DISCLAIMER: This is just a discussion item. There are no plans to implement
this, and even if there was, it couldn't happen any earlier than about
2004. DO NOT PANIC!
Now, the good stuff:
I had an interesting conversation this past weekend, with a person who
shall remain nameless and blameless for the time being.
This person is a charter member of the "We have too many damned classes"
club. This person is of the opinion that SP in in trouble (the current SP
rules do not reflect the current state of street-driven vehicles as driven
on the street, and as such, the current crop of actual SP competitors have
old cars and the category is not attracting much in the way of new cars -
this is not a good schenario for growth)
This mystery man is also of the opinion that the SM rules do a much better
job of what SP should be than SP does, and so it deserves to become the
"New SP"
This is not the first time I have heard this particular opinion - hundred
and first would be more like it. However, every time I start down the
mental road to replacing SP with SM, I bump into the current crop of
competitors. I have a very hard time justifying telling these people that I
intend to kill off their classes. It's grossly unfair to do so. There are
people and cars who have spent 20 years developing these cars to their
current state - what right do I have to tell them they have to play by new
rules? I get upset when people question SM's right to exist; what right do
I have to question someone else's right to exist?
So while I find the idea of replacing SP with SM attractive, the lack of a
good, fair, and just way to go about doing that stops me in my tracks.
But this individual has done the impossible - he has thought of a way to do
just that. Even more interesting, he's stealing the idea from our friends
in road racing (and when it comes to rules, it is better to steal than
invent!)
Apparently, when you have a group of cars A prepared according to a certain
set of rules, and you have a group of cars B prepared to another, often
completely different set of rules, and both groups run times that are
similar enough that niether group has a clear advantage, our road racing
cousins will combine the two into a single class. If you want to run in
this class, you can drive an A car prepped to the A rules, or a B car
prepped to the B rules, but you cannot interchange cars and prep rules.
Then, if people stop building A cars (because they're no longer being
produced, so they just wear out, lose aftermarket support, or whatever)
then after some time you can drop the A cars' rules from the rulebook - and
by this time, you may have a new group of cars C with their own rules but
similar times you can mix in, and so on.
Done this way, you can keep the same number of classes, but accomodate new
cars and rulesets to reflect technical and social changes.
The idea is this - a properly built, properly driven SM car should be
more-or-less equal to a top line BSP car. An SM2 car is an ASP car. So we
eliminate SM, SM2, BSP, and ASP, and replace them with 2 combined classes -
call them GT1 and GT2 for sake of discussion. GT1 is ASP/SM2, GT2 is
SM/BSP. To qualify for GT2, you can build either an SM car to the SM rules,
or a BSP car to the BSP rules.
Bingo! Two classes have been eliminated, but no _competitors_ have been
eliminated, and the classes are still as fair as they ever were (assuming
you buy into that SM==BSP and SM2==ASP, which I have no real problem with)
But wait! There's more!
Let's assume that the tautology that the SM rules are superior to the SP
rules is correct. If so, then we should see a natural progression of SP
cars to GT1 and GT2, along with the new "direct to GT" cars that we see
right now in SM (ie, cars that did not start life off as SP cars) It's not
hard to imagine ESP (for example) migrating to SM/GT2 in the space of about
2 years (camshafts! subframe connectors!) especially if SM drops the
requirement for a registered plate (like we are almost certainly going to
have to do) If so, then ESP's attendance numbers will drop off at Nationals
until it passes the minimum attendance limit for 2 years in a a row, and
then it can be safely trimmed off. Another class gone! If one buys into the
assumption that every SP car in existance today is decent raw material for
either an SM or SM2 car, then, over time, this process should naturally
reduce SP into GT1 and GT2, and we've eliminated even MORE classes - and we
didn't screw anybody!
But if the tautology does not hold, then it still works. There will
continue to be viable xSP classes for as long as people choose to compete
in them. The decision to retain/eliminate a given class becomes a matter of
people voting with their feet, instead of some administrative fiat. This is
a VERY good thing. Rules should not screw people.
The only outstanding issue that I see is that it is important for both
halves of each marriage to ensure that the perceived parity actually
exists. We need (for example) to give SM a couple more years of development
to make sure that SM==BSP, not SM>BSP or SM<BSP (ditto SM2 and ASP)
Now the really interesting thing happened yesterday - I posted this idea on
the SM list. I was expecting to get torched. That didn't happen. As it sits
now (we're having a poll on it) 2/3 of the respondants (so far) either like
the idea, or could at least live with it. 1/3 hates the idea. This leads me
to believe that, once it was demonstrated that SM==BSP in terms of
performance (which, as I mentioned, will take a couple of years) that we
might actually be able to get the SM folks to willingly submit to the GT2
marriage. Shocking, but true!
So... what about the BSP folks? What do you think of this idea?
AGAIN - this is a discussion item only, not the start of a crusade. Do not
panic!
DG
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