Just for the sake of argument (not bitching) I take the credit and/or blame for some years ago suggesting that we run 16 instead of 15 laps. At the time ITA was running with ITS and there were some folks who thought it wasn't fair to pay for 15 laps and get lapped at 14. No big deal to me personally, but I floated the idea, which was eventually adopted. When the (heated) discussion began a few years ago about how to accomodate the influx of Miatas, one of the ideas was to add another group but sacrifice a lap in each group to save some wear and tear on the flaggers, corner workers, EMTs and other volunteers. That was not implemented, but we've still been racing, right?
I've been in the SCCA for a long time and I'm willing to wait and see when it comes to these kinds of decisions. Frankly, we're in one of the best regions in the entire country. Furthermore, I'm a strong believer that the SCCA should be able to accomodate all kinds of cars for as long as possible, and I think that has been the goal in next year's groupings. I know if it doesn't work well and we make some noise, our reps and BOD will make whatever changes are necessary, keeping in mind our regional membership as a whole. Running 10 groups is hard on all the volunteers, especially if we consider extra down time for track clean up when there are incidents. That doesn't even take into account time taken up when it's monsoon season. We need to keep their welfare in mind. My main concern is having fun as safely as possible, considering our chosen sport...

AJ