Smokerbros@aol.com wrote:
>Interesting that the STAC was not (during our discussions about
UB/BD) in
>complete agreement that this was the original concept...
OK, I just went back to my Solo II rulebooks for some history, to
see if I could come up with some idea of the "original concept"
of ST. Street Touring first appeared in the 1998 rulebook (dang,
time flies when you're havin' fun...). Here's the preamble:
"These specifications are meant to establish guidelines for a
Regional class. Regions are encouraged to use Street Touring as a
tool for attracting new members whose cars may not fit into
existing Solo II categories such as Stock or Street Prepared."
Well, I can see from the above that there is one major way in
which STS has now fallen far afield from its "original concept,"
but that's another debate.
Even the original, Regional-only, version of the rules included
the following: "All Solo II Rules Stock Category allowances,
Street Prepared Category Sections 14.1.C,..... and the following
modifications...."
14.1C was the Street Prepared update/backdate section. So, the
"original concept," as expressed in the only official way such
things can possibly be expressed (the rulebook) _did_ include
update/backdate. How in the world can anybody who _intends_ not
to allow update/backdate, including engines (which are
specifically referenced in 14.1.C), include that section in the
rules? If the folks who wrote all that didn't _mean_ to include
14.1.C, I'd say they f****d up bigtime.
Furthermore, if the founders of the ST concept didn't really mean
for it to be this way, why didn't someone catch the oversight and
fix it in time for the 1999 Solo II rulebook? Early changes in a
Regional-only category would have probably come in entirely under
the radar. For myself, I could have understood and supported an
action such as that, but that is not at all what happened.
>The concept that UB/BD was possibly going to go away was out to
the members
>before at least one of those cars was built.
Well, lessee here, U/B had been in the ST rules since 1998. In
2003, some five years later on, the STAC (and possibly the SEB,
etc.) began discussions that eventually led to its abandonment
last fall. How could you possibly know how many ST cars had been
or were being built at that time and what percentage of them had
used U/B to some extent?
If U/B had to be eliminated from Street Touring, then that's how
it has to be. The rules are the rules, and sometimes sh*t
happens. I'm OK with that. Just don't try to pretend that U/B was
"unintended." It would have been far too easy to fix more than
five years ago had that really been the case.
Jay
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