WC TC Vs. ITR

[StephenB]

Not sure? LOL. The 20B was never a USDM engine.

damn... I was going to stick it in and see if anyone noticed! I was 99.9% sure but I am certainly no expert! Funny that the grand-am cars run them and they aren't even available...

Stephen

[lateapex911]

Stephen, how is an RX8 going to even think about running with a Porsche 911 if it isn't allowed MAJOR mods? Now, that's in the big dog GA class. ST class RX-8s run a 2 rotor.

In general, Pro sanctioning bodies equalize performance in any number of ways. Mazda wanted to play in Grand Ams big GT class, but they had no car that could run with 911s, Corvettes and so on, so they petitioned GA to allow them to run their JDM 3 rotor. (highly massaged for racing, and Speedsource campaigns and develops it. Steve Eckeridge, who as you know, posts here, is intimately familiar with the car, and the program.

WC Touring cars from pre '10, as pointed out above, are different beasts than 2010 cars. Heck the Xtrac sequential boxes were $30 to $50K items. Mazdas engines were, lets say, highly modified. Those cars were "shell cars'....they looked stock, but up close, there wasn't much stock left in them. If it wasn't for Mazda and Honda money...to the tune of millions, those cars would not exist.

The current WC ruleset is a huge step towards more "stock". And they have introduced a lower class that has attracted more "normal" level drivers, as opposed to the full on factory programs like Realtime and Mazda.