On Wednesday, May 1, 2002, at 05:24 PM, Stefanv@aol.com wrote:
> I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish with this aside
> from
> making a lot of people angry at you?
>
> Are you trying to boost the economy? Are you a car salesman?
>
> I can't conceive of any benefit even remotely connected to autocrossing
> from
> eliminating cars more than 10 years old from the stock classes? What
> is your
> motivation?
The problem that folks are trying to solve is that these days it takes
$5000+ to prep a car to run in Stock category at a National level, once
you've bought the expensive double-adjustable shocks, exhaust, brake
pads and all the other things that have to be changed. Plus when you are
done you end up with a car that's not exactly "stock" and may even be
something you wouldn't ever want to drive on the street.
So various people have looked at banning double or even
single-adjustable shocks but it becomes very hard when you have to allow
people to replace their shocks and have to define just what exactly
"adjustable" means.
The suggested solution is to require Stock class cars to run OEM shocks
(and perhaps Stock everything). This will work fine with new or
nearly-new cars but as a car gets older and older the availability of
OEM parts dries up. The Miata is probably an exception since it has been
largely unchanged for 13 years but for most 10 year old cars there is no
way you could ever buy new OEM shock absorbers.
Thus the proposal would enact a "sunset" rule for Stock class cars over
a certain number of years old (7 seems to be the number I keep hearing
recently). Now of course if nothing else was done that would totally
hose older car owners since they'd have to give their cars the full SP
treatment to continue to race them.
Thus it becomes clear that if a sunset rule for Stock was ever enacted
it would have to include the creation of a Street Touring-like class for
older vehicles that would slot between Stock and Street Prepared. So
basically we'd have a "Showroom Stock" class with no mods allowed for
new cars and a "Street" class for older cars that allows some more
leeway in preparation.
None of these changes are going to happen soon, probably not until 2004
or 2005, if at all. But it's starting to look like we can choose between
either having expensive shocks or having a sunset rule, I don't think
you can legislate one without creating the other.
I'm sure Byron Short could enlighten us more on what the current
thinking in this area is since the "stock shock" rule is his baby so
I'll let him take it from here.
- Alan Dahl
P.S. I have no special insider knowledge as to what the SEB is thinking,
the above observations are mine alone.
--------------
Alan Dahl home:
adahl@eskimo.com
Federal Way, WA, USA work: aland@bestnet.com
http://www.eskimo.com/~adahl ICQ 52688023
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