Frankly, Mattie, I thought your suggestion to consolidate all of SP, ST,
SM, P and M into 5 classes was facetious and so I gave a facetious
response.
I'm not a proponent of the "50 classes is all we need" theory that wants
to do away with classes to meet that magic number. We are competing in an
amateur motorsport that needs to be inclusive not exclusive, IMHO. I
think there is room for all of us and our particular car fetishes.
I've been on record for some time about the rules problems for "Street"
Prepared. Namely, that "Street" is a misnomer and that fact will rise up
to haunt the class in the long haul. As Steve said, the category is still
pretty healthy in its current iteration, so leave it alone. I'm cool with
that. But down the road when more ST classes develop to cover other cars
than just the "ricers" and their 4-seaters, I think SP will start to look
more and more like Prepared looks right now. At that point some sort of
combo reorg with Prepared might be in order.
I don't think the appeal of ST is a "low cost alternative" to SP. I think
the appeal is to be able to still drive your car on the street with the
same tires you race on. The street car crowd probably spends more money
than most SP competitors on their cars with a healthy dose of those
dollars going to sound systems and fancy paint jobs.
The fact that some very vocal ST competitors have gotten all worked up
about their late found realization that creative reads of the rules can
result in guys building more competitive cars out of the parts bin
shouldn't mean a rules change is needed. As Steve pointed out this is the
natural "maturation" of the category. IMO doing away with UP/BD in ST
will hurt the category in the long haul because it takes that level of
creativity, that I think should be inherit in such a class, out of the
mix.
<...And yes little
<Bennie, there are too many Stock Classes. I'll your two Stock
<classes to two SP classes.
<I guess that won't happen in 2004. :^)
<Matt Murray
Ben Thatcher
http://ApexBenefits.biz
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