from roadrace autox.com:
Do NOT blame Andy or the rest of the ITAC for this situation, y'all. Andy was only the messenger and he was pretty much compelled to pass on the CRB's (or member(s) of the CRB's) directive. I complied with it because I couldn't ignore it without leaving him in the doo-doo with the CRB, and I didn't feel that I could fulfill my commitment to the committee, category, and members without being able to ask hard questions and voice opinions about points on which I disagree with CRB members, some of you all, et al.
And while there are differences among the ITAC members, the consensus direction of the group - which is evident to anyone reading Fastrack over the past 18 months, when I was involved - has been very conservative. This plays out both in terms of being VERY reluctant about new allowances (avoiding rules creep) and working toward the goal of having a transparent, repeatable process for spec'ing cars - absolutely staying out of the competition adjustment (bleah!) business.*
Comments from CRB members who sat in on our calls (Keane, Albin, Dowie) have sounded in the past few months increasingly skeptical about our first principle re: the latter -
that we'd rather have a repeatable, transparent system than one that attempts to get every car "right" - as long as "right" is defined in terms of anecdotal observed on-track performance.
The lack of action on a large number of IT weight recommendations (now voted on since the ITAC's August meeting, as I understand it), and then the Audi bouncing back to us, got me to a point where I became VERY worried about a return to anecdotal, "performance-based" weight adjustments. This was when I started the IT.com thread on the "future of IT." I tried VERY hard to use that venue to encourage members to make their priorities known to their representatives, although I confess that my negativity showed through more than once in my comments. DESPITE that, I could envision at least three scenarios in which I would be OK with things:
1. We determine that the Audi in question does indeed make more than the 25% standard assumed power gain over stock in IT form, we change our recommendation to a new process weight, and the CRB votes on it** or...
2. We determine that it does NOT make more than expected power and the CRB votes to support the ITAC recommendation to set it at it's process weight, or...
3. We recommend a process weight in ANY scenario, but the CRB votes to add weight regardless - but is willing to go on record as having done so.
It might surprise you that I'd be cool with that last option but I would have been.
The ITAC recommends and the CRB decides. If they thought we were wrong, they would be completely within their purview to ignore our recommendation. You all (those member thingies) would then be empowered to communicate to each entity to explain what you think is best for the category.
What I could NOT handle would have been the ITAC being co-opted into participating in what looked like a seamless process, that spit out a weight inconsistent with what the process recommended. Or invisible adjustments by the CRB to process-derived weights, without documentation of where the changes came from.***
Jim Drago recently communicated with the ITAC and indicated his fundamental disagreement with our first assumption (repeatability over "correctness"), and promised that he wasn't going to change his mind any time soon. My confidence was shaken a little by some of the things we read from him but, or answers he wouldn't give, even though I felt like I needed to know more about what the rest of the ITAC was thinking, I was still going to try...
Then I got the directive from the CRB.
I explained in my resignation letter to the ITAC members that I had decided to let the Audi question play itself out. Ironically, I had also gotten to the point at IT.com where I had backed out of the fray, figuring that i wasn't making any difference and that if a critical mass of IT drivers wanted competition adjustments (bleah!) and more allowances to change/remove stock parts, it wouldn't help for me to keep hollering about it.
So right now?
I firmly believe that many, perhaps all, of the current CRB members do not want IT to use the classing/specifying process recently codified by the ITAC - most notably, they want to reserve the right to add or subtract weight from any process-derived result if they think for whatever reason a car might be "too fast" based on observation of race cars on race tracks.
I more firmly believe they don't want to make information about the use of that approach available to the members. The Club still has a detrimental culture of "opacity" (not my word but I'll take it!) where rules making, stewardship, the Court of Appeals and other management structures are concerned. It came up repeatedly - although less and less as my tenure went on - that giving members too much information would just make it necessary to answer a bunch of questions, that someone would ALWAYS be upset with ANY decision, etc., as rationale for not doing things like publishing the process and practices that surround it. I'm a big freakin' Lefty about stuff like this but I believe that members should know what's going on; and that leaders should ask for input, make the decision they think best, be held accountable for their decisions through processes to ascertain success, and be willing to live with the good and bad outcomes (and opinions!) as they might arise.
YOU ALL need to not bitch here or at IT.com - again, most particularly not to Andy et al. on the ITAC. They still have things they want to try to accomplish, I imagine, and are (as Andy has pointed out) very interested in the outcome of what looks like will be something of a process to revisit the Audi power question. You DO need to make sure that you know what you care about in the big picture of IT, you know what you'll have to give up or compromise to get it, and that you'll share your vision and priorities for the category with your CRB and BoD members.
You can't count on someone being your proxy (e.g., any of the ITAC members), and you CAN probably change the Club - if you are willing to have the hard conversations.
K
*
Competition adjustment is defined any time you see me use the term as weight adjustments based solely on on-track performance (finishes, lap times, qualifying positions).
** To get to its current listed weight, this car would have to make something approaching
40% more power in IT than stock.
*** And for the zillionth time, remember that the process in its current iteration is NOT a
"pure objective formula," that doesn't have any room for the application of judgment. There is (as of last week) for all intents and purposes ONE and only ONE place where the ITAC can dig up and consider evidence to have subjective flexibility - the power multiplier. This (again, last I saw of it) is the most diddle-proof system ever used in to spec IT weights, and in all likelihood the most predictable ever applied in SCCA Club racing.
__________________
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I love Malt Liquor
and now I can sit on the couch with a forty EVERY Monday night, rather than blowing one each month on a 4-hour conference call. 
Conover Motorsports Team GTI - 2008 ITB SARRC "First Loser"
With
KONI struts, high quality race products from
FASTtech Ltd., and HOOSIER tires from
Phil's Tire Service
