> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Harn [mailto:jamesh220@attbi.com]
> Yes and that's my point. There's no written guidelines or rules
> concerning
> classing which we are bound by. The so called unwritten rulesand concepts
> are used as rationale conveniently at the disposal of the committee. The
> priority of use is on an as needed basis. You can call it tradition or
> whatever but it's still an excuse for a lack of defining rules.
Wow, what a skeptical attitude! Are you related to Oliver Stone? ;-)
"Conveniently"? "excuse"? Just because you may not agree with what is
being done by these groups does not mean that what they are doing is not
without method, direction, and rationale. You seem pretty clear on how it
happens, yet you have not been part of any of those groups. So, how are you
so certain?
> The classing rules should be established and rewritten as needed.
I await your first cut and I'd be happy to give you feedback on such. Be
part of the solution if you feel there is such a problem.
> Afterall,
> laws in the US are rewritten everyday.
And the laws of the US are maintained by tens of thousands of paid
individuals whose job it is to administer them. We are a club run by
volunteers. Yes, we have a few paid positions, but none are part of any
actual competition boards, other than as liasons. You seem to think this is
easy enough to do that volunteers can easily do it within their spare time.
Yet, you complain about the current effectiveness and propose doing lots
more work to fix it. Of course the process can be made better with more
time and resource. Where will this come from?
> What we need is a
> starting point and
> from there we can amend it to get it better.
Again, I await your first cut. I say it cannot effectively be done. You
say it can. Please show me.
> We already have a rule book,
> we simply have to make it more defining for stock classes.
"Simply"? I say this is not so simple.
> If there are
> indeed distinct classes as evident by the number of stock classes
> currently,
> someone must be able to identify rational traits that cause the cars to be
> in those classes. When a car is classed, there should be documented
> rationale by the committee to state why it exists as defined by the rules
> established. If there's a mistake, the car can be reclassed.
This happens already. Those traits exist. And at times in the past they
have been articulated in FastTrack when large reorgs have been done. But
there are also a ton of exceptions to those general characterizations. How
can you possibly try and concisely articulate all of that? The "rules of
classes" would be more verbose than the list of actual cars. Way more. And
maintaining it on an ongoing basis would be a full-time job.
> This process
> shouln't be set in stone, but rather a continuous evaluation of classing.
And that's exactly what happens now.
> If it's done right, car classing should be done annually to reflect the
> various changes made. More classes can be added and some can be
> removed as
> needed but the classing process cannot be held stagnant and must be
> documented and made public.
How would you serve the core value of class stability if you are adding and
subtracting classes every year? A key message the membership constantly
sends is to basically leave things alone.
> Personal bias and subjective guessing can be
> eliminated by having provisional classing for a new car if it's new and
> unproven.
Who says personal bias is driving the classing? Do you have evidence of
this? How does this work in a large committee? Are people in colusion?
Provisional classing is an interesting idea (worthy of its own thread). It
has been proposed before and also recently. How would people feel if all
new cars were "overclassed" for a year or two? Altrenatively, what if (as
Showroom Stock used to do) you could only run cars that were at least a year
old at National events? And don't forget, the SEB already has the authority
to reclass a car within 12 months of its original classing without member
feedback. Perhaps they should do this more often? How would people feel
about that? I have my opinions, but I'd like to hear others?
> > And its got to be a "few" that make those decisions because you'd never
> get
> > a concensus otherwise. That's why the SAC/SEB members are
> supposed to be
> > representatives to their respective constituencies. I know I
> discuss with
> > folks in my area and take into consideration their feedback. Same with
> > these lists.
>
> Sure, it's like, write your congressman....and about as effective.
So why am I even talking to you?
> But I'm just not buying your statement
> > that you cannot be competitive. Was I competitive in my
> underdog CS Miata
> > against the MR2's for two years? Even when it was clearly the
> slower car?
> > Sure, I didn't win all the time, but I *was* competitive.
> >
> > --Andy
> >
>
> That's a good example of cars classed together that are actually
> competitive
> against each other.
Anybody else agree with this? I sure don't. Watch what happens in ES this
year.
> What other choices of cars were in CS that you chose
> not to run? Did anyone even bother to bring out a Porsche 914?
If they did bring a 914, they would have run BS last year, not CS. What's
the point?
> Notice that
> in the new ES there's really a very small number of cars to choose from.
The new ES is exactly the same as the old CS. Nothing else changed except
the lettering. Again, what's your point?
> Have you folks seen the total number of cars that are classed in
> each class?
> There's a lot of cars to choose from in the slower classes, why isn't it
> more divided in the realm of the most popular cars?
All new cars get classed. That means lots of cars are classed that few
people want to autocross. Having a large number of cars in a class does not
mean that they are more popular or that our autocrossing membership owns (or
would like to own) them.
> Why is it that there's an attempt to further subdivide the
> classes that have
> the least number of cars based on smallest performance differences?
Would you rather slice up HS into HS, IS, & JS. That's essentialy what you
are saying. In fact, we just recently condensed a bunch of those. Why?
Because participation in the lower classes, especially HS is low nationwide.
> From
> what Andy has stated, the RX-7 TT and Boxster S are not class winning but
> are competitive in SS as an example.
I have stated no such thing. Please show where I did so (the Evo list is
archived, look there).
All classes are ranges. Even if you were able to somehow magically compute
the average performance potential of the ultimate setup onb the best version
of every car in every class, you'd still have to decide where to slice it
all. Since we have a limited number of classes, some of those cars would
fall to the bottom of each range, some to the top. And, if we are very
fortunate, variation in attributes of each car would allow for a different
ultimate pecking order for a given course on a given day. Enough of a mix
that driving performance is a larger determining factor than car. That's
how we end up with "competitiveness".
> Shouldn't the focus of reclassing reside in the areas where there are the
> greatest number of cars with the most significant differences in
> performance?
IMHO, further slicing is only necessary when there is a significant
performance difference in the resultant classes, and when the participation
level in the original class is among the highest. OTOH, consolidation
should be considered for any and all classes where participation is low for
a significant period of time. Again, IMHO. And I'm just one guy as part of
the process.
--Andy
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