mrondeau wrote:In AS/S through JS/S, you get 6 points. (A flaw in our current rules) to use as you wish as long as you run 140 or higher tread wear tires. In a GSS car you could change springs and torsion bars (2pts), sway bars (2 points) and camber plates (2 pts) and run 140 tread wear tires. By going to RA1's, you would be in GS class and maxed out at 8 points. Never made much sense to me.
As I remember it, the logic for the difference between the S/S class rules for the older model cars vs. newer ones was based in the fact that it is far more difficult and expensive to maintain the "vintage" models in the strict S/S legal form, with all the "exclusion" factors. OEM replacement parts for airboxes, bumpers, lids, exhausts, wheels, etc., are either NLA or extremely expensive, in many cases. Over the years, the older cars have been modified with aftermarket parts during routine maintenance and repair that excluded them from the S/S class in many instances. When the original S/S rules were adopted, all classes were treated the same and there was a precipitous drop in participation in the lower S/S classes due to this. There was quite an outcry from people with older cars who wanted to run street tires but were forced into S class with either more than 2 points or a single aftermarket mod that excluded them. The rules were changed after a couple years to accommodate them, doing away with the exclusion list and raising the mod points allowed, and participation in those lower S/S classes came back to current higher levels.
Whether you think this is a "flaw" or a clever accommodation depends on which side of the fence you are on, I suppose, but consider that there are no S/S classes at all for older cars under the Parade Competition Rules, which our rule changes at the time were intended to emulate--they all have to run in P or M--and there were no street tire classes at all under our older rule sets--everyone ran R tires or they weren't competitive.
TT