John Eagan <johneagan@toltbbs.com> wrote:
> Been sitting here catching up on reading the latest digests of
> team.rant. I see we're into the early discussions about "Son of Street
> Mod". Head nodding...eyes rolling back in head.. blablabla ad infinitum,
> ad nauseum..
And here we go again with someone else extorting the virtues of a "run
whatcha brung" class, blablabla ad nauseum, without actually READING why SM
wound up with the rules it did. We've covered this ground so many times....
"Run whacha brung" don't work. That simplicity you like? It's illusionary.
Big money no problem? Try *actually competing* in a class where money is no
object.
Look at every single motorsport out there: not one of them, not ONE, has a
"run whatcha brung" class at anything but the lowest levels (and a lot of
them have claimer rules on these to keep the money in check) Once you start
getting successful with a class, once you want to broaden the appeal
outside of a local area, you start needing rules to keep a handle on
things, or the class gets ruined, participation falls off, and poof! No
more class.
This has happened in many, many other motorsports too. Things get crazy,
the sanctioning body doesn't intervene, and pretty soon it's too expensive
for anyone to play any more. Look at Group B Rally, or Can Am, or even
SuperTouring.
The trick is to find a rules set that is as simple and as unobtrusive as
possible to the competitors that satisfies the control requirements. That's
not an easy task. Thus, the discussion you've been seeing lately.
"Hey, I said "street legal"! That right there controls what can be done to
the cars!"
No, it doesn't.
In a single-state region, where everybody lives in the same DOT
juristriction, yeah, it works. But once you expand out of a local area, you
have to deal with the different laws from 50 American states and 10
Canadian provinces. Not only is that a huge administrative burden on any
impound worker, trying to sort out what is and is not legal by what plate
is on the car, it's also massively unfair, as some states/provinces have
lots and lots of rules, while others only require 4 aired-up tires and one
working headlight. So pretty soon everybody who lives in Kentucky is
driving an AM car with a plate on it, and the rest of the country just
doesn't want to play anymore, and goes elsewhere. Poof!
Level playing fields are an absolute necessity in any successful
motorsport. Other wise, why play? And "level playing field" doesn't mean
that every single car on a given day has a chance to win; it means that
every single car in the class, given enough time, work, and effort, has a
**reasonable shot of some day being competitive**. As long as a competitor
feels that they still have a shot at making themselves and their car
competitive _some day_ within the scope of the rules, then those rules are
Good.
Rules, like it or not, are a necessary evil. And hey! Look! We did a pretty
good job last year with SM.
DG
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