The folks who are newer to IT (I started in 03, but didn't really race much until 04) grew up in a culture of $50k turnkey race cars and Motec in a box, etc. We are getting to a point where we, the newer crowd, are for better or for worse in a majority.

A think a lot of us don't see anyway to go back to the stricter interpreation of the rules based on an intent -- minor mods to a street car -- that gave birth to IT. We're past that guys. You can't go home as Mr. Wolfe once said........

So what do we do? I think we need to reevaluate the "intent" of the rules. This is going to be highly controversial, but I think the goal of IT vis a vis other SCCA classes should be the following:

1. No guarantee of competiveness BUT logical car classing using the process. For this reason, I have come to believe that we should publish how each car was "weighed" so it is there for others to see going forward. Yes, folks will nit pick it and this is why I was opposed to it originally, but going forward, I am concerned in 10 years we end up with the story that Bill reminded us of which is that no one even remembers how IT cars were classed before.

2. A stable ruleset. I've been having an interesting e-mail exchange with Keith Thomas, crew chief on the famous or infamous to some orange BMW 325is. Illuminating to see things from his side. Rule instability drove them out of IT. First, they got a ruling on engine coatings (the same one that were used in SM) a few years back, that they were legal. SCCA then reversed course. Then, there was remote reservoir shocks. I don't have the $$ for these, but honestly, when a rule says something is free, well then, let the $$$ be spent -- and the were -- and then that spending was made useless by a rule change. Then there was the SIR. Enuff said.

You couple those two goals with the basic fundamentals of IT prep -- stock cam, stock heads, stock induction, stock body panels, generally free suspension within confines of existing mounting points, stock brakes, and let people have it with the development. Some of what we all love about IT is the ability to innovate. If you take that away, we lose something -- perhaps just as much as we do by "allowing" a tortured interpretation of the rules.