Vettes in AI?

[BlueFirePony]

Made my quarterly trip to the nat forum and saw two threads about a couple C5 pilots wanting to come into AI. I won't go into details but I am completely opposed to this..no amount of rationization would keep me from moving out of AI if that happened. Thoughts? Marshall, Todd..anyone? is this even being seriously considered?

[Casey_SS]

Someone trying to kickstart silly season into full swing? That forum is pretty dead all year except right about now until next year's rules come out....

[GlennCMC70]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Plenty of places for Vett's to race and completely against the intent of AI. Plus, they could sell the vetts for Mustangs (S-197's) and have plenty left over to race on. No reason to allow. Post your thoughts there and be sure and email Todd and NASA HQ your feelings on the subject.

[BlueFirePony]

I posted there before I posted here...really wasn't going to post either place but I think the AI class needs years of stability (yeah yeah and CMC too to allow it to peak. I spent a fair amount of effort promoting NASA AI/CMC locally and nationally where I could (and hope to resurrect that in full next year) and got a great deal of interest because, despite the angst that appears from time to time, AI/CMC has the potential to be branded as "the" representation of American amateur racing..not to exclude other classes, but the American V8 pony car is pure and immediately hits a spark with people world-wide. I'm really annoyed at people watering down AI/CMC for their own clearly selfish whims.
...sux to have not raced this year....all I get to drive is this damn keyboard....2013 is how far away?
I really like your thought on how to settle it...just sell the 'vettes and buy AI cars...perfect!

[kbrewmr2]

Glenn - name the places they have to race with NASA. I can't get anything past $T2, $T1, and $U.

And no where with limited mods now that they're getting PTA taken away from them.

But I'm with you in that I don't see that getting much traction, even if they ask them to run super duper stock...

[GlennCMC70]

Glenn - name the places they have to race with NASA. I can't get anything past $T2, $T1, and $U.

And no where with limited mods now that they're getting PTA taken away from them.

But I'm with you in that I don't see that getting much traction, even if they ask them to run super duper stock...

So that tells me that the ST (U, 1, 2) rules are not written w/ enough restrictions to limit spending. So why not address that problem instead of making a new problem in AI?

[kbrewmr2]

Have you met/talked to Mr. Greenbaum before?

there wouldn't be a problem if they weren't getting PTA taken away from them. PTA *was* the place for them to play with lower costs. I've been on him already to retain the classes and just tweak the models that need it to no avail. These changes will trickle down and hurt my two biggest TT classes after all....

What was purposed is that they could have an option to move to AI but with PTA type restrictions (stock springs, shocks, bodies, etc) and also run Toyos, etc. Any decent AI car would be able to edge them out fairly easily as even now with the 'vettes on Hoosiers stuff like Cobetto's car and Dean Martin's car is faster, but they'd at least not be in a spending war.

It's a purposal in its infancy at the very farthest (that's really being quite generous imho but whatever) and like I said before, I doubt it'd go very far beyond that anyway so no need to panic really. But it must be nice to be in your shoes where your classes don't get messed with much and if they do you still have options beyond accepting getting screwed or just plain quit (either NASA or racing entirely). Be sure to count those blessings next time you see some rules tweaks come about for your class....

[marshall_mosty]

I can assure everyone that there has been ZERO discussion amongst the series directors in AI about this... Nada, zip, zero... No worries at this point.

[GlennCMC70]

Have you met/talked to Mr. Greenbaum before?

there wouldn't be a problem if they weren't getting PTA taken away from them. PTA *was* the place for them to play with lower costs. I've been on him already to retain the classes and just tweak the models that need it to no avail. These changes will trickle down and hurt my two biggest TT classes after all....

What was purposed is that they could have an option to move to AI but with PTA type restrictions (stock springs, shocks, bodies, etc) and also run Toyos, etc. Any decent AI car would be able to edge them out fairly easily as even now with the 'vettes on Hoosiers stuff like Cobetto's car and Dean Martin's car is faster, but they'd at least not be in a spending war.

It's a purposal in its infancy at the very farthest (that's really being quite generous imho but whatever) and like I said before, I doubt it'd go very far beyond that anyway so no need to panic really. But it must be nice to be in your shoes where your classes don't get messed with much and if they do you still have options beyond accepting getting screwed or just plain quit (either NASA or racing entirely). Be sure to count those blessings next time you see some rules tweaks come about for your class....

I have delt w/ Greg. No comment.
Asking them to use stock springs is useless in a class where spring rates are not restricted and therefore the Directors have no means of tech'ing those items.

And yes, the "messing" w/ our class stuff happens in CMC too. It was NASA HQ that forced the S-197 and LS1 4th gen to be allowed into CMC. The Directors were tasked w/ making it work. There was alot of other demands from HQ that the Directors stood their ground w/ and would not accept. Here we are a few years later and the class as a whole has not recovered from the temporary split (CMC and CMC2) and the class has not drawn the new cars in the number expected, much less enough to offset the loss we suffered due to the change. So, yes, my class got messed w/.

[kbrewmr2]

just saying it could be worse - at least it wasn't all canned and taken away completely and even if it was you still had fallbacks of PT, ST, etc along with accepting being screwed, quitting NASA or quitting completely - the last 3 are all that exists for these guys.

and sounds like I can teach you a thing or two about how to tech a car been looking under all sorts of cars like this looking for stock stuff and non-stock stuff for years...

in the grand scheme of all NASA classes CMC and AI outside of Toyo changing their mind with tires all the time has been relatively (and I used the word relatively for a reason) stable when compared to many others...