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Re: more stock junk

To: <ax-digest@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: more stock junk
From: "Jay Mitchell" <jemitchell@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 09:25:15 -0500
James Rogerson wrote:

> From all the nay sayers for "stock" cars, the theme is always a
good driver will beat (me, you or them) a normal driver in the
car no matter what level of preparation.

That's a bit more extreme that the position I take: a _new_
driver won't become competitive just because he does all the
things to his car that the Stock rules allow. OTOH,  a _good_
driver will almost always be competitive, if not dominant, even
in a relatively underprepared car.

> The only thing that can be inferred from this line of logic is
that all modifications are to enhance the abilities of the poorer
driver.

See above. That's not my position. It _is_ my position that most
of the gap in times between a new competitor - the ones we are
trying to keep - and an experienced one has nothing to do with
vehicle preparation. That's the message we need to communicate to
novices. Efforts to help them develop their driving skills as
rapidly as possible will, IMHO, be far more effective in
retaining them than any changes we might make in the Stock prep
allowances.

The argument most commonly used against an as-yet unspecified
subset of the present Stock allowances is that a competitor can
_not_ be competitive unless he spends big bucks modifying his
Stock car. I've seen far too many Nationals-winning low-budget
Stock efforts to let that misconception stand. When queried, the
advocates of the(unspecified) changes readily acknowledge that
requiring factory oil filters, shocks, mufflers, and tires is
probably not a good idea; i.e., everybody abandons the "pure
stock" concept very early in the discussion. So we're left
arguing over matters of degree rather than absolutes.

> Level playing fields don't necessarily produce "different"
results.

In any case, the playing field is not likely to become more level
due to any changes that have been suggested so far. The
motivation for the original suggestion was to reduce costs. So
far, there's been nothing suggested that would accomplish that
either.

> There are NO ex-racing drivers in Celebrity Golf, the rules
kill them.

How so?

Jay


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