[clyde]

Originally Posted by JST

I mean, Teslas are relatively new, so saying that the drivers "don't show up" in them seems wrong. In fact, it seems like 10-12 percent of drivers driving Teslas is a pretty big number, given that we're talking about a single model. Maybe that's wrong, but it doesn't seem like people are unwilling to campaign them.

A few people ran 3s last year to prove a point or just see what would happen and had no plans of continuing with the car into 2020 (and there's another that did and is now very salty). Perhaps a more telling presentation of the numbers would also show how many individual drivers there were in addition to how many times they drove. So, if four events each had 10 drivers and some of those drivers were at multiple events, we could see there was 1 Tesla driver out of 25 unique drivers we'd get a clearer picture.

Sure, there's a whole lot of uncertainty and fear about what Teslas mean for autocrossing amongst the membership. A lot of people (including, I submit, you) irrationally dislike them. There's really only one way to change that, and it isn't dumping them in a class where they won't have an impact--it's letting them compete and seeing what happens. If they turn out to be an overdog, you can always reclass them, and the good news about that approach is that you'd have data to back up your decision, rather than just fear of the unknown.

I don't irrationally dislike the car, but if it fits your narrative, have at it.

Reclassing cars in street should happen for three reasons: 1) promote healthy participation across all classes, 2) better satisfy the membership's wants and 3) fix mistakes. #3 is a last resort. Experimentation is fine to a degree. They put it in BS and saw what happened. It got a significant performance bump OTA after classing, proved to be unstoppable in anything other than perfect weather on high grip surfaces, and people didn't come out to play with them.

For a car as popular, hip, and amazing as the 3 is supposed to be and with the favorable classing it had last year, 10% of class participation is not that impressive.

Lesson learned with supporting data that it's a destablizing presence that people don't want to run. So, they did something about it.

That's what you're asking for, right?

A single EV class is really, really dumb. That part I can't emphasize enough. The EVs that will be available in 2021 and 2022 are going to be different enough that classing them all together won't make sense. The whole world is switching to electric and hybrid propulsion; SCCA can't wall them off in a garden and pretend they don't exist. The only sensible approach is to integrate them as quickly as possible and let people get used to them.

If there would only be a single EV class for all eternity, I'd agree with you, but I don't see that happening. It's a lot more likely EVs and ICE cars will be mixed in the same classes than there being only 1 EV class for more than a couple years - with the speed of expansion directly related to how many people show up in them and/or show a desire to do so.

You're also way out in front on the "whole world is switching to electric" thing. Take a look at the ages of cars in the Street classes. While there's a lot of late model stuff, the average age of Street class cars is probably 5-7 years old (not including ES). Yet you're demanding a comprehensive solution and integration model for cars that don't even exist yet?

You're also suggesting there is a foregone conclusion that the club has to immediately accommodate EVs. The club moves into the future at a ploddingly slow pace, yes. But the members don't move all that fast either. If the membership demands faster action, the club will respond. But, so far, the demand for action is coming from people that openly state they aren't going to show up anyway.

It's only my speculation that they'll add an EV class in 2021.

So, I'll ask again, what's your alternative proposal that maintains at least a passing resemblance to consistency in preserving competitive balance in healthy classes?