ITAC News.

[lateapex911]

Same goes for Andy's popularity - yet circular - argument, "POPULARITY raises the cost." He's right, but a class does not become popular BECAUSE it's National; in fact, due to participation requirements, a class will not become National until it is popular.

Or until you invite in Spec Miatas to double dip... ...but be careful what you ask for...."one should be loyal to the nightmare of their choice"...

- GA

Good thing you added your Spec Miata qualifying line!

Without SM double dippers where would STL be last year, etc?
Of course pure subtraction can't really answer the question because of the "I know this class is Runoffs bound" factor, where some builds happen ONLY if the class is Runoffs material, increasing car counts.
If you build it, they will come"

Same thing can be said for IT, of course.

[shwah]

I would not call it an exodus, but I made the decision, and I know 4 or 5 others with the same car that did the same, to move to a different class. The thing that I find surprising is that these folks are spread out across multiple regions and divisions. I would have expected to see some concentration based on the local health of IT.

The motivators are not all the same. Some think the competitive balance is better, and like that it will be actively managed. Some really do want to be able to do the runoffs. Others just see more participation in the national classes in their area, and between that and the contingencies they expect more bang for their racing buck. In my case it is a combination of all three.

[JoshS]

Hi guys! Stopped back in to see what's going on.

Looks like exactly the same people talking about exactly the same things, except that a bunch of us aren't racing in IT (or some of us, at all) anymore :-)

[JeffYoung]

Josh, good to see you.

I think I mentioned this you via email a while back but kudos to you again for helping us get past some of the issues with the CRB, and for pushing for publication of the Ops Manual. Classing cars is amazingly easy for the most part now that we hve rules, and it is very hard to go outside them.

In that regard, IT is vastly improved even over its "heyday" of 15 years ago.

[Chip42]

we had a meeting last night. a week late as there was a SNAFU with the conference line on our regular 4th Monday. SCCA got it all fixed up. not sure how much the CRB will review tonight, usually they get a week.

we did approve a new requested car, add some specline years and body styles to keep current, and review some other letters which we will move on ASAP, likely on "this month's" call.

we discussed the ITB review and have made good progress. hopefully this will come out of committee this year.

[Chip42]

meeting last night was very productive. we mostly talked about the cars up for the WDYT in a recent Fastrack and while we haven't agreed to dual class I do think the solution we did agree upon will meet with the standard 50/50 opinion split. some new cars are getting classed, and we have broken the ITB stranglehold but are NOT done the hard work of realigning the class as a whole. it was a good meeting though, with some VERY good discussions about our philosophy and the future of the class, which I think is bright. more after the fastrack comes out.

[Ralf]

Getting closer to 2015. Any progress you could talk about? Any idea when an announcement will be made?