This talk of CS wonderings and new Miatas in BS got me thinking some more
about the classing of stock class cars. It's impossible to make all cars
competitive in their classes and make everyone happy. It almost seems like
you need to totally restructure the classes every few years, but even that
would make a lot of folks unhappy when their dominant car got shuffled to
another class. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts:
CS appears to be dominated by the 2nd gen. MR2s. The 924S has proven to be
competitive, but you don't see very many of them. A few 1.6L Miatas are
starting to show up, but they don't appear to be competitive. This leaves a
lot of other cool, cheap old sports cars uncompetitively classed in CS, such
as the 1st gen. MR2, Fiero, 8-valve 944, and RX7 (especially the 12A-powered
cars). It would be nice to have a class where they could play
competitively, but that would be difficult without creating another class.
You could move the MR2 and 924S to BS, but then CS might just switch from a
spec MR2 class to a spec 1.6L Miata class. So how do you make it all work?
There are a number of sports cars that are too fast for AS, but not
competitive in SS. Examples are the BMW M-Roadster, 95+ Porsche 911, Acura
NSX, Camaro SS/Firebird WS6, Lotus Esprit, and Supra Twin Turbo. It would
be great if they had their own class between SS and AS, but how do you do
this without adding more classes?
I would love to see a class where a relatively inexpensive road race car
could be competitive in autox. IT cars can compete in SP, but they are not
competitive there. How about allowing Spec RX7s to compete in CS? They
have stock motors, all smog controls, full interiors, spec non-adjustable
shocks, and the extra weight of a cage. The items that make them illegal
for CS are the spec springs (Tokico "street" springs), optional spec rear
swaybar, optional wider wheels (although tire size is limited to 205/60-13),
and optional racing seat for the driver only. These mods still aren't going
to make a 12A RX7 competitive in CS, but I'd rather give it a try in CS than
get totally embarrassed in CSP.
Brad Burns
'99 Miata, BS
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