The Current State of Improved Touring

[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.

[pukka]

With online registrations like motorsportsreg you might want to consider adding a field for log book number.

With that info you would see that although I raced in three classes this year, ITB, ITA & STL, there were only two cars involved.

We (MotorsportReg.com) do have this field as part of the vehicle profile and it can be optionally required by the event organizer (just FYI). We have other ways of distilling out participation numbers if that's the goal.

[Flyinglizard]

The Miata is the Sprite of 1963. Times change.

[ShelbyRacer]

The Miata is the Sprite of 1963. Times change.

Interesting comparison.

That said, I still giggle when people walk up to one of our local hillclimbers that has a beautiful Lotus Elan (yes, he actively runs hillclimbs with it) and say, "Wow, that's the weirdest looking Miata I've ever seen!" or something like that.

From an SCCA participation standpoint though, I see the Sprite parallel somewhat.

[DavidM]

Numbers can be twisted lots of ways so make sure whatever analysis is done is done as objectively as possible. I think you count crossover cars. An entry is an entry and if they're on track in my class then it doesn't really matter when I'm racing them if they also have SM on the side. I also think the target for new entries is midfield like Kirk said. There's been several mentions in this thread of the cost of a top build IT car. WE (those of us in IT) know that it's possible to build a midfield IT car fairly cheaply, but perception outside the class is that you need to invest lots of $$$ to be competitive.

The Miata has been good for car counts overall, but has hurt IT classes. People look at SM and see that they can get a decent car relatively cheap and have lots of other people to race. That used to be IT. I think a lot of people that might have ended up in IT in the past now go into SM. The saving grace for ITA is that several of those people double dip. ITS and ITR offer a higher performance than SM so I think you have people still in those classes because they want a faster car.

I'm not sure there's a solution. I think IT needs new cars classed so that it's not just a class of 20 year old cars, but classing new cars is difficult and many times new cars don't fit in existing IT classes. Attracting folks doing LeChump is a tough sell money wise, but there are some things that could be done to make IT more attractive to them. IT needs better marketing, but even with that the other classes available can still look better.

David

[Andy Bettencourt]

IT got popular. The money came. It scared away the 'simple' times from the early days.

It's ok. ITB and ITC are still there for ya'll.

[Spa67]

If there is a problem with IT numbers it's just a symptom of a bigger problem.

When you're going after a niche market like weirdos that want to race old cars and turn their own wrenches to keep it affordable you have to be VERY targeted. We do a horrible job marketing club racing to the best targets- Auto-x racers, track day participants, car show folks, smaller marque clubs, car salesmen, dealership owners, mechanics and others.

I tried to just get a free PDX for the owner of the local Hyundai dealership, who also is the Chair of the DC auto show and the idea died in committee.

Racing is addictive, we all know that. Pushers get people to become addicts by giving free tastes.

[Tom Blaney]

Ok I'll chime in here just to start a fire

One of the things that I find interesting (now compared to the "earier days" is that frankly sitting on the hillside to watch some of the races is flat out boring, and it's is easy to hear "oh I don't know who won, I guess one of those Mazda's"
Granted it's good to see ITA with 10-12 entries, but if they are all identical except for color, who is going to care.

When there are spectators(more than 10)watching a race, it might be possible that one of them (or their child) might say "wow that was interesting, I might give that a try".

Or on the other hand, if all of the cars are the same marque and they are all store bought standard versions, what happens to the weekender who is pretty handy with a wrench and would enjoy building a car, Like a Nissan or Honda (you know something besides a Miata) but if the field is filled with one standard model (some who are cheating their ass's off), why should they come to SCCA, pay bigger entry fees, and have no spectators because all of the young ones got bored with "Spec Racing" and went to see "drifters" and the old ones just gave up because it is just boring to watch.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Ok I'll chime in here just to start a fire

One of the things that I find interesting (now compared to the "earier days" is that frankly sitting on the hillside to watch some of the races is flat out boring, and it's is easy to hear "oh I don't know who won, I guess one of those Mazda's"
Granted it's good to see ITA with 10-12 entries, but if they are all identical except for color, who is going to care.

When there are spectators(more than 10)watching a race, it might be possible that one of them (or their child) might say "wow that was interesting, I might give that a try".

Or on the other hand, if all of the cars are the same marque and they are all store bought standard versions, what happens to the weekender who is pretty handy with a wrench and would enjoy building a car, Like a Nissan or Honda (you know something besides a Miata) but if the field is filled with one standard model (some who are cheating their ass's off), why should they come to SCCA, pay bigger entry fees, and have no spectators because all of the young ones got bored with "Spec Racing" and went to see "drifters" and the old ones just gave up because it is just boring to watch.

This years NARRC Runoffs in ITA was really light with only 7 finishers but there were 4 different kinds of car.

ITR had 9 entries with 5 different kinds of car
ITS had 10 entries with 7 different kinds of car
ITB had 13 entries with 6 different kinds of car

We have diversity here in the Northeast.

[webhound]

Make it easy, make it fun.

This year's ARRC was my first SCCA race. It was indeed easy and fun. Easy reg, easy test day, easy tech, easy parking, easy for me and a friend to double dip and share lodging and towing expenses. Also, good company and a reasonable entry fee. All these are positives, the ARRC is a great event, would do again.

Now, for the two of us to do our first race next year, we need a waiver to compete because we DNF the enduro, so each only have one race result. Why? It'll be easy for us, but for folks that don't have a good in-region line of communication with a licensing stew, this is a pain. What if I want to do one Chump, a couple ice races, and the ARRC every year? Why do I have to apply for a waiver from SCCA? The other clubs don't do this.

Full circle, what's "wrong" with IT, or what could make it better, is to grease the skids within the SCCA to make it easier and/or more fun. For me, more fun would be more codriver double dip opportunities, more reasonable enduros more often on the schedule. And yes, providing some sort of entry prep level class helps too. Although I wasn't too sad to be a few seconds off the front ITA pace at the ARRC in my $3k crap box. In a bigger field I would have had someone to race with.

Sorry if this is disjointed, iPhone posting owns me. Bottom line, what we have going against us are cheaper and easier alternatives. And some of that is perception.

Will

[MMiskoe]

This years NARRC Runoffs in ITA was really light with only 7 finishers but there were 4 different kinds of car.

ITR had 9 entries with 5 different kinds of car
ITS had 10 entries with 7 different kinds of car
ITB had 13 entries with 6 different kinds of car

We have diversity here in the Northeast.

But Andy, don't take this the wrong way, you're right NE has more diversity than some, but we used to have more.

Dig back in some of the results sheets you have from when you started W2W w/ SCCA. How many IT cars in a regoinal? How many types? In NER ITS and ITB run together and I can remember 35+ car fields for that race, 20+ were ITS cars. And I can remember sitting on the grid and seeing at least 5 different models of ITS cars - RX7, BMW, Nissan, Porsche, Datsun. The ITB fields also had the same diversity - Opel, VW, Audi, Volvo, Saab. And that's what my addled brain can remember.

Sadly, this summer I saw a regional race at the same track where ITS didn't run, it was at the end of the day and with so few cars, those who did enter moved to STL/STU/STO/ITE.

[Chip42]

IT got popular. The money came. It scared away the 'simple' times from the early days.

It's ok. ITB and ITC are still there for ya'll.

Bzzzzzzzzzzt. not one of our top 5.

ITC might well be affordable, there's no arms race, but ITB is not a place you skimp and do well in. I'm sure it's cheaper than an SN95 V6 mustang or Triumph in S, but look at pablo II, the martin and herbert Brimtek cars, Ulrik's MR2, underwood/strickland civic, etc... $20k + all day long.

and WE foisted this on ourselves. first by not nipping pro level builds when they were novel and it could be done, then by institution of the "build it 10/10ths and come back to me" approach to reclassification. we allowed a hypercompetative environment to develop, then expected everyone to commit to that level or deal with the result of not doing so. yeah - we all know WHY that was done, but the conversations I have with people who are knowledgeable about IT but choose not to run it suggest that they largely do so because of the "pro" level "requirements" as they see them. guys looking to get into ITS might not have a problem with this - fast cars and all that - but the prep level spread to A and B too, and I think the cost of entry to run NEAR the front (or just to keep up in a straight line) is a HUGE barrier to many. old cars, slow cars, etc.. doesn't help attract the kids, but I think the former is worse than the latter. chump car took what made IT popular back in the 90s and ran with it, adjusted to the modern day and with some spin of their own. but at the core it was ease and cost reductions. yes, once something gets popular the will to win will kill the fun and the low-cost reality every time. on that, we agree. might have coulda done something about it way back when but... SCCA needs an entry level class where people aren't scared off by the cost and "difficulty", and right now, IT ain't it. great class with some really good racing and you CAN get in cheap, but you'll be pretty far back in any decently subscribed race

SM is easy. as has been said ad nauseum. and the PERCEPTION is that the ease translates into accessibility. we all know the reality but it's not really relevant. spread the development load around and the cost to get "pretty good" equipment drops like a rock.

the club isn't in trouble, we just moved up market and no one told us. we got ~300 cars for the majors at sebring at >$600 each. THAT, apparently, is your market. we have met the enemy, and they is us.

[JeffYoung]

Chip makes good points but I still think a lot of that is perception.

I went racing in 2003, right in the middle of the Bimmerworld/Speedsource madness. I was SLOW out of the box, but I did get on track for $7k in prep costs in the car, which were cage, fuel cell, shocks all around, seat, safety stuff, wheels and limited slip (Quaife).

By 2004 without any development other than driver, I was midpack.

By 2007 I had maxed out carb development on the carb motor and was finishing on podiums and occasionally leading races.

I then spent two years developing the FI motor and started to get real competitive in 2010, leading races. 2011, I finally started to win and won a championship.

Point? Yea, I have probably in excess of $70k in the car, BUT it is spread over ten years, and probably $30-40k of it was "put it in and rip it" development shit, and half that was the goddamn motherfucking Haltech. Sorry. Still gives me shivers.

BAck to the point. Even in ITS, you can build or buy a decent car for $6-10k and run mid pack or even close to the front if you buy a good one. Heck, I'd be lucky to get $10k for my car, and I know top flight RX7s that have sold for $8k.

So I don't buy the idea that the development costs on my car or the Earpstangs are the barrier to entry. I think it is the PERCEPTION that you have to go the route I've gone, or Ron and Jeff have gone, or STeve and Chip have gone.

You don't. And you can still run competitively in ITS if you look around and buy wisely.

[Andy Bettencourt]

But Andy, don't take this the wrong way, you're right NE has more diversity than some, but we used to have more.

Dig back in some of the results sheets you have from when you started W2W w/ SCCA. How many IT cars in a regoinal? How many types? In NER ITS and ITB run together and I can remember 35+ car fields for that race, 20+ were ITS cars. And I can remember sitting on the grid and seeing at least 5 different models of ITS cars - RX7, BMW, Nissan, Porsche, Datsun. The ITB fields also had the same diversity - Opel, VW, Audi, Volvo, Saab. And that's what my addled brain can remember.

Sadly, this summer I saw a regional race at the same track where ITS didn't run, it was at the end of the day and with so few cars, those who did enter moved to STL/STU/STO/ITE.

While you are right about the size and diversity, I would hardly call out the 'Miata in IT' as the culprit. I call out the economy and the level of prep at the pointy end due to popularity.

Now if we want to argue that the Miata in SM is the issue, then fine. People like spec classes. They are the most popular in all of SCCA.

[Andy Bettencourt]

... yes, once something gets popular the will to win will kill the fun and the low-cost reality every time. on that, we agree.

As long as we agree here.

You can not legislate cost unless you do so via Chump or Lemons. And if that is your ticket, so be it.

[gran racing]

Holy crap Jeff!!

Granted it's good to see ITA with 10-12 entries, but if they are all identical except for color, who is going to care.

The most fun races to watch are SM; by far.
But it's always been the fact SCCA spectators are family and friends of drivers. tGA has a good saying that SCCA is where the fans don't know the drivers; the drivers know the fans (or something like that).

And you can still run competitively in ITS if you look around and buy wisely.

Now more than ever. My ITB car sold for under $8k and while there was still development to be had, it was pretty darn good and could run with any other ITB car. Lots of good options out there for modest dollars. Heck, what did Tristian get for his B car?