[here's my note to our R.E.]
Hi Jan!
I assume you have heard from Scott Rhea and Nadeem Bari on the subject of supporting IT7 as a regional class, and I wanted to chime in as well.
I’ll say right off the bat that I overall support IT7, and think that it would certainly benefit St. Louis region and Midwest Division drivers, and our road race program in general.
As a little background, IT7 is a regional only class, that exactly follows the ITA rules, but is limited to first generation (1979-1985) Mazda RX-7’s. The class has been proposed, and adopted by many regions, as an answer to the problem of the RX-7’s lack of competition potential in ITA. Because Improved Touring does not currently support competition adjustments, the RX-7 has fallen far behind more modern cars such as the Nissan 240SX and Honda CRX. Even cars which have been fully developed and driven by excellent drivers fall far short of the mark.
Although IT does not, and never has offered any guarantee of competitiveness, there are compelling reasons to provide a class specifically for the 1st generation RX-7. First, the cars are inexpensive to buy or build, and extremely reliable. If there is a better entry level IT car, I can’t imagine what it would be. Additionally, the success of the RX-7 in Production class racing makes it an attractive platform, as a driver who aspires to national racing can do as I did and build an IT car, then continue development to E Production.
Finally, Mazda provides excellent support to all of their drivers, in the form of expert technical advice and deep discounts on stock and competition parts (for those rare cases when the needed part can't be found in a local junkyard).
The availability of a cheap, reliable car means that drivers who might not be able to race at all can race, and those who are on a limited budget can race more often. The biggest hurdle to an entry level racer currently contemplating an RX-7 is the perceived lack of competitiveness, particularly as compared to the much more expensive CRX. Adding the IT7 class eliminates this hurdle.
Adopting IT7 represents a minimal burden on the race program and officials. The only cost to the region that I am aware of is the cost of six additional trophies for a double regional weekend. IT7 would continue to run with the IT run group. There would be some impact on timing and scoring, as it would add one more class to track during the busy IT race, but I do not believe this would be a major issue.
Those trophies would almost certainly be paid for quickly. The IT prep RX-7 is a car that is fast, fun to drive, inexpensive to build and maintain and readily available. Giving it a place to be competitive will have a minimal impact on the region in terms of cost and effort, but will almost certainly increase our pool of drivers, and the number of races that those drivers attend.
Thanks for your consideration!
Steven
[This message has been edited by sburkett (edited October 02, 2003).]
