Quote Originally Posted by tnord View Post
give me a break earl. you know the history on the RX7 as well if not better than I do, and that's not a valid example in the least.

the neon seems to do just fine as far as i can tell. Childs was gridded right next to me at the ARRC last year in his neon....i haven't seen anything showing it can't be competitive. on track or on paper.
Travis - really? You're going to hold up a car that was a full 6 seconds off the leader's time as an example of a car that can be competitive? And as to the RX7, why isn't that a valid example? You guys are saying that every car in IT has a fighting chance at being a front-runner. I'm saying that's not the case. There have been many discussion about the cars at the front of the fields, so I'm not going to touch those, but what about the cars at the other end? What does the process do for them?

And I'll be the first to agree (and this has been stated by many more knowledgeable guys here), in most classes we have seen improvement in the number of cars that can compete at the front; but to say that every car in IT, or even every car that has been through the process, has a fighting chance is just wrong IMO. There are still the cars to have in each class, and there are still the perpetual back markers. I realize that in a class like IT, where there are relatively few cars that are developed to the limit of the rules it is hard to draw conclusions. I also know there are a lot of guys who know a helluva lot more than I do about building winning race cars who would be building some of these other cars if they had any potential at all.

All I'm saying, and it has been stated in numerous discussions before, is that the process does not focus on outcomes, it does not care about results, and it could not and does not attempt to take into consideration every factor that makes one car better than another. And as such it can never be expected to produce results that are equal; and IMO we've already seen examples of that. But, that's another discussion.