The Current State of Improved Touring

[240zdave]

The question of why is what you are after!

Because big ass recession.

[Jeremy Billiel]

Because big ass recession.

Peronally - I don't think its that simple of an answer. Even if you were able to somehow normalize for the recession I think the entries are down.

Again my opinion, but I think as National has pulled their heads out of their rear and are making Nationals easier to participate in, licenses getting moved to one, The Runoff changes, etc people are moving to National racing.

I also think that BIG money ruled IT in the mid 2000's. Those massive build costs put IT cars in the same ballpark as many National groups and people migrated.

Just my .02

[Ron Earp]

Again my opinion, but I think as National has pulled their heads out of their rear and are making Nationals easier to participate in, licenses getting moved to one, The Runoff changes, etc people are moving to National racing.

Send the numbers over to Jeff, I planned to look through what he collected.

National growing - perception? Or reality?

I posted earlier I felt ST was growing. But that might not be the case. Remove IT crossovers from the car counts; SM, ITA Miatas, RX7s, RX8s, and then what do you have?

And what Tom pointed to earlier with more SARRCs, but fewer average racers per race class, well, that's most likely a natural consequence if the number of racer entries remains the same or even increases slightly. There are a hell of a lot of races in the SEDiv.

[Knestis]

Again, I just don't think it's legit to remove "crossover" cars from any class counts. Would we not count an old-school, unprepared, trunk-kit-and-a-bolt-in-cage NEON in ITA...?

K

[Ron Earp]

Maybe we should if there were any of them around. But I'm willing to bet of we don't factor in the trunk kit Neons in ITA we won't induce much error in our measurement. Ain't a whole lot of crossover to IT SCCA, at least in practice.

On the other hand, should we count SM and ITA Miatas in STL because someone decided to take advantage of a National Weekend? Can't blame them for adding a race weekend, but those cars aren't exactly the norm for the <2L FWD class. And they will definitely induce a much larger statistical anomaly in STL national numbers when compared the "ITA trunk kit Neons" in regional ITA participation.

[tom91ita]

With online registrations like motorsportsreg you might want to consider adding a field for log book number.

With that info you would see that although I raced in three classes this year, ITB, ITA & STL, there were only two cars involved.

Also, the number of licensed drivers needs to count into this well.

[Flyinglizard]

The SCCA racer numbers have not increased. The racers that we have, have moved to the Miata. Better car with better racing. The 1.6 cars can be bought for 6K and raced against similar cars. When you get done with it, it is still worth 6K. They eat very little at midpack levels.
The It class offer a lot fewer cars in class and more maintenance, while just a bigger hole to poor cash.
Any younger guys that rent or build cars are going SM.
The market has moved away from the old IT cars. ITB and C cars can be bought for sub 2K. Great value, fair racing. Many older cheaper IT cars have moved to prod or Chumpemons.

[pukka]

With online registrations like motorsportsreg you might want to consider adding a field for log book number.

With that info you would see that although I raced in three classes this year, ITB, ITA & STL, there were only two cars involved.

We (MotorsportReg.com) do have this field as part of the vehicle profile and it can be optionally required by the event organizer (just FYI). We have other ways of distilling out participation numbers if that's the goal.