I applaud your offering dyno info, Bruce, but I'm certain it will be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure you can understand that offering up personal info with no oversight and no knowledge of prep (and your self-recognition that your car is not prepped to the extreme of possibilities), your data will be seen as self-serving and is, honestly, tainted.
However, this is the proper way to begin the dialogue.
Chuck, I see where you're getting at, however I don't agree with your conclusion. I wasn't there, so all I have for evidence is the results sheet. Even so, it seems pretty obvious to me.
The top three cars were all BMWs, within a half-second of each other. Of the top-ten cars, 70% were BMWs, whereas less than half the field was a BMW(11 of 28 starters). Let's not forget that had Ed York finished the race, there is NO DOUBT he would have been top-5, so the score would have been 8 of the top-ten cars for BMW. Of that same top ten there were two RX-7s; we don't know Rick's times, unfortunately, but Nick best was within a half-second (we'll call it) of the leader.
No disrepect or minimization of the others' work, but if we want to do a good tete-a-tete, I'd suggest we compare Nick Leverone to Chet Wittel. Both are accomplished drivers in (I believe) top-prep cars.
Given that, there's one little piece of data that you're overlooking: the margin of victory. Chet Wittel won the ITS race with a nearly 8 second margin of victory over the second place BMW. The results sheet doesn't show it, but what was Chet's margin over Nick Leverone? Was it even close? I really doubt it.
There's no disagreeing that Nick and Rick did a fantastic job placing top-5 in their RX-7s, but I don't think there's a reasonable person in this forum that has any doubt that the BMW has a distinct and obvious competitive advantage. - GA
