Quote:
Originally Posted by foshjowler
I still don't see how being a couple of tenths faster in an 1/8th mile means it's ruining a class. It's certainly moving the favorite car, but not ruining any chance of it being in the trophies.
I'm sure they foresaw receiving 20 letters from 1st gen owners being unhappy. They've also looked at results from the last 1.5 years, like I did when sending the letter, that the 2nd gen doesn't have the giant advantage people seem to think. What is proposed will also likely be a very popular class with new and budget options to being competitive. If you want your letter to get more traction, suggest something more than "don't change it because it's currently popular." Give them something to work with that will also be popular. How things sit now, there are cars that will compete well together sitting outside of the pointy end of a class. This brings them all into a class that would potentially have 2-3 cars in trophy positions. Give the SEB something similar to work with, ie. STMiata that requires fewer class changes and results in more popular classes.
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I'll be blunt. Nothing that has happened in the results the last 2 years should have anything to do with this classing. People ran without tunes. People are running parts that aren't optimized with the car. People haven't dialed in their setups. And the people that have ran these cars are inherently not serious about doing well in STR. You mentioned Simmons. He has a lot of autocross knowledge, a lot of good results, and he puts good parts on cars, but he isn't someone that sets the bar for classes. He jumps cars a lot. He clearly cares more about building and driving different things than setting the bar at nats. I feel comfortable saying that because I think he'd say the same. Not to speak for Ken because he is on here, but I think he is someone that sets the bar, but I know that he has also been focused other things like just enjoying the car and non-autocross things as opposed to winning nats.
As mentioned, the time gap you've suggested was the difference between winning nats and maybe not trophying at nats last year. I drove decent and pax'd decently well at Charlotte the other week. I was a little over a second off first for the weekend. I finished 6th of 8 in my class. I ran a local with Andrew Pallotta the week before that. I think he put down 232whp. The course had a couple of 180's, but it is a Bristol course. So a national style course. He scratched me by 1.7 seconds. He is a better driver than I am, but overall, I felt like I drove well. I pax'd 3rd in a pretty decent region. It is 40+ whp and more torque in a low powered car where you spend a lot of time full throttle. And the only cost is a couple of lbs.
People can write their letters and it will play out how it will play out. And I think it is perfectly reasonable to want a competitive place to play with a new twin. However, it is pretty infuriating to see people suggesting that this doesn't really hurt first gen drivers. People that have been supporting the club and supporting travel events for years WILL be hurt by this. Some will lose money and move to something else. Some will step back their efforts. Some will probably move on to something else altogether.