For some reason this was sent to me rather than autox@autox.team.net.
mjb.
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From: "Allen Murrell" <ovrsteer@fastband.com>
Subject: Re: What's wrong with this picture
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 20:06:40 -0600
While Mr. Foster may have been off base with his interpretation of Howard's
PRIVATE email to someone, making a rude comment back to him such as "the
artist is color blind" with no discussion about his post is the main reason
why I rarely post to this list.
The SM class is very important to me because several of my friends race in
this class. Because of these classes, attendance numbers at our regionals
have increased dramatically and our region has many new members this year
that are very enthused about autocrossing and are always helping with the
events. I believe Howard has said that the whole intention of these classes
was to entice young people that modify their cheap little cars into high
performance machines to try autocrossing. Well, in our region this plan has
worked. We have at least a dozen new members this year that have assisted
with every event. Two of them even went to nationals this year. I stood
there in the SM grid next to their Acura Integra and looked over at the
Supra TT and the BMW M3 with a full cage, huge fender flares, and Taylor
racing wheels. It looked like a World Challenge car! I looked over at
these two guys that had towed all the way to Kansas with us and they both
said they felt like they had brought a knife to a gun fight. They both
thought these classes were supposed to be for inexpensive but heavily
modified cars, not cars that start at $40,000.
I believe they are right. I personally think it was a mistake to allow cars
like M3s and Supra TTs into the class. And allowing any Porsche into the
class would be a mistake as well. While I understand that a 944 is not an
expensive initial purchase, there are other factors to consider. When a new
guy in his hopped up Civic shows up at a regional for the first time and
gets his clock cleaned because they put him in a class with an $80,000 M3
race car and a 944 ex road racer, will he come back? Well he may be more
likely to if he felt he was competing against cars he could possibly beat.
And that was the whole intent of these classes. Not for multi time national
champs to bring their high dollar race cars in.
I'm sorry for the length of the post, but I feel that it is important that
people understand that these classes are working to bring in new, young
people to our sport and help counteract the graying of the SCCA.
Allen Murrell
Delta Region SCCA
CP 78 Camaro
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