I really feel sorry for the ITAC. Really, I do. For years everyone has bitched that IT is so immensely screwed up and begged for improvement. Now, they attempt to do some groundbreaking stuff and all the knees jerk and people start yelling about apple carts tumbling downhill end over end. The AC just cant win.
I have an ITC car just like Jones and Bell, but the New Beetle thing doesn't bother me at all. Its not that I think I'm such a bad-ass that it won't matter to me, its that I realize that ITC has become a vintage class and things like this NEED to happen to keep it vital. So OK, they get lots of ITC cars at MARRS races, but thats not happening everywhere. I'll say it one last time, you can't look at one region and one track and call it a representative sample of ANYTHING for the whole club. This is why I brought up Jones' performance at VIR. Not to pick on his lap times, but to demonstrate this very valid point (that sometimes things look alot different when you leave your region). I had no itention of a pink slip match or poo flinging contest with him, but if he chooses to be so bold, fine.
As far as putting the Beetle in ITB... Why?
The A3 GTI shares most of the same parts (I think the drivetrain is exactly the same) and its (rightfully) in ITB at under 2400lbs. Its absolutely silly to class the beetle, with the same drivetrain but weighing 2700lbs, in the same class and expect anyone in their right mind to actually build one. And what the hell is the point of classing a car that nobody with 1/2 a brain would build??? Look at the 88-91 Honda Civic DX... There's about a billion of them out there with lots of racing support available, but its classed in ITA so nobody bothers to build one.
Get it?
The old ITAC would no doubt have thrown the Beetle into ITB without much thought, which would have been a total waste of an interesting, mass produced, easy to find (and find parts for) car.
How about another previous, similar example of this classing wastefulness and how critical it is to get the weight spec right...
The '94 to '99 Integra GSR COULD be a great ITS car. Mass produced, Honda reliability, HUGE aftermarket support, looks good and is fast. But after several years of classification there's still only a hand full of them in the whole country... Why???
2690lbs... Thats why.
This same car ran Grand Am cup at a weight of 2575. It runs in NASA at that same weight. So why has SCCA added 115lbs to the car?
Well, its certainly not because it would be a world beater. At 2575 it comes in at about the same p/w ratio as an RX-7 and well under an E36. Maybe the old AC just made a mistake? OR MAYBE they were afraid to upset the old apple cart, so they threw an extra 100lbs in the car so current ITS folks wouldn't bitch. Great, all that did was greatly hamstring what COULD be a nice, competitive car and cause very few people to build one. Who loses??? ITS loses, thats who loses.
So bring it on ITAC. Class all the 2.0 liter 2700lb cars you want in ITC and we'll hope people build them. If they do, and they actually upset the cart, then we'll write some "Accord letters" and see if we can get it moved to ITB. But I refuse to halt potential progress because I'm es'keered of that car. The car looks right on paper for the class and thats good enough for me (for now).
PS - It is 180lbs for a driver Jones, you have no idea how much cage a Beetle needs, and go ahead and add 10lbs for a fire system while you're nitpicking.
