Dennis continues:
>Go ahead. I assume you have a calculator? How about doing some work and
>bringing some facts to the discussion
It's your idea, not mine. The unsupported assertions are also yours. Ergo, the
burden of proof is yours. Make your case re the "failure" of SP. Define
"success" and "failure," and be fully prepared to defend your definitions.
Don't expect others to accept your world view just because you said it.
>Once you have established that Class A and Class B run equivelent times,
Once again, your argument is based on a completely false premise: it has _not_
been established what is the potential of SM. It will be _years_ before that
potential is known. Mixing SM with other classes based on the times being
turned by today's SM cars guarantees those cars a built-in advantage over their
SP counterparts as their development continues. Of course, that serves your
purpose. But it does nothing for the sport or for those competitors already
competing in established, successful SP classes.
>you can safely amalgamate them with no penalty to either class.
No. Unless by "safe" you mean "safe for my agenda."
>Done this way, the sole arbitrator of "success" is attendance.
Let's leave the classes separate and go by your "sole arbitrator." That works
for me.
>You do not
>need anyone - me, or you, or the SEB, or ANYONE - to make a decision that
>such-and-such a category is innately superior
I'll go with that. You keep working on SM, then. IF and WHEN today's SP
competitors migrate to SM - hell, anything's possible - then the issue of
consolidation may become a real one.
>IF
>this "consolidated classes" idea were put in place, we'd find out without
>cost to anybody:
IF you're right, the existing situation - SM as a supplemental class, SM2 as a
Regional experiment - will demonstrate the viability of the SM concept.
> if the SM rules are more attractive to the majority, then
>we'd expect that, over time, CSP, DSP, ESP, and FSP's raw material would
>gravitate over to the SM
Absolutely nothing need change for us to see if SM rules are "more attractive
to the majority." You already got what you originally asked for. If you're
right, then SM will grow on its own, without an artificial subsidy from class
consolidations.
>No matter how it actually plays out, everybody wins:
Wrong. Let's let Darwinism actually work. If SM is viable, then it will thrive
on its own. If SP is _not_ viable, then we'll see declining attendance. The
existing rules provide a means for dealing with undersubscribed classes,
whether they are new or old.
>The one serious issue outstanding is deciding which classes get married. It
>is absolutely essential that the performance of the married classes be
>equal to each other,
Not possible. They won't be equal, and the inequalities will be
course-dependent.
>this is why I made
>a point of claiming that it would be 2004 or so before this could go
>forward,
Then, even by your logic, it need not be discussed until 2002 or so.
>It's going to take that long to sort out the performance potential and
>the staying power of SM.
I claim it'll be longer than that. There are SP cars that have been under
continued development for 10+ years, and those cars continue to improve. SM
allows far more parameters to be varied, and you're implying that optima will
be approached in two or three years. Not likely.
Jay
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