October Fastrack is up

They are afraid of what happened in Spec Miata. They know that another set of classes that offers close competition at a reasonable operating cost will kill off some of the over-priced elite classes the club is now pushing.

These people are out of touch.
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scott i raced with you in IT this year, and from what i've seen of MiDiv IT racing, we want no part of going to a national class.

i'm a converted SM guy that when I got into it 3+years ago, it was WAY before the $7k pro motors became common, and all the other pro-level prep. from the cars i've seen and raced with in our area, to be competitive on the national level, every single ITA car (except for boettinger in the CRX) would need about $5k of development minimum.

now, i voted for SM to become a national class in hopes that the big dollar guys would stay away from regional racing, but that doesn't seem to have happened. maybe it will in the next couple years....we'll see.

i am strongly in favor of IT remaining regional only. if you want to be nationally recognized for your accomplishments in IT, go to the ARRC.
 
Some of the cars I see winning in some parts of the country could NEVER win in others. [/b]
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Have you been checking the RMDiv results again? :D

On a seperate subject Andy, could you PM me your email address? I have a couple of SM questions I'd like to ask you before October, and Topeka has removed the email links from the 'committies' pages - everything goes to the CRB for distribution now.
 
Not taking sides, but when I hear about $1K or $2K clutches in Spec Miata being crazy, I just can't help but remembering they are perfectly legal in IT.

Careful what you ask for.
 
Andy,

The cost escalation thing is really a red herring. How much does it cost the guys that have stayed Regional w/ SM, vs. what it's costs the folks that are running Nationals this year? Look at the amount of money that the folks running Prod cars at Regionals are spending vs. what the folks running Nationals are spending. Another class to look at is AS. Compare the costs of running an AS car in a Regional program vs. a National program. You just have to look at the way some of the classified ads are written in SportsCar. "Good Regional Car" "Top National Car". You tell me which one will cost more.

Sure, if you want to be at the top of the IT heap, it's going to require some serious coin. That's true today, w/ IT being Regional. Will it cost more to be at the top of the heap if IT goes National? More than likely, but it's hard to say. I think that what you would see, if IT went National, is that it would actually be less expensive for the folks that decided to go w/ Regional programs vs. National programs. Some have said that the big $$ folks would continue to run Regionals, and would push the lower budget people that much farther down the grid. I have yet to see anything that supports this, while you've got a couple of good examples to the contrary (see my earlier comments about Regional Prod cars).

People use the cost escalation theory as a way of saying that IT shouldn't go National, and they point to how SM costs have gotten out of hand, as supporting evidence. Yes, SM costs have gotten out of hand, but running at the pointy end of the field isn't supposed to be cheap.

Ask yourself, how many people do you think would show up at a Regional w/ a $50k ($75k?) ITS or ITR car, if they had the option of running Nationals w/ it and going to the Runoffs (and don't think they wouldn't generate enough entries to get a spot)? Sure, you see guys show up w/ the occasional big $$ car at Regionals, but those are mostly in the really fast classes like GT1, ITE, ASR, and SPO.
 
scott i raced with you in IT this year, and from what i've seen of MiDiv IT racing, we want no part of going to a national class.

i'm a converted SM guy that when I got into it 3+years ago, it was WAY before the $7k pro motors became common, and all the other pro-level prep. from the cars i've seen and raced with in our area, to be competitive on the national level, every single ITA car (except for boettinger in the CRX) would need about $5k of development minimum.

now, i voted for SM to become a national class in hopes that the big dollar guys would stay away from regional racing, but that doesn't seem to have happened. maybe it will in the next couple years....we'll see.

i am strongly in favor of IT remaining regional only. if you want to be nationally recognized for your accomplishments in IT, go to the ARRC.
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Well the reason why I want National Class status is because I too race in MidDiv IT and frankly our program sucks. The fact that we couldn't put more than 14 cars on grid for the HPT National in June was disappointing and it cost IT a chance to be a part of the September race. Don't be surprised if regional races are few and far between at HPT next year. National Racing has gotten more popular at all of the tracks in our division and I fear that we Regional only racers will pay the price because we will have fewer opportunities to play.

I have no illusions concerning what this would cost or my relative ability to compete or even qualify but I want my shot. I entered 13 consecutive Solo II National Championships in a car that cost more to operate than my IT car does. I never did worth a damn but I had fun, I was given a chance to participate and I didn't feel excluded.

I would love to run the ARRC. Unfortunately my company blacks out vacation during November - it is our "busy season" and I too deeply involved.

I haven't written a letter but I have spoken to my area director several times. In my opinion he has NO good arguments against National Status for IT. This issue will be one of the deciding factors concerning who I support in the next director's election.
 
I have, over the years, discussed this with various guys in positions of power within the club, and these common points keep coming up:

- Cars are too old
- Car prep sketchy, condition sometimes ratty.
- perception of excessive cheating
- impossible to scrutineer due to lack of accurate shop manuals etc.


Now....add one more item-

- We can't get rid of what we have now.

So, you can see that while all those items belong to existing National classes, the guys in charge are loath to make sweeping changes. Are the arguments disengenious?? Yes, and not ALL of the guys in charge feel that they hold water, but at least 51% do.

I do think that there was some dicussion about it recently, and I am sure that IT going National had it's proponents, but not enough.

So, if there are to be new Regional classes, make sure that those items are addressed for the best chance of success.
 
I don't think it's correct to compare Regional grids vs. National grids. SM and IT would be born from Regonal racing. The culture is different. I only know of one SM guy this year who went National racing and did no Regionals. Everyone else is doing a full Reg schdule with 3-4 Nats thrown in.

No offense intended but prep level for "Regional" Prod cars is pretty low. Why is it 95% of these cars are slower than ITA? The culture is that a top Prod guy goes to 2-3 Nationals, gets his invite and that is all the money he needs to outlay. It seems most Regional guys race for the fun of it and the National guys race because they 'have to' to get to the big dance. SM and IT culture is the opposite.

If guys in some of the wicked National classes had the option of building a top car for less money (IT) and less operating costs but could still go to the dance, I am betting IT would boom.

Again, if IT went National, NOTHING would change at the pointy end of ITA in NER...NOTHING. But in some Regions, people would flock to it and some guys would go from 5th to 15th on grid. Even with no NEW players in SM, guys who didn't prep for National caliber competition have slipped down the grid sheet and are sour because things ain't what they used to be.

Hey, I am for it - but it will hurt IT in most areas...so I am very leary of the idea.
 
If guys in some of the wicked National classes had the option of building a top car for less money (IT) and less operating costs but could still go to the dance, I am betting IT would boom.

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this is dead on, and you should pay particular attention to this scott, because it is just what you say you want. it's the same reson so many people are now in SM.

if IT went national, you can count on #'s increasing, and the class becoming more competitive. more competitive = higher levels of prep = big$. now you say that you want it to go national because you would have more opportunities to race at HPT. now, i don't really believe that to be true, but is that really a reason to change the structure of the class for the whole country? we have a unique situation around here having the runoffs.

I also believe that combined national/regional weekends at HPT are dead. this has been expected since the announcement of HPT being the new runoffs site. i don't think the 14 entries that weekend had anything to do with the program sucking, it had to do with there not being 2 regional races available that weekend. it was the same thing at MAM last week, we only had 8 ITA entries because there was only 1 race that weekend. but all the guys chasing points for the Mid-Am were there. we've had over 10 at every other race i've been to, and up to 17 i think.
 
Phew! Project Litrecola can move forward!!!

As far as the H&N thing, the above quoted text is a recommendation to the BOD and not approved by the BOD. My letter will be going in to challenge the "it's not currently legal" comment.

Oh, and can we not bog this thread down with yet another "If IT went national, the economy of Turdurkistan would collapse" discussions? That is clearly one thing that has been beaten to death.
 
That's funny, I haven't seen any 'Make IT a National Class" letters hit the CRB.
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I wrote another one yesterday. Have the rest of you?

The bottom line is that the more attractive the class becomes, the more people - and the more money - come with it. Some of the cars I see winning in some parts of the country could NEVER win in others. Most people play to the strength of their competition in any sport. Haveing said that, I am all for IT going National but there are PLENTY of people who have seen what it has done to the 'average' SM guy and are against it.[/b]
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Has it really though? I think there isn't much crossover between national races and regional races, except for maybe at National/Regional combined race weekends. It costs a lot of time and money to travel around the division for points, and most National drivers I know (myself included) don't even go to regional weekend races. Look at the turnout of the SS/T classes at regionals. At least here on the west coast, they are non-existent classes. Yet T2, for example, is huge at every west coast National. While I agree that the fastest spec miatas might be getting even faster now that they are running for a National Championship, I dont' think you'll find too many of those drivers (or cars) at regional weekends anymore. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but I don't see National status eroding the entry-level nature of regional racing.
 
I like racing in my "outlaw" non-national regional IT class. I think IT racing is the best and cheapest (SM included now) racing there is. I think National status, or the potential for it, would change that. If I ever won an ARRC, and rest assured that is extremely unlikley, I would be satisfied that I had beaten some of the top prepped and best driven road race cars in the country. I would be just as satisfied as if I had dragged an MGA to Topeka to get a medal for beating Spridgets.

IT's healthy, it just needs new cars. The new cars are here. Let's not screw it up by injecting all the bs that goes iwth being a national class.
 
***Oh, and can we not bog this thread down with yet another "If IT went national, the economy of Turdurkistan would collapse" discussions? That is clearly one thing that has been beaten to death.***

Bill, the friken H&N restraint has also been beaten through the earth. What was the value of all the memos & umpteen pages on this site? As long as the CRB/BoD continue using weasel words (I like that word K.) we who need to understand the rules will continue to not understand the writte rules.

If anyone who has all the answers to Production cars being classed thinks they have a clue please enlighten me on the following respone in Fastrack after Scott requested National classing for a non-ported 1st gen RX-7 in G Production. "Creating another level of prep is inconsistent with class philosophy." If the CRB/Bod uses an answer like that the class philosophy should be a documented item. Limited prep/Restricted prep or what ever it was called back in 1996 when it stared was to REDUCE the cost of preping & maintaing a Production race car. The 1st gen RX-7 was the platform car with street porting. & if the car don't have a ported motor it don't fit the class philosophy. Again, weasel words....................

Ahhhhhh :119: , I fell off my soap box.

David

ps: I know the level of spending at the sharp end of any stick. No I would not race at the sharp end of the stick in G Production.
 
I also believe that combined national/regional weekends at HPT are dead. this has been expected since the announcement of HPT being the new runoffs site. i don't think the 14 entries that weekend had anything to do with the program sucking, it had to do with there not being 2 regional races available that weekend. it was the same thing at MAM last week, we only had 8 ITA entries because there was only 1 race that weekend. but all the guys chasing points for the Mid-Am were there. we've had over 10 at every other race i've been to, and up to 17 i think.
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The problem Todd is that I doubt we can afford to put on a double a t HPT. Before the one we had in July there were more drivers entered in the Friday Test day than there were for the whole race weekend. What happens if the same becomes true at other tracks? Or we have to do away with R/N weekends all together because we have too many Nationally eligible classes to fit in an IT race group?

Anyone with a National Class eligible car seems to be running national races in MidDiv. So that means a race organizer has to rely on Regional only classes to fill out a double regional weekend. That is hard to do in MidDiv.

There are two issues here. One is unique to MidDiv now that we have the Runoffs and the other is philosophical in that we have a racing classification that is excluded from participating in a club sposnored activity. Let talk about it over beers at Wheeler's party on Saturday.
 
i don't think i'll be able to make wheeler's this weekend, as i'm moving into my first house. he's close to where i live now, so i might be able to come by for a bit.

but in case i don't make it....

we very well might not be able to put on a double at HPT in the future. my understanding is that as of right now our fee for renting HPT is on a per-car basis, but given the huge numbers we'll see in the future for national events, that's likely to change. If/when we go to a flat rate, it's likely to be damn high (as Ray seems to be doing his best to gouge us for everything from garage rental to power hookups), and we might not be able to afford to put on events unless we have 100+ entries. i think a double weekend can support that number, but only under the right circumstances. We can't have the thing the first weekend in august when nobody wants to be outside, and we probably shouldn't have any other regional events there during the year to maximize our entries for that one weekend. or use the solo pad at the same time for extra $ as was done this year.

National/Regional weekends i'm pretty sure will remain the same everywhere but HPT. we just need to get that new track up and running in KC and it'll be all good.

i really don't have a problem excluding IT from national only events, as the club has to do what it has to do to make money. we can't include everyone all the time, and people will always be disappointed no matter what you do, so you act in the best interest of the group as a whole and sleep well at night.
 
If you've ever got a question about cost escalation from regional to national, ask someone who's driven both or been in a class that's gone from one to another. I've raced FA, FF, and DP regionally and nationally...a long time ago. The $ step from one to the other was awesome! In those days a good FA engine cost $4K and, outside of a few dealer/factory efforts, you could build a competitive Datsun roadster in your garage. That's a concept I like with IT. If it goes National, then there's a good chance you can kiss that option, the new home, the kid's college fund, the IRA, and the 401K goodbye. I said good chance, so don't start quoting costs. I can tell you that the farther I've gotten into the go fast of IT, the more it's surprised me at how much I can spend, but it's so much less than a national class as to not even appear on the radar.

Ask the guy who used to race showroom stock before it became national and the price sky rocketed. Or the guy who raced American Sedan in a regional before it became a national class. Wasn't it only a couple of years ago that I saw an add for Spec Miata that had the car built as a front runner for way under $10K? You can still build one for that, but your chances of running up front are only aided by the first turn incident or the tech shed tear down (a scrutineer's joke).

As it is, the powers that be don't want IT in national racing. They use the excuse of the cars being to old to keep up with, yet they allow cars from the '50's to run production. I'm sorry, but most of the specs for those cars have been made up over the years. There's more documentation for the specs on a '68 Datsun 510 than most production cars. Probably the best bet for running ITR in national racing is to eliminate the letters "IT". Just call it "R". If you really want a chance, allow only one make of car to race, but it has to be a current model, and you have to convince a manufacturer to push it and pay for the cocktail parties.

The GCR gives us an opening for taking our cars from IT/Regional to National. It's called production. It's there, and it's even encouraged so as to support their aging classes in jepardy of elimination. But be prepared to shell out the bucks for that invitation to the Runoffs.
 
The GCR gives us an opening for taking our cars from IT/Regional to National. It's called production. It's there, and it's even encouraged so as to support their aging classes in jepardy of elimination. But be prepared to shell out the bucks for that invitation to the Runoffs.
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No, that's not an opening...it's an entirely different car. And an entirely different political environment.

I'd like to think that the ITAC works hard to draw logical and consistant lines, and one key philosophy is keeping the build as reasonable as possible.

Production builds are not that, and they are a moving target. Plus, as has been pointed out many times, even when something appears so obviously logical and smart, it can get turned down for obscure reasons. Whether those reasons are turf protectionism, or deep set philosphical reasons i've never understood is nearly irrelevant...it means that the landscape is constantly moving in unpredictable ways...and that can cost you a ton of time and money.

Maybe I'm missing the mark on this, but it's my perception.
 
Some interesting info in there.

Item 18 on page 35 is the rejection of the proposed H&N restraint rule. Yay! Probably just a battle won and not the war, though.

Item 5 on page 24 seems to indicate that annual tech inspections will now be on a 12 month rolling basis instead of calender year.

Item 11 and 12 on page 24 appears to remove the reagent D test for fuel. While item 13 removes the "no black pos" (whatever that is) for the reagent A test for IT.

David
 
No, that's not an opening...it's an entirely different car. And an entirely different political environment.


That's my point. If you want to go national, they encourage you to take your IT car and make it a production car. It can even be a legal IT car and run under the safety rules production. But if you want to run at the top, the car completely changes...and so do the rules and expense. You're dead on about the moving target. A short sentence in the GCR can cost you thousands in production modifications.
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