Jeff Winchell wrote:
> If he did, then why is driving Hoosiers this year?
If he's using them, there's no doubt he feels they are faster - agreed.
What I can't agree with is taking results from a previous year and
saying that we can disregard all the other variables and subtract 1.5%
from said results in order to make a point with the SEB. Those races are
over, we can't replay them with one variable hypothetically changed to
make the results fit an agenda. Do we know that Bob's suspension tuning
suited the Hoosiers last year? Looks like he's certainly got it sorted
out this year, but that doesn't validate changing last years results to
make a point. Those results have to stand as they occurred on that day
with the equipment that was on the car or we could start to speculate on
tire pressures, shock valving, spring rates, his mental frame of mind,
or anything else.
> >My heart would certainly go out to you. After all, ponycars have a
> >mandate from God to be competitive in ESP.
>
> This kind of discussion doesn't illuminate.
No... but it's fun! Those who know me very well know I'm a sarcastic,
but lovable, SOB most of the time. Doesn't come off too well in e-mail -
sorry! I thought a little humor in this increasingly tortured thread
couldn't hurt. After all, we all do this for fun... right? <sarcasm
alert>
And it is a bit illuminating in the sense that all of us should know
that spending a lot of money on a car doesn't guarantee that things
won't change next year and make our investment worthless. The powers
that be should try to mitigate these occurrences in order to keep
autocross to the low cost end of the motorsports spectrum, but that
can't be the only factor in classifying cars.
> There are more people affected by the M3 being classed in ESP than it being
> classed in BSP (or CSP or whatever).
How many people will be inconvenienced should influence the SEB to some
degree, but it shouldn't be the major factor. How the mythical pair of
equally prepared cars with equal drivers compare over various types of
courses throughout a season should be the main factor.
> >And I'd bet $1000 that if Bob had developed and driven a Camaro for the
> >past five years, he'd still win that ESP championship this year.
>
> Perhaps so, but this isn't a petition on preventing Bob Tunnell from winning
> a championship. It is about whether the M3 belongs in ESP (and it doesn't).
And we couldn't agree more (except for the part in parenthesis). My
original objection was to the statement that it was "becoming obvious"
that the car should be moved. I saw no attempt to judge the equality of
the preparation or driver skill with that statement. I only saw a
reaction to the results of one driver from three events. Nothing's
obvious with so little hard data in; there are simply too few data
points. Wait 'till the end of the season. Let's let it play out, make an
attempt to quantify the level of preparation of the competition, and see
if anyone else has Bob's level of success in an ESP M3. I think there's
plenty of time to do this properly without the danger of ESP becoming
"Spec-M3." To jump to a conclusion now and remove the provisional
classification would be a mistake.
And with that, I'm back to mostly lurk mode with an apology to the group
for starting this whole thread.
--
Ron Katona
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