[sperry]

Debbie, thanks a ton for all the comments. I think I understand more about what you're looking for out of the region. I certainly want a solution that keeps drivers like you and Mark happy and helps you guys get better on a national level.

I totally understand the want for racing in a regional championship where the doubt about "did I win/lose just because of the PAX factor?" is gone. I understand that does help competition, in that the competition is more pure.

On the other hand, we already have so many lightly contested classes, splitting RT and ST is only going to exacerbate that issue. I guess my perspective is that altitude already throws a question mark over the classes themselves, not to mention the PAX factors and street tire factor, such that no matter what, we're going to have over/underdog cars (not to mention the plain old issues w/ SCCA classes that every region worries about). Since we already race with unfair rules, what makes having a ST factor more unfair to the point where it's unacceptable? Is it having a factor at all (which seems to be what I'm hearing) or is it just the value selected for the factor?

If I could have my way, we'd agree upon a factor that keeps the ST folks from being excluded from class championship contention, but still allows those folks that spend the extra money on race tires, or that are looking for national level practice, an advantage... all while keeping classes as full as possible without having to go to groupings or bumping orders. i.e. I don't think things are broken from the way we were doing it last season with the integrated ST and PRO class for those that want to run without the ST folks, the only issue is the number for the ST factor itself. Personally I think the current factor isn't too far off considering the PAX results are dominated by RT cars, but changing the factor isn't a huge deal to me.

However, it appears I'm more and more in the minority on this, and I'm not hearing anything from the ST camp other than "meh, splitting them doesn't make a big difference to me". If I'm the only person that feels strongly that the split is unnecessary, I have no problem at all going the other direction. My goal truly is to make the club fun and useful to the majority, and if that means running under rules that I don't necessarily agree with, I can suck it up and get in the car and drive anyway... no hard feelings. After all, that's what a lot of the RT folks have been doing the last few seasons. I just want to make sure that the changes are in fact in the best interest of the club.