and of course, in SM, costs are in control, and there is no rules creep....not trying to be a smart ass, but I would say that:

1. $8k Sunbelt/Rebello/Race Engineering motors in SM is not a good sign.
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costs are basically peaked at 30k at least. for a comparable IT build, you'd be in another 10k by my estimation. and btw, SM motors are more like 6-7k depending on where you get it and what year you're buying.

2. The $2k clutches in SM was not a good trend (fixed, I understand).
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you mean the $1200 clutches that are perfectly legal for IT?

3. The threads about the legality of what you GET for $8k for your motor was not a good sign.
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this isn't completely rumor and speculation, but i can't do much to substantiate this claim either, but i think the vast majority of the cheater stuff was coming from one builder in particular. people have for the most part figured this out now.

Honestly, given the car counts in IT I've seen this year, I'd tell a new racer to start with an ITA or B car. Hell, you can run decently to start with in a $5 to $10k ITS RX7 or Z car.
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if you're a great driver yeah, you can be respectable in a $10,000 IT car. but there's some underlying reasons for this...

1) you might be in a division without much competition
2) the others in your region still have a long way to go on car prep and/or driver

make no mistake about it, a $30,000 ITA car driven decently will destroy a $10,000 ITA car driven quite well. by opening up the ECU rule and making it more accessible, the avg prep level of IT cars just went up, making it more expensive to maintain the current finishing position for all but those who have already spent the coin on a standalone-in-stock-housing.