here in central FL. I also looked into the NASA program because of Honda Challenge.
I ended up getting frustrated with all of the changes I was going to have to make to de-tune my already somewhat tuned vehicle to be legal for ITB. I also was annoyed by some of the "silly" rules I read through for the class. I know at some point they were valid or still could be valid but obviously in the case of the wiper bottle it is no longer valid.
It would have cost me more money to put stock items back on my car which led me searching for an alternative that was more friendly to a street tuned vehicle.
I agree with if the people want to race they will drive whatever and not worry. In my case I wanted to race my specific car in the form it was in or close to it. I had no desire to race a car I had no idea how to work on etc just so I could race.
I was very pleased to find out about STL last year and slowly started to make changes to prepare for the class. I look at STL as an opening for people like myself that have engine swaps and the typical upgrades us honda fanbois like to do that are common (ex. camber plates). If STL wasnt offered I would have gone to Honda Challenge even though its very weak in the south east area or done time trials.
So if STL was partly added to attract people like myself it worked. I think it could easily have a pretty decently sized group in my area if people start to hear about it more.
Senior Member
Bingo. That's why most people who have gotten serious about NASA HPDE won't think of IT. The already have modified the car they want to race beyond the rule set. IT won't attract those people until the first car is wadded up beyond repair and alot of folks simply walk away at that point.
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