Yeah, it's going to feel like piling on, Andy but only because you are just about the only one here who seems to think this mess is defensible.
...would you be including in your letter to the CRB a request to recind the Limited Prep rules in Prod and the IT cars in DP rules already on the books or is this issue only applicable to the world we live in?
If entrants in those categories want multiple prep levels, they can have them. Further, those additional prep levels - largely allowed to bolster numbers to allow the category to survive - have been initiatives by those INSIDE the cateogory. This is a completely different thing - nobody in IT asked to please have SM's added to the category. Quite the opposite, in fact. This was done TO IT competitors, not BY them.
...We are talking about 3 nitpicky little items that nobody cares about anyway for cars ALREADY IN THE CLASS. SM's are UNDERPREPPED for IT. This is happening NOW. Does it make sense that with a one-sentence rule, that everyone can be legal?
And because SM entrants want to double dip, without having to compromise their SM competitiveness by the amount afforded by those three nitpicky items, a fundamental tenant of the entire IT category goes by the wayside? Me, me, me, me, meeeee.
The CRB could have just as easily put these items on the spec line and called it a day. No rule change, no proceedural outcry, done.
...but they recognize the tacit acceptance that this would have been a bad thing. What's good for the goose is good for the gander and how do you defend not allowing the 944 its A-arms, while allowing something for someone else? You don't. And I daresay that individual spec line allowances are generally considered a bad thing by people who actually run IT cars.
My impression from most of you is that you would rather allow what is already happening to just happen under the table instead of trying to proactively avoid issues should someone decide to throw weenie-paperwork.
Red herring. Or crap - whatever. Rules and enforcement are two different things. You could write one of those one-sentence changes that makes my illegal close-ratio gearbox legal but you won't do it for me. There has to be 50 of me. Again, I do NOT subscribe to theories about the Masons (er, Mazdas) running things in secret cabals. It's just selfishness and greed intersecting.
...is it such a big deal to allow for simple and easy cross-over of a huge pocket of cars that allows car counts to rise and regional revenues to fill out?
Go for it. Align the SM rules with IT and let 'em go to it. Propose that over at SM.com and see how it flies.
I just don't see the doom and gloom...
...and rather than trying to head it off, you prefer to wait until it happens. We've demonstrated over, and over, and OVER again how hard it is to undo something once it's been allowed but there is just no way we can trust future rules makers to do all of the great things you suggest - considering the impact on IT when making future allowances in the SM rules? That this could even be suggested demonstrates either a complete lack of understanding for the history of our class structure or a level of arrogance so huge as to be completely insulting.
The diff is not a speed advantage.
If it weren't an advantage, nobody would have asked that it be allowed. Besides, it's not about the specific competitiveness of current SMs with current ITA cars. It's about the future mess that MIGHT result because of a fundamental policy change. And the fact that we can't PROVE that bad things will happen is considered proof that we're wrong - that the change should stand??
As far as who it helps? IT car counts (not every region is as 'successful' as some on the East Coast). The perception of SCCA maybe. Increased regional revenue. SM retention.
Every single one of those issues can be address as needed through the addition of region-specific classes. Hell, have SM1 and SM2, and put them in two separate groups. What? Entrants in other classes migth be upset that one class gets a double regional when the rest of them have just one race? I can't imagine why.
If the 'allowances' were of any significance (read: increased the performance beyond IT-level) I would undertand the push back. But in practical application, I see the allowances as a drop in the bucket.
I'm not alone, I don't think, in believing that you are serious about your race car development, Andy. Or am I imagining all of the times that you've explained how speed is found in tiny little increments, and that every 1/100th counts? They count enough that you test and tune and spend money, but these particular increments do NOT count for anything?
This kind of thinking may help YOUR class in the future - but if we cut off our nose to spite our face, we may not get the help WE need in the future, should we need it.
And when IT is so close to dead that we need to change the class to help it survive, so be it. But again - the rule change we are discussing has NOTHING to do with "helping" the IT category. And (again) I'm having a lot of difficulty picturing SM entrants allowing changes to their rules to benefit IT entrants. Heck, they won't leave those three piddly things undone so they can play with us.
Funny thing is that I tend to be more of a 'forward thinker' on the ITAC and a general stick-in-the-mud on the SMAC...and my thought processes are the same. Gives you an idea of the respective ages of the classes. ...
And yet you are very confident that upward pressure on SM rules won't increase their speed over time? I want to see you type "there will be no creep in the SM rules that will make them statistically significantly faster in the next 5 years." Talk about a bookmark opportunity!
As far as failure modes go?
** Matt R. presented the most likely and damaging failure mode and the best argument is something like, "Oh, don't worry - that can't happen." When anyone who's watched the process work through a critical eye has absolutely NO problem picturing how - and THAT - it CAN happen.
** Jim C. pointed out that this is going to make IT entrants unhappy. The CRB doesn't care, apparently. There's not enough of us to matter, or we don't have big enough haulers, or something. As long as the "good customers" are happy.
And finally - sure, the procedural issue is irritating but I've been in the organization long enough that I cease to be surprised about stuff like that. On the other hand, Stan - while I appreciate your willingness to participate here and volunteer your time for the Club, I'm VERY insulted that you think we're such siimpletons that we can just be told that black is white and we'll smile and shut up. Calling this a "car classification" is right out of the Karl Rove School of Management and Communications. It's outrageous.
...and dammit - I am SO very PO'd that people making decisions in this organization will do stuff STUPID enough to get me, well, PO'd. Again. About something that doesn't actually hurt me. WHAT AM I THINKING, CARING ABOUT THE STRATEGIC LONG-TERM HEALTH OF THE CATEGORY?? What a dumbass I am.
K
EDIT - No, I don't know why my quotes are dorked up. And I've wasted an hour of my life given a crap already.
(I only posted the horse cause I could not find a can of worms smiley!)
