What is a "touring car?"

[Knestis]

Lets be completely frank...

I can be frank.

At one critical juncture during the ITAC mess, we had sent up something like 15 recommendations for weight adjustments for make/model examples that were judged to be out of whack. Some of them, by the time we reached the highest point of "tension," had been in the CRB's hands literally for MONTHS without any action. Members were very frustrated, many complaining loudly about it on this board.

One member - again, a regular poster here at the time - emailed you to complain/ask about what was probably the most egregious example of the "black hole" or "perma-tabled" recommendations your board's docket. You replied, telling him in some detail how messed up the ITAC was, and how we weren't "doing our job..."

...except you didn't notice that he'd cc'd me on the original message when you hit "Reply to All." I got to see you trashing the ad hoc to a member, and kindly offering your personal help as a CRB member to fix the problem for him. I called you on your duplicitous, Secret Car Club of America, back-room BS in a reply email; that the ad hoc was doing its job (recommending) and that the CRB was the SOURCE of this member's problem, NOT doing theirs (deciding).

I heard nothing back from you; no acknowledgement that maybe what you did was a problem. You didn't do what you COULD have done - make up or down decisions on all of those stagnant recommendations - to address the member's concern. That was instrumental to my outing the CRB for stonewalling the process in this forum, the resulting gag order from the CRB (okay, Andy, it was a gag REQUEST ), and my subsequent resignation from the committee.

SO, frankly, while I do not KNOW you, you have given me fair reason to say that I do not TRUST you. You've earned that.

Not being on the inside anymore, I can't see the day-to-day workings of the relationship between the STAC and the CRB, but when I see an example like Greg mentioned above - fast-tracking a proposal through the board under the guise of it being a recommendation from the ad hoc - my opinions are reinforced. I know based on my decades of experience in the Club, that if one example gets out, there are lots more that don't.

When I see that two individuals with a vested competitive AND commercial interests in the outcomes of rules decisions - yourself and Mr Keane - control all messaging from from the STAC back to the board's deliberation, I know how you can shade the conversation. (That was, in my estimation, a key cause of the problems we had during that meltdown, although it was not you personally playing the role then.) I thought that process was going to change. It's a problem that it hasn't, if nothing else because it's lazy, sloppy policy making.

I know that CRB members are deferential to their respective category "experts," so your position can easily steer the body's decision. When you deny here that a tall box with a high center of gravity will, all other things being equal, be slower than a short box with a low CoG with the same power, I know you're using criteria other than physics or some other objective measure to make determinations about how you direct those conversations.

Heck, the board couldn't even represent my proposal accurately when it was put to the membership in the the October prelims, turning it into a request to "Consider Differences Between Sports Cars and Touring Cars in STL" and making it sound like I proposed "adding more weight to all rear-
wheel drive cars." That's completely not accurate but you know that if you control the message, you control the process. YOU CAN'T HELP YOURSELVES.

So, yeah - I'm still a little pissed off, I'm an ideologue, and I value transparency and character - or at least the appearance of character - above the tradition and culture of these rule-making bodies. If you and the board want my trust, get the two guys benefiting from STL rules out of their position as sole conduit of information beyond what's captured in the web-based system. Recuse yourselves from board decisions that benefit you. Be transparent. Don't engineer any more end runs around the ad hoc.

Kirk (who figures he's probably un-invited on that ARRC seat deal now )

[jdrago1]

I know that CRB members are deferential to their respective category "experts," so your position can easily steer the body's decision. When you deny here that a tall box with a high center of gravity will, all other things being equal, be slower than a short box with a low CoG with the same power, I know you're using criteria other than physics or some other objective measure to make determinations about how you direct those conversations.


So, yeah - I'm still a little pissed off, I'm an ideologue, and I value transparency and character - or at least the appearance of character - above the tradition and culture of these rule-making bodies. If you and the board want my trust, get the two guys benefiting from STL rules out of their position as sole conduit of information beyond what's captured in the web-based system. Recuse yourselves from board decisions that benefit you. Be transparent. Don't engineer any more end runs around the ad hoc.

Kirk (who figures he's probably un-invited on that ARRC seat deal now )

So I guess that is a no? You can't let this go. Do you have any long lasting hostility with your first grade teacher you would like to bring up while we are at it? Maybe the kid who stole your milk money growing up?

I am not going to discuss this again other than to say what wont be popular here. I did not think you in particular or the ITAC as a whole was doing a very good job at the time. I don't deny saying that. We will always have a difference of opinions there. This is nothing new.

The rest ITAC drama, I read blah, blah blah, blah blah blah.. I have heard all of this from you before, responded several times before. To my knowledge, no email you ever sent me went unanswered. You have a pretentious way about your emails and posts that keeps sucking me in, so I doubt I could have not replied even if I really wanted to.


I am going to move forward with STL now.. If you want to continue here with 5 year old ITAC stuff, unfortunately you will be discussing without me.

1)I have read here several times that no one on STAC has any issues with things going through the CRB? yet you keep beating that drum. I am not even a liaison on that call. I think I have sat in on post runoffs calls to share my opinions and maybe 2 other calls in three years?

2)I think for the 3rd or forth time I am saying in 3 or 4 different ways... A miata, a sportscar, a car with a frontal are x is always going to be faster than econobox with all other things being equal..

But again for the second or third time... all other things ARE NOT EQUAL NOW.. In fact very few are equal.
A proper built econobox is at a HP and straight line advantage and weighs less. I agree the debate is open for how much faster it should be, why and how to get there.


As for ARRC deal... Still stands for both of you. If lucky, we may have a broken brake line or stuck throttle cable at just the right time

[Knestis]

So business as usual.

At least we can count on you to be what you are. I guess I can kind of respect that.

K

PS - Our Ops Manager IM'd me today to ask if the "ARRC" note I have in my calendar was firm. I asked him not to schedule anything, as it was still tentative.

[Andy Bettencourt]

I did not think you in particular or the ITAC as a whole was doing a very good job at the time. I don't deny saying that. We will always have a difference of opinions there. This is nothing new.

So this one I take personally. I'll disagree with you here in saying that I think that the ITAC was doing an EXCELLENT job at the time because we spent hours upon hours attempting to codify the Ops manual. To an outsider looking in it may have looked like a ton of mental masturbation but every possible path needs to be driven down on before you can put something in writing as a guiding principle. I honestly think we had to slop around in the mud for a while to get that heavy lifting done and to some on the CRB it looked like a waste of time because it wasn't part of the culture of the other competition-adjustment based classes. In order to be able to follow the Ops manual as well as is being done now, the Ops manual has to be a good document.

Also, the fundamental principles of the Ops-manual type classing, was for some reason never explained or ingrained into the CRB by our ITAC liaisons. When I got on that CRB call, well over half of the group had never heard of 'the Process'...that to me was a GIANT fail. How could the core of how we classed cars, with the knowledge of at least two key CRB members for YEARS, suddenly be a negative and a unknown quantity? No idea.

I have no hard feelings about that time. Mostly because I still like most everyone involved and believe that most everyone has the best for the SCCA at heart. Reasonable people can, will and do, disagree.