Quote Originally Posted by Chip42 View Post
to put a stop to clustering cars of a single "generation" or silhouette onto a single line that includes a variety of changes that might inadvertently result in a better than expected combination using UD/BD allowances. the poster child of this is the ITB mustang


Question 1: Are there a lot of cars dominating because of this UD/BD ability?

Question 2: I have not noticed the Mustang dominating... has anyone else? I have seen a bunch built online though...

Question 3: Do you think that the ability to UD/BD encouraged those that did build them to do so? I personally think that when people look at building a car the UD/BD rule is something that is looked at. I know I did when I started building my RX8 (should finally be ready this year!). Bummed that the RX8 it is on a separate spec line.

Quote Originally Posted by Chip42 View Post
there are a lot of spec lines that have this going on. hard to fix those, but that doesn't mean we should repeat "mistakes."


Question 4: sort of a repeat from #1 do you really think this is a problem, or do you think this is a solution to actually getting more people to build cars? I wouldn't be so quick to say that they are mistakes.

Quote Originally Posted by Chip42 View Post
it's better to start with a restriction than to try and put the genie back in the bottle IMHO.


Agreed 100%... so here is my feedback/thoughts on ALL cars, not just the RX8.

Every year car manufactures change things to make the car better. It could be a simple wire harness change to a new part design for better reliability. To me, you should not separate different years of the same chassis car unless the parts changed make it significantly "faster" (examples would be a "new" motor with increased HP or different throttle body that adds HP, or maybe a car that was originally built with a solid rear beam axle and got an upgraded independent rear suspension). If you really think that you need to be separating lines due to improvements to a car over time then you also should be looking at a lot of other things with respect to models, such as if a car has a sunroof or not. For real... a "real builder" goes to great lengths for a non-sunroof car... should a sunroof car really be on a separate line with lower weight?

People should be able to buy the cheap version of a car (sometimes its the older years) and bring it up to speed with the newer/different parts so long as the parts are not something not considered in the classification process as making it "faster." Basically all cars on same spec line unless the parts would justify a different weight.

When adding spec years IF the UD/BD rule makes a model faster then maybe we should just add some weight to the spec line.

Raymond "Keep things simple" Blethen