[John V]

I promised myself I wouldn't post here anymore, but I figured there would be an uproar over this re-classing so I poked my head in to find myself correct. So against my better judgement...

First, I'm on the Street Prepared advisory committee but I'm not on the SEB or the S(treet)AC. But, from a rulesmaking standpoint, we try to class cars by class philosophy as well as performance. Ultimately we don't want something that meets the philosophy of a class while falling outside the performance envelope.

Second. The M3P was initially classed in BS because the expectation was that it would be competitive with cars like the 1M, the M2, the Cayman, the ponycars, etc but that its weight, lack of tire and camber would really limit its ultimate performance. As it turns out, on a majority of courses the Tesla is the best out of those cars despite being pretty limited in tire and camber and carrying a lot of weight. What Clyde failed to mention (or I missed it) is that the car was competitive during national events while driven by a far from top-tier driver. When Nationals rolled around, a top-tier driver won in the car despite having almost zero seat time in it, and having no prep done to the car other than tires. The car will get faster with decent shocks (the factory shocks are awful). I think it'll get a lot faster with a sway bar change as well. It's outside the performance envelope of BS.

Another nuance we take into account when classing cars is "course and condition dependency." Even though a Corvette Z06 might run the same times as a Miata on some courses, we don't class them together because a minor course change within the typical range of elements will cause a major disparity to emerge. This is the Tesla's trump card. It is fast regardless of conditions and regardless of course design because of the ability of the computers, software and AWD system to make use of every bit of traction available. These cars accelerate just as hard in a straight line in the wet as they do in the dry. Think about sealed asphalt versus concrete. Or a gravelly lot versus concrete. Nothing can touch the Tesla in anything other than ideal conditions. The only way you could really kill one of these is to design a truly speed-maintenance course with no acceleration zones. These don't exist in National SCCA Autocross.

Okay, so SS seems like a stretch. Except, does it? SS is only 0.2 seconds faster than AS, on average, on a typical course. SS is made up of a lot of nutty cars, but most of their performance is not usable around an autocross course on 200TW tires. The NSX is the closest analogue, and I grant you that under most conditions the NSX will be faster than the Tesla. But it's also really wide, and we saw at Nationals that width can be a penalty. Would I pick an M3P for SS? Most of the time, no, but it's honestly not a bad choice. It will come off of corners faster than anything in the class, no question. It currently doesn't slalom as well, but with some better shocks and a bar, it won't be far off. In damp or wet conditions the M3P will destroy everything in the class. And history tells us that Nationals is almost never completely dry.

Finally, and this is another thing we take into account... do people want to autocross these? I talked at length with the Nationals winner about the M3P and he said he hated autocrossing it. In his words, it's no fun at all once you get past the initial shock and awe of "point the wheel where you want to go, mash the pedal and let the computers figure it out." He ran the car at Nationals to prove a point - that it doesn't belong in the class. The prior year's winner (previously in a 1M) also showed up in one and he also told me it was no fun, but that he thinks it's the only chance he had. Now, autocrossers can be lemmings for sure, but these are two top-tier drivers (the guy who won this year is really an alien driver) and I trust their judgment.

Bottom line, as clyde already stated... the SEB had a tough decision. 1) Let BS, which has been one of the most diverse and popular classes, dwindle and die at the hands of a clear overdog, or 2) Move the car to a class where it isn't a clear overdog but is still capable of winning or trophying under most conditions. I think they made the right decision.