What is a "touring car?"

[Andy Bettencourt]

Right, but the class is 'Super Touring'. A place for WC cars to go if they wanted to retire. Super Touring 'Over' and Super Touring 'Under'. DISPLACEMENT.

In neither category was there in the beginning, or ever has been a rule on having to be a 'Touring' car. No interior volume, no door count. Even in todays WC 'Touring' car A-spec division you see cars like FR-S, MX5 and Civics.

Touring does not mean what you want it to mean in the SCCA.

So to recap, Super Touring is just a name, not a philosophy of what a car should look like. STO and STU from their inception have never been linked to a body style. In fact, STO has had specific cars eligible - most sports cars...and STU (while including WC-TC which did have many sedans and some coupes) had NO spec lines and was a displacement class with no chassis limits.

I submit that STL is simply a slice right out of STU that ALSO gives cars is under 2000cc's a place to play based on DISPLACEMENT, not chassis design.

There was never an intent in ANY of these classes to limit to a 'traditional' T-car.

[Knestis]

Paging Peter Keane to the white phone. Peter Keane please pick up the house phone for an important call...

[Andy Bettencourt]

Core car yes, but never to exclude everything but 'touring cars'. TC's are 4 doors.

Edit: I'm not trying to be argumentative here Dr. K. I'm just trying to point out that Super 'Touring' O has sports cars and Super 'Touring' U is a displacement-based class with no limitations.

No place in the infancy of Super Touring (STO and STU) was the requirement to be a traditional touring-car written. STL is a subset of these classes and unless specifically exclusionary and incongruent to the parent classes, it would seem that it's a displacement class too.

[Chip42]

I admire the hell out of mazda for taking the initiative in creating an amazingly good, low cost RWD sportscar platform that to date has remained uncoppied to any real level of success by any other manufacturer, and to continue to make it in the face of declining sales. They built a car everyone thought would fail in the US market, proved them wrong, and hit the formula so precisely that no one who has tried has managed to get anywhere close to their level of success.

but it's not a touring car. it would be nice to have a touring car class, because there are so many good options, many pro series that could feed it, and I believe there's interest in it. if STL/U is too far gone, we should make a new one and consolidate the redundancy in the current mix of classes. the old days had sedan and production, and while entropy from those days certinaly led to the mess we are in now re: over abundance of classes, the groundwork laid then seems more appropriate to the realities on the ground today for reasons I do not think the folks at the time appreciated - namely those that Kirk elaborated on. ITB and C cannot be the last place small-discplacement, comnpromise-laiden boxes (AKA "touring cars" among other things) can race around in relative partiy without a miata or suchlike more purposefully built machine messing up the formula.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Chip - I really believe that a class for just 'Touring cars' is a total non-starter. Who the heck wants to race these econo-boxes? How is B-spec working out?

People want to race what they like. Other than Hondas which can have decent front suspensions, great engines and have a following, what on earth is there to draw people in any kind of numbers? What is the real potential market here? I submit nothing but a bottom-feeder entry-wise.

[Greg Amy]

Chip - I really believe that a class for just 'Touring cars' is a total non-starter. Who the heck wants to race these econo-boxes? How is B-spec working out?

So Super Touring Light is nothing more than another place for Mazda Miatas and Mazda RX-7s to play?

Nice.

GA, bottom-feeder for over three decades....sure wish I'd had someone back then to show me The Real Way To Nirvana...

[Chip42]

not econoboxes - "boxes". ITB is the only "touring" style class without miatas in the engine size range we are discussing, thus it's mention. evrything faste rthan that is full of sports cars. when I say "touring car" I'm thinking everything from civic and protege to GS350, IS300, and 5series BMWs. obviously not all of those fit the STL mold but...

there is NOT a class for THAT that does not also include miatas and a few other "not touring cars". Andy, I think you are hung up on the definition of what a touring car is and confusing it with econoboxes. everyone knows there's a limitted and shrinking market for sub 110hp hatchbacks to race. one look at B Spec and ITB/C entries will tell you that. but the inherent compromises to handling in order to accomodate passenger and luggage volume that a touring car has make it a lesser car to a sportscar which compromises luggage and passenger volume for handling. OBVIOUSLY a sportscar will be better than a touring car, everything else being equal as defined by the broad-strokes of classiifcation used in Super Touring (drive wheels, generic suspsension design family, engine displacement). in fact, that's the point of Kirks first post - that touring cars can't compete in super touring becasue not touring cars are in super touring, and it'd be really cool if there were a place for touring cars.

I'm done now. this is just a stupid discussion that will go nowhere because the club is terrified to make a stand and actually draw lines that make the various categories substantially different. ST and IT and GT and Prod are all cuttin ginto each other's numbers because they are all different shades of the same color. it can be fixed, but that will take serious courgae on the part of the PTB as it WILL piss people off in the short term.

[Andy Bettencourt]

So Super Touring Light is nothing more than another place for Mazda Miatas and Mazda RX-7s to play?

Nice.

GA, bottom-feeder for over three decades....sure wish I'd had someone back then to show me The Real Way To Nirvana...

Exclude Miatas if that makes you feel better I don't really care. The point is simply that a 'touring car only' class IMHO can't drive the numbers.

And I will be quick to point out that I have only known you to run 2 cars, an NX2000 and an Integra GSR coupe. Both non 'touring cars'.

If we want real TC's then it's a dead class. If we want an interior volume-based class then I have serious doubts because by design you are eliminating many chassis people gravitate to. Maybe I'm wrong and there is a ton of people who are chomping at the bit to build or convert their TC's for STL.