Rules that would help with legally reaching weight

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turboICE

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With what I think will at the end of 2006 will be seen as benefitting competition among IT models there were a lot of weight reductions.

There were also a lot of discussion about ability to make weight.

It's not clear to me why polycarbonate window replacements are not within the IT scope. Certainly I would think they would go a long way towards helping models reach weight legally.

With an improved classing structure there should be ways within the rules to enable gaining the benefits of those improvements.

There is always a lot of talk about how rules and permitted mods in IT are intended to be easy and only require moderate skill, bolt on etc. That is until the topic of weight comes up then there are all these references to the need to be creative in the utilization of the rules.

I gained 100lbs and I am going to a lighter notchback chasis - so I don't need this rule. But I really would like to see everyone gain the benefit of the effort of the ITAC by assisting in making weight attainable without all sorts of gyrations in applying the rules. Making weight should be as simple as permitted suspension modifications for instance - not as complicated as building a tube frame chasis.
 
All of it would be rules creep, and I'm not really for it, but I see the following on my car:

1. Hood and trunk are heavy. Why not fiberglass or alum replacement panels for the hood and trunk only, like many street cars these days?

2. As you mention, polycarbonate windows.

3. Bumpers. I've probably got 80 lbs of bumper on the car given the huge steel beams under the rubber covers. I'll keep the covers, but if the rules allowed the removal of "non-visible bumper reinforcement" then off they would come. Our Z car has actually shock absorbers that are plenty heavy underneath the bumper. Off they come too.

That's really about it, isn't it? Not sure what else you could do without wholesale replacement of body panels.
 
that sounds like rules creep to me...fiberglass or aluminum hoods and decklids? that seems very prod like to me...to drastic. and bumper reinforcement is a safety issue...if anything with all the contact in IT they keep the expensive parts safer as well as the occupant. I would think the heater core should go as it doesnt serve any purpose and anyone building a car would like to have the room under the dash to make working on things easier...keep the stock dash as a shell and make us mount our stuff to it. my 2c
 
As discussed elsewhere I agree with this basic premise in substance:

Originally posted by Knestis@Jan 9 2006, 05:41 PM
I don't have time right now to find it but there was a strand here wherein Scott Giles put forth the proposition that the heart and spirit of IT-ness was defined by just a few major areas of "leave it the hell alone:"

** Stock bodyshell, fenders, hood, doors, and glass
** Stock gearbox and gears
** DOT tires
** Stock brake rotors and calipers
** Unmodified suspension pick-up points
** Essentially stock engine internals

K
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While I agree that it would be easy to save weight from being permitted to legally remove support added body panels like hoods and trunks and bumpers - I don't think it fits and there are safety issues.

I could go either way on heater cores - definitely a safety issue in areas where rain brings foggy windshields and a working defroster is desirable.

But I see polycarbonate as not outside the scope of IT and arguably improves safety.

I am sure there are other possibilities as well that don't move a car outside of the IT prep level scope.
 
But I see polycarbonate as not outside the scope of IT and arguably improves safety.
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Ack. Here we go.

How about this? Anything that isn't currently allowed by the ITCS is, by defitition, outside of the "IT prep level scope." We've gone - again - from washer bottles to plastic windows in less than a month, and have even played the safety card.

No. No. NO.

K
 
Ed, the first thing I started on since reading the Fastrack weight for the 1st gen RX-7 is the drivers body weight. He/me needs to loose .41 pounds per inch of my body height. ;)

How much do you weigh & how tall are you ? Said with :) :) :)
 
There are a lot of things stated in the rules including no guarantee of competiveness - but I think there is some pretty clear indications that most of the participating membership believes that competitiveness is allowed to be sought out by other members.

I guess I can't restate accurately what the objective of the process that was gone through was. But if cars can't reach their new weight legally was that objective whatever it was still met?

Without going to a spec (blah) class, I would support changes to a ruleset that allow each participant in the class to have the same opportunity under the rules to compete in the classed car they choose and then I want to drive against them.

I don't want IT to be something else or I would do the something else.

Should I accept that there is no way that IT rules can move in ways that support affordable mulit-model competition without becoming something other than IT?

Should the ruleset be locked and no change in rules be allowed?

The hammer keeps getting applied to my head here - but I guess I like IT anyway but see no reason not to see if there are ways for IT to be better - or at least gain an understanding of everyone else's views.
 
Originally posted by ddewhurst@Jan 23 2006, 02:43 PM
Ed, the first thing I started on since reading the Fastrack weight for the 1st gen RX-7 is the drivers body weight. He/me needs to loose .41 pounds per inch of my body height. ;)

How much do you weigh & how tall are you ? Said with :)  :)  :)
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I fully expect my next car to make its new weight easily within the existhing rules and yes driver ballast will be involved in that. This is not something I need at all. Its is something I wanted to discuss and understand why not.

Believe it or not - NO just doesn't help me understand why not.

For all the praise of the recent process it was a waste of time if the cars that got reductions can't get to them even if their driver's body index is in line with good health standards. And I don't think "get there creatively" is a good answer - it contradicts the ease that the same people espouse IT mods are supposed inherently be.

If the ruleset is to be locked as some seem to desperately desire why then spend all that time going through the recent process at all or even allow new cars to be classed?
 
Originally posted by ddewhurst@Jan 23 2006, 02:43 PM
Ed, the first thing I started on since reading the Fastrack weight for the 1st gen RX-7 is the drivers body weight. He/me needs to loose .41 pounds per inch of my body height. ;)

How much do you weigh & how tall are you ? Said with :)  :)  :)
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David,

Do you think our cars will understand how much fun we have corner balancing them at the dinner table :lol: I dont think so!!

I Think you guys do a good job with your ranks keeping it more like IT than prod but I have a problem with GLASS in a race car. Aint right somehow. Rules creep is a concern but what if a HANS was 5 HP? Rules creep? Or just good thinking and move on.

Lawrence
 
Originally posted by turboICE@Jan 23 2006, 02:01 PM


If the ruleset is to be locked as some seem to desperately desire why then spend all that time going through the recent process at all or even allow new cars to be classed?
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Because no rule changes were/are needed to do so.

I am all for entertaining new ideas but they must provide clear benefits to the membership. Let's all re-read the rules creep thread.

AB
 
Originally posted by turboICE@Jan 23 2006, 01:52 PM
... Should I accept that there is no way that IT rules can move in ways that support affordable mulit-model competition without becoming something other than IT? ...
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That's like asking someone if they've quit beating their wife. There's no way to reply to it without tacit agreement with a completely inaccurate premise. It's disingenuous, suggesting in a very sideways fashion that the current IT rules don't in fact "support affordable multi-model competition," which is patently false - particularly given the profusion of spec classes.

Go back and read the various strands about the dangers of rules creep. If there is more explanation required to support the "no" proposition, that's not been covered there, I don't know what it is. Now, if the problem is that your personal priorities or competitive position need a different interpretation, set of values, or first principles, that's within your rights - but it doesn't make much sense to rehash all of our rationale.

K
 
Actually reading that thread is part of the problem, besides leaving my head spinning, I left that thread without having a clue as to what exactly rules creep is.

I hope it is not any rule change is rules creep but some would definitely leave a different impression of that.

My impression of rules creep would be that which would make IT no long IT but Production - hence why I wanted to start a discussion of what uniquely distinguished the two in the thread I started on What makes what, what.

As clearly and concisely as some view what would (almost nothing) and would not (almost everything) be appropriate for a change to the ruleset, with such crystal clarity that it should be just as plainly obvious to the rest - may not reach others in the same manner as you would expect.

I don't think my question was as loaded or distracting from the point as you would believe or have others believe. It is my belief that there are many items not in the current ruleset that would support affordable multi-model competition without becoming something other than what IT is - yet I am continually told that there aren't any. Repeatedly I hear that every change proposed would either not SAMMC or would make IT something other than what IT is.

Nowhere does my question or a response to my question suggest that the current rules don't SAMMC - it only asks whether there is a way in which the rules could be moved and after the move support it and still be IT. Neither a yes, no nor maybe answer to the question would imply that the respondent was suggesting that the current rules don't SAMMC - only whether or not if they were to move would they be capable of still doing so.

Based on the rules creep thread I think the bigger issue is a fear to answer such a to the point and succinct question and what that means for the class - because I gleen no answer from that thread.

I mean the idea regularly thrown out that any change request can only be based on the objective of gaining an advantage bothers me when I see it. Making weight is not gaining an advantage it is achieving the intended performance profile defined by the design of the process.

Allowing polycarbonate to replace glass to make weight is as reasonable as adding an SIR to constrain HP beyond the management of expectations or weight. And I support both without any need or expectation of either being applied to or used by me.

Were the other questions I posted in that post not addressable?
 
***Rules creep is a concern but what if a HANS was 5 HP? Rules creep?***

Lawrence, the car would not understand the dinner table corner balance. <_<

No I would not get sucked into a HANS even if there was a 5 hp gain. What I understand is just way to much politics with the SIF rule 38.1 or whatever. As an example ISSAC within it's comerical info compares their product with the HANS. Dose HANS do the same with their comerical info. NO..... What dose that lack of comparison comerical info tell me. Simple it tells me from data I can find that the Issac reduces lateral loads 85% while HANS says nothing about lateral loads. With a HANS the driver is required to have a seperate devise to reduce lateral loads.
 
Originally posted by turboICE@Jan 23 2006, 05:56 PM
Were the other questions I posted in that post not addressable?
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To the extent that I think I understand them...

But if cars can't reach their new weight legally was that objective whatever it was still met?
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That's a problem that I think the current weight and classification system addresses. The New Beetle got put in C heavy because it was unlikely that it could make the weight that it would require to be in B. I think that some cars may fall afoul of the Catch 22 wherein they either (1) can't legally make weight in one class but (2) would require new cages with fatter tubes if spec'd at a higher weight in the next-lower class. There's little that can be done in that case without creating a huge nightmare for someone, so that's as good as it gets. Our Golf was 100# fat last year and we are doing a really agressive weightloss regime on the new one, but I'll be surprised if we get to the minimum. Maybe with a 140# driver.

Regardless, the failure of some makes/models to be able to practically - or at all - reach minimum isn't reason enough to upset the IT applecart by allowing something like plastic windows. The guys who CAN reach weight will just put them in and ballast up with mass lower in the car, giving them a relative advantage over the guys who really *need* the allowance. Remember that the rules have to be written for everyone, presuming that someone will care enough to push the limit.

If the ruleset is to be locked as some seem to desperately desire why then spend all that time going through the recent process at all or even allow new cars to be classed?
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To fix problems in weight spec and class listings, the result of long-term neglect of the category.

Were there other questions that I missed? I'm not trying to be a snot here but there are a few of us who have watched IT go from what it was, to what it is and recognize that there's a WORLD of difference between the two. It is entirely possible that there are things that could be changed, particularly in light of changing OE and racing technology and its affordability, that could strengthen the category. However, the upside needs to be a REALLY compelling before any new allowance is worth the inevitable unintended consequences and essentially irreversable shift a little closer to what it should never become.

K
 
Rules Creep (n) - the process whereby incremental changes in rules over time result in a substantially changed nature of a racing class or category. These changes may be explicit (codified in changes to regulation text), may be the result of evolving interpretations of existing rules (applied by entrants and adopted to the degree that they become tacitly approved), or may arise from unintended consequences of either rule text changes or new interpretations. The net result of these marginal changes, when allowed to run their course, has in the past resulted in categories that become de facto new categories, with attendant increases in performance, cost, and complexity. Rules creep is furthered by a variety of forces including but not limited to individual entrants' desire to gain a relative competitive advantage, the introduction of new or more affordable technologies, individual or collective beliefs about what "race cars should look like" or "what would be cool," and/or racers' general desire that their cars be faster than they currently are - for whatever reason. (See also, Increased Budget, Limited Production, and Lexan Windows.)
 
Not at all a snot - I don't take anything personally not delivered to be personal. These are things I want to know.

The risk that a legal allowance to help someone make weight could be advantaged by a lowering of mass COG is valid. Is that the end story though - if more cars could make their weight from a change (I am presuming this would be viewed as a positive in general theorectical terms) would the benefit to the class be automatically negated by the mass shift potential of the rule? It is a serious question - if every positive aspect of a change also has a negative, is the philosophy it should be dimissed or should a weighting of the net class effect be applied? Are rule changes based on class utilitariasm, absolutism, universalism? What makes something in total right for the class and what makes something in total wrong for it?

Originally posted by Knestis@Jan 23 2006, 02:23 PM
Anything that isn't currently allowed by the ITCS is, by defitition, outside of the "IT prep level scope."
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I guess your view from above would be a form of universalism - in which the rightness or wrongness of something can be derived or inferred from what is common among existing codes.

I guess my view would be that I would desire the IT ruleset and changes requested be measured more in a class utilitarian light tempered by the absolutism of the "leave it the hell alone" list. Hence why I liked it so much when you communicated it.
 
Does it count if I don't use the brand Lexan for polycarbonate windows? :D

That is a rather complex definition - was looking for something that looked a little less like the accounting guidance for derivatives and more like the definition of "it".

Originally posted by Knestis@Jan 23 2006, 11:24 PM
Rules creep is furthered by a variety of forces including but not limited to individual entrants' desire to gain a relative competitive advantage, the introduction of new or more affordable technologies, individual or collective beliefs about what "race cars should look like" or "what would be cool," and/or racers' general desire that their cars be faster than they currently are - for whatever reason.
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So if the driving force behind a change were to improve the class per its purpose "to provide the membership with the opportunity to compete in low cost cars with limited modifications, suitable for racing competition" would it be an acceptable proposal?

A view could be held that polycarbonate windows are a limited modification, suitable for racing competition. Not that an alternative view couldn't be held - one certainly could.

Not related to only this thread (certainly applicable to many threads) - it should be noted that the purpose states low cost cars - nowhere does it presume or restrict the limited modifications, suitable for racing competition to only low cost ones. High cost of a proposed modification as an argument against it is not supported within the IT purpose. The act of limiting modification may result in restricting costs but it is not a stated purpose. The only way to make cost arguments would be through being permitted to expand the purpose to unstated intentions. If unstated intentions are allowed in the discussions that opens up for wide and contrary views to be validly held among participants including those that may not view rules creep so broadly.

PS - I certainly would hope to keep the limited modifications I need to do in order to have a car that could compete would also be low cost. But then again my view is that there is more to the class purpose than merely the stated code.
 
BTW I do appreciate the sincere effort that went into defining rules creep - is it universally accepted or could it be added to the GCR glossary illustrating CRB agreement! :P
 
Originally posted by Knestis@Jan 23 2006, 10:24 PM
Rules Creep (n) - the process whereby incremental changes in rules over time...
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Well done! - GA
 
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