ITR to big bore class?

[MMiskoe]

DC Region kept ITR in their Big Bore for years and completely killed ITR participation.

Why does this have anything to do w/ participation numbers? In some ways it can be easier to be the slower car - you simply drive your car, your race, your line. Let those guys pass you, they bear the brunt of responsibility.

I always assumed that ITR was slow to pick up due to the cost of building these cars is high and the class got started just as we had a huge change in disposable income across the country. All participation numbers fell. Hell, spec miata would not have been so popular had it been launched in 2007.

[Greg Amy]

Dude....if you spend all that time and money building a BMW or a Porsche for ITR, it better be for the overall win...if you're in a Mazda..."meh".

[StephenB]

Dude....if you spend all that time and money building a BMW or a Porsche for ITR, it better be for the overall win...if you're in a Mazda..."meh".

Hey wait a minute... I drive a mazda... in ITR, guess I am doomed

On another note back on topic, I liked running in Big bore earlier in the year. I got to watch the other IT cars which I always enjoy

Stephen

[JS154]

Why does this have anything to do w/ participation numbers? In some ways it can be easier to be the slower car - you simply drive your car, your race, your line. Let those guys pass you, they bear the brunt of responsibility.

Try running a full tilt boogie STU car in the same class a double dipping SM cars and B-Spec. STU ran with big bore at the Glen Nationals in '11 and it worked out just fine. Ever since it's been a clusterfork of miatae. No fun trying to didge those things when they're in the middle of a 2 car battle and you're closing on them at 40-50 mph.

[JS154]

I'm very curious as to why we're not seeing any ITS/ITR cars running the Majors or Runoffs in STU. There's one here and there, but nowhere near the cross-class participation I was expecting.

[StephenB]

Because we would get our butts kicked! They are not even remotely close to an STU car. Probably 4+ seconds slower to a proper STU car, maybe more. Oh and improved touring has cars to race against :-)

Stephen

[Z3_GoCar]

Sounds about right. Current race lap records at MRLS:

ITR	1:43.359	77.94	JOSH SIROTA	CUPERTINO, CA	99 BMW	5/4/2008
ITS	1:43.224	78.05	DOUG MAKISHIMA	DUBLIN, CA	87 BMW	10/27/2007

STL	1:43.488	77.85	Lucas Catania		2013 Mazda MX-5	3/30/2014
STO	1:32.924	86.70	STEVE GOLDMAN	MALIBU, CA	08 PORSCHE	6/21/2009
STU	1:37.811	82.37	Andrie Hartanto	Concord CA, CA	2005 Honda S2000	6/7/2014

1:43.3 to 1:37.8 -> 4.5 seconds

IT's not been doing so well down here, and I can't say how it's doing in SFR, but based on this year there's 3 ITS cars and 1 ITR car at the last divisional at Sears Point.

[Bill Miller]

Why does this have anything to do w/ participation numbers? In some ways it can be easier to be the slower car - you simply drive your car, your race, your line. Let those guys pass you, they bear the brunt of responsibility.

I always assumed that ITR was slow to pick up due to the cost of building these cars is high and the class got started just as we had a huge change in disposable income across the country. All participation numbers fell. Hell, spec miata would not have been so popular had it been launched in 2007.

It may or may not be a cause, but if it is, I could think that losing track time may be a consideration. I just looked at the lap times at Summit Point for GT1 and ITR. The GT1 record is just under 1:11 while the ITR record is over 1:23. That's a big gap, and means that the ITR folks have the potential to lose a lap per race. Now, I don't think that's the cause, because plenty of other classes have to deal with that when they're the slow class in the run group. I think it's probably more a function of the economy. I'd look at the overall ITR participation numbers around the country for the past 5-6 years.

As far as those MRLS lap times, it's a 5.5 second gap between STU and ITR. But I'm not sure how much stock I'd place in those. If you look at Josh's time, it's from early on in the timeline of ITR, not to mention that it's actually slower than the ITS record. I suspect the reason that it's stood for so long, is that there aren't many full-tilt ITR cars in that area.