...second COA ruling in 6/11 Fastrack supports my (many) previous statements about ST being too confusing for the old guard / disinterested in tech.
Agree; I found it quite interesting (I'd not heard of it prior to Fastrack publication and have no other knowledge of it).
However, my take on what little info is offered is that the guy brought a World Challenge car to a National event
assuming it was automatically approved for STU competition (as it was in 2010). We know, though, that all WC cars must be individual requested, weighted, and approved for use in STU. So what I think happened is that when he got protested, he took a different tack and said, "OK, so let's call it an ITR car". The SOMs said OK, he's good. But the protester realized (later, I guess) that the car was ineligible for ITR, so he appealed.
The Court of Appeals agreed that the car was ineligible for ITR. However, they noted the car had a 3L engine, which is STU-eligible. They overturned the SOMs and said (correctly) that the car was eligible for the open STU rules. In the end, depending on level of mods the car *may* actually be non-compliant to the STU rules but it was never inspected to that end; since they did not have the info needed to determine that, and the car on its face was eligible, the Court of Appeals overturned the Stewards and the protestee's finishing position stands.
IMO, based on what info it had, they ruled correctly. I would not be surprised to see another equipment protest in the near future...or maybe the protestee will send us VTS and request a specific WC allowance.
But yes, Chip, I agree that all these various allowances can be confusing. However, in this example I'd not blame the IT allowance; I think the ITR allowance was trying to be used as a loophole... - GA