Ah, Dennis, my child -- the view from one relatively recent to the sport is
often a bit at variance with history. What is it they say about what you are
doomed to if you don't study the history...?
In the beginning, circa 1970, there was Stock (7 classes) and Prepared (5
classes). And Modified (two classes, basically big-engine and little-engine.
What was essentially a Solo Vee won AM at Nationals the first year, and a
Lotus Elan won AM the second year while a Capri-engined MGB won BM. Those
are your DM/EM cars today. But I digress)
Stock were cars that did not have much done to them. A few things were
allowed like factory option wheels and aftermarket shocks. Prepared was GCR
race cars.
It was that simple. You either had a race-prepared car, or you didn't. And
mostly, that was what was running in autocross then.
But what about the cars that had had *something* done to them, not much but
enough they were not Stock-legal? They might have headers, or an air dam or
spoiler because it "looked good", or wheels that were not factory option but
something from the speed shop's shelves. (If that is sounding like ST today,
not without reason).
These cars were automatically pushed to Prepared. This was the 1970s, now,
not the aftermarket boom of today. People would be convinced to come try an
autocross, show up with these *slightly* modified cars, be tossed in among
the wolves in Prepared, turn times that were not even keeping up with Stock
(largely newbies, remember; they did stuff to the car before they discovered
autocross) -- and SCCA was losing potential members. Those who WERE sticking
around usually backed up to Stock, but finally became vociferous enough that
there needed to be a middle ground. A place where some of these changes --
some purely cosmetic, some performance but the type of performance changes a
street car could use -- would be allowed.
In response, Street Prepared was invented in 1979. It was created as the
middle ground. More than Stock, not as much as Prepared, but intended to fit
between the two. It was an instant success. "Bolt-on options" was the basis.
If you could buy it off the shelf and bolt it on, it was legal. That was the
concept. Two areas where it quickly got away from the SEB -- carbs and
wheels. You could yank that old OEM carb and bolt on a Holley, right?
Bolt-on = legal. How wide a wheel can you fit under that fender? Bolt on =
legal. And while everyone involved looked at the effect of stepping up a
Stock car to SP, they did not look at the next step of taking that same car
eventually to P. Oops, some of those bolt-ons were not legal in P. Too late.
Genie's out of the bottle.
And that was before the DOT gumballs made their appearance. Now, today, a
good SP car is not that far in performance from a good P car. Both are
Prepared, just in different ways and with different restrictions. I thought
"Street Prepared" was a dumb name in 1979. It seems prescient today. Maybe
we should change the name of Prepared to Race Prepared. Then it might be
clearer both are Prepared classes, but different in concept.
SP is too well established now to undo it. ST is what SP should have been.
The real trick will be carefully preventing ST from going down the same
path. Your SM may well be the outlet that permits ST to resist the
temptations.
--Rocky Entriken
----- Original Message -----
From: <dg50@daimlerchrysler.com>
To: <autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 9:13 AM
Subject: Re: Proposal for SP cars to compete in P ??? (not ST tires)
> "Rocky Entriken" <rocky@tri.net> wrote:
>
> > SP ain't broke, it just fails to provide that natural
> > progression from Stock to Prepared.
>
> I don't think that SP was ever designed as a stepping stone to Prepared.
>
> I think that Prepared was designed more as a category where it was
> projected that the majority of competitors would be driving ex-roadrace
> cars, so the Prepared rules are more of a snapshot of the GCR, circa 1980
> or whenever the Prepared rules were developed in the form they are in
> today.
>
> That's kinda the issue surrounding Prepared these days. The rules haven't
> been kept in lockstep with the GCR, nor have they evolved into something
> that's the logical next step up from SP. They're kinda their own little
> island unto themselves from a rules perspective.
>
> Clearly in the case of CP, that's not necessarily a problem, although the
> Rest of Prepared seems to be suffering somewhat.
>
> But I'd agree that trying to somehow accomodate SP-derived cars in
Prepared
> is a case of "square peg, round hole".
>
> DG
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