No, the original "vision" for ST in the original rules was clear. ST was
to be similar to SP to allow U/B of components between cars. This was a
good rule, IMO. But the class rose up when someone actually built their
car to the rules, taking advantage of every aspect of the rules, and so
it was changed. The result, now, is that one is bound to buy whole cars
to stay competitive instead of being able to gather parts within U/B. ST
instantly went from a streetable version of SP to a bolt-on version of
Stock. Luckily for STS that the car-du-jour is a 14 year old Civic SI.
But one of these days that will change to something brand new, instantly
obsoleting every current car being run. THEN what are the class
participants going to be saying? I doubt they will be excited about going
out and buying brand new cars to stay competitive. Something tells me
there would be some sort of push to exclude such vehicle(s) from the
class.
These are the pitfalls of drivers making the rules, IMO. The SEB had the
right vision for the category in the first place but the participants
pressured them to change the rules to fit what they "thought" the
philosophy of the category was supposed to be. Apparently, these drivers
never bothered to read the rules and got caught off guard when someone
actually applied them.
What ticks me off is thinking about that guy who read the rules, built
his car to them and then have the class rise up and get his car outlawed
by changing the rules. THAT puts a major damper on lots of people
building cars to the rules in ANY category.
Flame away ST drivers!!!
Ben Thatcher
http://ApexBenefits.biz
From: "Eric Linnhoff" <knuckledragger@kcweb.net>
> That having been said, the factors that went into the removal of UD/BD
from ST centered around Street Touring's placement between Stock and
Street
Prepared and the interest in keeping engine swaps out of ST. It is my
understanding (an understanding mind you should not be confused with a
fact
backed opinion) that the original vision of ST UD/BD was to allow for
swapping smaller components such as brakes.
===========================================
On that we can agree.
I however, was slightly dismayed when viable alternative wording was
suggested, several times, and ignored. The gist of the proposed
alternative
ST U/B verbiage engine change disallowance was something along the lines
of:
"All replacement engines must match the VIN coding for that particular
chassis."
Of course then the rule-interpretaion-torturists insisted that every
other
part around the "good" engine & chassis could be U/B to the
lighter/better
parts. So, little choice was left but the complete elimination of U/B in
ST.
Eric Linnhoff in KC
'98 Mini-Viper #69 STS
|