The Current State of Improved Touring

[gran racing]

I really do think it's helped the Club as a whole.

[StephenB]

And it helped all of us keep our entry fees down!! :-)

[Wreckerboy]

Miatas haven't been bad for IT, IT has been bad for IT.

Think about where the Miata started life - as a SSB/SSC car that was aging out of the category. Suddenly all of these race cars are looking for homes. At that time (early to mid 90s) the 1.6 was NOT competitive in ITA. People were looking for places to race the car and *presto*, Spec Miata came to be. Originally it was as a subset within IT. The class used to be the home of "affordable racing." Notwithstanding the farce that statement is, SM took off in large part because it was a low barrier to entry class. Easy button racing, if you will. One suspension package, one reasonably durable tire, wrapped in a fairly inexpensive and somewhat bulletproof package. Not a lot of R&D required - the legwork had been done for you. The fact that it was a semi-common car, and something that the casual person could could relate to didn't hurt it none.

So how did IT hurt itself? IT is a hugely competitive class. Several here have top flight builds and driving skills to match. When the Miata thing was starting to gather speed is about when the really big, high quality builds took off in IT. As a competitor who was returning to W2W in that timeframe I took a look at IT and rapidly realized that it was beyond my skill set to build a reasonable car. I'm not an engineer, I don't have the time or inclination to develop a competitive package from the ground up. I just want to race (that whole barrier to entry thing). I also looked and saw that many of the cars racing in IT at that were already getting older and parts were less common (note: previously I owned a ITA RX7, so digging up parts for old cars was something I was familiar with). Contrast that with a Miata, and the easy button nature of a competitive build, and it was a no brainer for me.

Yes, a front running SM car on the level of a Steyn, Drago, or Landy build will go dollar for dollar with anything IT can offer. It ain't cheap. But for comparatively minimal investment I can buy or build a Miata and have a good time racing really hard for 17th place in a field of 30 cars. Many of the SM crowd watch the IT guys and think "what a huge amount of work goes into prepping that 1975 Borgward*. Parts can't be easy to find for that old crock, and look at those 8 car fields. Sorry, got to go get in the traffic jam on grid and race now."

IT's own success hurt it. Do I work hard to get on track, or do I press the easy button?



* besides, we all know that the ITAC and the CRB hate the Borgward

[Jeremy Billiel]

rob- I agree with you. I think mega dollar builds during the great realignment which triggered thoughts of being uncompetitive after weight adjustments pushed people to other classes. The ITS BMW mess didn't help either...

[RSTPerformance]

IMO SCCA making all these new classes to "attract" other racers has hurt the class and possibly the long term success of the club... This includes the three Miata classes, the SP classes and the ST classes, not to mention all the other classes I am missing because honestly I would bet a drink 99% of our members could never list off every class that exists in their reguon of SCCA.

It was simple in the 90's... SS, IT, Prod, GT. a few side classes like SM and some catch sll classes (when I was a kid I think I called it lebra) are good but add in all the rest and it gets way to complicated. Right now we are in transition I think and there isn't much direction or focus, give it 5 or do more years and lets see where the demand shifts!

Raymond

[Wreckerboy]

Raymond, you are right. There are about eleventy seven classes right now, each with it's own requirements. Using the Evile Miata as an example, there are at least [s]three[/s] [s]four[/s] [s]five[/s] a whole buttload of classes mine fits in on any given weekend - SSM, SM, ITA, FP, and STL. To a casual observer/enthusiast trying to figure out the differences between what they are watching is difficult. "Mom, why has that Miata got all those letters written on it?"

The SCCA model is a rules driven classing one. The NASA (and before it, to a lesser degree, EMRA), is a car driven one. Essentially it is "Show us what you've got and we'll find a place for it." This is a wonderful way of lowering an entry barrier. Face it, today's new entrant builds a car first and asks questions later. They've often got their HPDE monster and have done lapping days and now they wanna race. Right now. The SCCA says "Sure, just change x, and y, and z and then come play."

Both sides have their strengths and weaknesses, and I am not saying that one is better or worse than the other for the committed racer. But for the causal fan, the fresh blood, the classing thing is one part of the problem that the SCCA faces.