off topic discussion about current IT issues and more specifically ITB.

[Knestis]

I've got a theory - that I can't substantiate with anything other than anecdote and hearsay - that might bear on your perspective, Charles:

I think that the ITB Volvos are the victim of perceptions, going back to the days pre-(not so)-Great-Alignment. A few, key, cheater examples raised perceptions of what that car could do "on the track," that persisted and got considered during what I think of as the "soft use" of the very first (nsGR-era) process.

I think it's damned hard to make a legal Volvo competitive now because current weights are a legacy of codfying observed performance of a few illegal cars into the 142 spec line, and beyond into the other "Scary Volvos" in the book...

As Andy explains, v.2 would have allowed the ITAC to address issues like that, that exist all the way through the ITB section of the ITCS.

And as I've tried to explain elsewhere, WHOSE results should be used to establish "balance in the class?" How about my performances at the IT fest and SIC in 2008? (Nice, high profile events like the RubOffs, that establish the benchmarks for National cars.) The Golf III would weigh 200# less than it does by that standard. Sure, you say - a couple other Golfs ran really well at Mid-O but what if (as Dave alludes to) I had been driving the only Fiat Brava, and that it had been prepared to what is arguably a pretty damned high standard by Cameron Conover?

Surely it would deserve to get lighter, right?

K

PS - I personally think a Fiat Brava would be a kick-ass cool ITB car, and if I had $40K of spare dough laying around, I'd build one. Then having proved it's too heavy, I'd lobby for a weight reduction with another basket full of dough...

EDIT - A little napkin math suggests that the 2.1 version of the 242 needs a power multiplier of something like 1.65(!) to get to its current ITCS spec weight. REALLY...? In IT-legal form, we think that's going to happen...?? NFW. Version 2 would be on that like stink on a Road Atlanta porta-john in mid-August.