As far as the other discussion goes, I don't exactly hear Sam Strano (or Randy Melton for that matter) whining about Subarus. Apparently good drivers can overcome good cars any day of the week.
Actually Sam had a nice long Ditrade a about the rally cars being allowed to stay in ESP on the evolition list.
At 04:49 PM 10/9/2004 +0000, bauerspeedracing wrote
Okay, first things first, flak jackets are on.....
>
>ITEM 1: Move from BS to AS: Porsche Boxster non-S, Honda S2000 ('00-
>'03), BMW Z4 (all)
>
>SOLO II STRET PREPARED CATEGORY
>• The following previously-published class change proposals have been
>withdrawn:
>Move from ESP to BSP: Mitsubishi Evo, Subaru WRX Sti
"Good thing your wearing body armor. The first decision will most likely
effect the place I run in 2005. Luckily I have access to an M3, which will
now be very competitive again in BS. It's really too bad that most
everyone with a pony-car or DSM car doesn't have the means to do that, and
will get stuck by the 3rd round of piss-poor choices. Funny how you guys
just made BS a place for "old" cars with only a few newer ones like the
350Z and RX8 thrown in, and they are of unproven capabilities.
But god forbid you fix ESP. Can't have ESP being pony-cars/"lesser" AWD
cars, because the pony car is dead (newsflash, so are the 968, E36 M3 and
MR2 Turbo, all of which you just handed a class over too). Also, there are
a few newer cars that could be very competitive in an ESP sans the big
rally cars, like the WRX and old DSM (which Charles Moss proved could still
go fast). Nope, y'all think it's smarter to leave the rally-cars in ESP
depsite the HUGE gap in car types. Ok, fine I give up. I've tried to
convince you. Really wish one of you would have gotten in a series of
better rally-cars and compared them to maybe a STX WRX and a prepped ESP
car outright. But I guess data like that really doesn't matter, I know
because I've given you that data. You want to look at results. Well,
that's be fine if you had a good sampling of each car. You don't. You
have precious few rally cars that have the thought or money in them as
compared to pony-cars or DSM cars. And NONE have close to the history and
trial and error testing of either of the others. None of that seems to
matter.
You all make it soooo tempting to sandbag, it's not funny. I'm sure this
decision is based on Nationals. I'm glad I won, and I think you can tell
by the gap that neither Mark nor I were sandbagging at all. I drove harder
than I could imagine. I got away with things that I'm still not sure how I
got away with in an effort to get on top. I, without any question in my
mind, drove better than I've ever driven before in Topeka. Jason may have
as well, it's clear he had to drive his ass off to run as fast as he
did. But, I've spoken to Jason, and he (maybe Eric too, don't know)
expressed regret to me over not running on Kumho's. Also, let's remember
that Jason was in 12th after day one, they had intercooler hose issues and
cone problems too, and he got to 3rd in what was a tight class. That's
pretty damn impressive to me. I'm not saying Jason is a 12th place driver
and got to 3rd on the car. What I'm saying is that Jason is a driver
capable of winning, and without those day 1 troubles would have been a
little better than 3rd (probably would have won). No degree in engineering
needed to see that.
I want also to add this. Somewhere (I don't have a rulebook or supps
handy) there is a rule about drag-race starts and not having them. Well,
the SEB or someone on it has to approve the National courses. The North
Course had a drag race start which was an advantage to the rally-car. I
know, I was following Kiko and he left with all 4 wheels spinning. This
was AFTER cones were added on the right to make the start any kind of turn
at all (very early on Monday it was literally a straight line). If you are
going to leave the rally cars in ESP, it'd be nice if you at least made the
playing field as level as possible. It'd also have been nice not have
gotten crap for it when I mentioned it.
That's about all I have to say. I'm off to do some research about what to
do next year. I'll contact Tasha and see if she'll consider moving the
cars out of ESP for Pro's. I suspect she won't, but I'll try. That's the
only thing at this point that could keep me in ESP for '05. Nice job
fella's. You chased the away the first of what I'm sure will be many
pony-car guys (hell, you already did that, look at '03 numbers vs.
'04. Those cars didn't all disappear, they chose not to come because of
rally-cars). I'm sure you all don't think it's a big deal. I've only run
ESP @ Nationals 4 of my 9 times, which is more than I've run any other
class, and won twice. <Sarcasm on> I'm probably not a good judge of what
others will do since I just dabble in the class. <Sarcasm off>"
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These things rock. I'm definitely looking forward to ESP this year - I wonder if the Miater will be fun enough to pull me away much... I guess I'll find out at the T&T.
. If so, I think all the F-bods and Mustang owners are going to start petitioning us for a 'Subaru' class. 
