Quote:
Originally Posted by JST
Why?
I mean, it’s good for the owner, I guess. But for all the competitors, how is it different? Ford could introduce a new suspension package on eco boost mustangs tomorrow that renders your car obsolete—your competition could go out and buy it while you’re sleeping. What’s the difference?
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Cars are classed in SCCA Solo based on the performance potential they come with from the factory and tweaks are made between seasons.
A suspension change requires someone buying a new car or buying and installing parts. The ruleset already addresses this and handles it relatively well.
An OTA update affects cars that have been built, classed, and bought with no action taken by the owner/driver. The ruleset does not address this at all.
If Ford introduces a new suspension package for the EB Mustang on a Friday night, no car I'm competing with Saturday morning will have that suspension package on it. If Ford decided it needed a little tweak due to Saturday's results, it won't be different for day two's competition on Sunday. If Tesla puts out an update Friday night, it will change the car registered for Saturday. If they tweak it and push it out a new version Saturday night, Sunday's competition will be affected.
I'm curious if you really don't see the difference or if you were just playing lawyer.
I'd be happy to let Teslas compete with traditional ICE cars with similar Solo performance envelopes if I know the Tesla's envelope will remain as stable as the traditional ICE car's. Tesla has demonstrated that it will not.
Even if Teslas are segregated into "Tesla Stock", what if your car gets a performance increasing update tonight before tomorrow's competition and rumatt's doesn't get it until next week? If I've followed the Tesla stuff closely enough, not everyone gets updates at the exact same moment. Depending on what a given update does, that could be pretty shitty for some people and pretty wonderful for others.
Tesla is disrupting, yes. Is that a good thing? Probably. Is the SCCA's Solo rules up to the task of dealing with that disruption? Absolutely not. Does that need to be fixed? Absolutely. Should it be fixed before there's an "incident"? Fucking A yes.