2011 rule discussion

[BLOWN AWAY RACING]

As everyone in our association knows, the most recent topic has been what rules will the wcpma follow in 2011. At our annual meeting it was discussed and voted upon to follow the nhra unleashed rules. Since that time unleashed has dropped the running of pro mods in thier program. So the questions have come up as to do we stay with the unleashed rules or do we switch to gsa rules. There is positives and negitives to each. Unfortunately we will not be able to satisfy everyones opinion. What i did was to try to come up with a fair way to find out how the majority of our members wanted to handle the issue. I came up with a list of 2010 paid members in our association, from there i asked two questions of each member, #1 please select your choice of what you feel the wcpma should do in handling of the rules situation. The choices were-

#1 leave the unleashed rules in place as voted on in the 2010
meeting.
#2 allow the 9 teams which were represented at the 2010 meeting
to re-vote on either gsa or unleashed rules.
#3 allow all teams in good standing from 2010 to vote on gsa or
unleashed rules.

The second question i asked from each member was do you feel this is a fair and unbiased way of decide how to handle this situation.

Every person i spoke with said that this is a very fair way to make the choice.

Results option #1 - 5 votes
option #2 - 4 votes
option #3 - 4 votes

[promod63]

There needs to be a vote as a total of 8 teams chose that even though they were split on who should vote. If you want Tommy, Take another poll with just the 2 vote selections and then we can proceed with getting this over with.

[Garyu]

It does seem clear that the majority in the pole are wanting a vote on the the direction of the rules.

I think the difficult part becouse of the tie is who gets to vote.

I find this whole thing interesting / time consuming but in the end I think the fair thing will happen for the group. After all, Are we not one of the only Legal groups still around??? LOL

Gary

[mountainmadness]

Even though this poll was a little manipulative, it is obvious people wold like to vote rather than have this decided for them. Now that the issue has been even more confused, lets look at the issues.
We have always ran by the dominant sanctioning body Performance rules IHRA approx. 15 yr. NHRA approx. 5 yrs. We have always run loosely by the safety rules to make our cars legal at the tracks we run at NHRA or IHRA and to allow the most cars to run.
Now my 02. the new and currant rules were decided on by the NHRA Pro- Mod tech committee along with a member from each type of car owner. Blower NOS Turbo and were agreed on by all concerned. This was done to create more parity in our class as the had been a distinct advantage of .1 to .15 for many years. Seems like a step in the right direction to me.
Maybe if I had a .1 to .15 advantage I would not be able to see that this is the right thing to do. I doubt it Vern

[dusty13]

Boy am I confused! For years we have fought to be the only professional LEGAL pro mod association on the west coast. Our organization has always followed the performance rules of the dominating series and NHRA safety rules. When the IHRA dropped pro mod (performance rules to which we adheared to) our members as a whole were adament we needed a solid set of rules to follow. The following year we did incorporate NHRA rules with exceptions (because one race in NHRA changed midstream not allowing us the required time or money to conform). Over the winter powers with more knowledge then myself revamped the rules for parity in the pro mod class. I, along with all other members spent THOUSANDS of dollars to be competitive and safe in our organization (including updates this off season). Now the set of rules voted on at our last meeting are in question because of NHRA dropping the Unleashed Series. Lets have a vote on the only remaining rules. I want to run legal. Never did want to run outlaw. Two ways to vote. Majority rules.

[promod631]

sounds like we need a revote, I all for it, just waiting for the phone call and a not to confusing list of what to vote for.. do I make any sense?:

[Greg Perrine]

Since I really don't have any say in this vote I thought I would give my opinion. It seems to me that the rules rather it be GSA or Unleased which would allow the most cars in would be the best way to go. We can always use more cars. Last year there was a couple of times we were very close to not being able to field a full car count for eliminations. With the economy the way it is and people getting time off etc. the more cars the better. Besides technically last year there were some cars that didn't necessarily meet the gsa rules with automatic trans and shifters. If we are going to go to a set of rules then we should go all the way or nothing. Exceptions shouldn't be allowed good or bad. You decide I'll go with it.

[promod63]

Hi Greg,

Good to hear from you. The GSA rules are the ONLY current rules as unleashed has folded the promod class. Gsa has also brought back auto's and convertors if that answers your concern. They have also addressed the parity issue which has been prevelant for well over 10 years. We are in agreement that we want as many cars as possible, while maintaining some sort of parity, as we certainly can't afford to have nitrous cars stay home because they don't feel competitive. It has been a lopsided advantage for way too long.

[Yvonne]

Since I really don't have any say in this vote I thought I would give my opinion. It seems to me that the rules rather it be GSA or Unleased which would allow the most cars in would be the best way to go. We can always use more cars. Last year there was a couple of times we were very close to not being able to field a full car count for eliminations. With the economy the way it is and people getting time off etc. the more cars the better. Besides technically last year there were some cars that didn't necessarily meet the gsa rules with automatic trans and shifters. If we are going to go to a set of rules then we should go all the way or nothing. Exceptions shouldn't be allowed good or bad. You decide I'll go with it.

Usually, one set of rules should be sufficient and if this area had 50 legal promods then there would be no question there. But with roughly 15 maybe 16 cars that can meet the legal requirements in our area some adaptation may be required in order to fill car count needs. I'm not saying throw the rulebook out but don't necessarily close the door. I was one racer who was able to participate due to the gracious allowance made for automatics. And I was very grateful for that opportunity!

[dynamic1]

You make a valid point Yvonne, My 2 cents is if the WCPMA adopted the rules previously voted in at the meeting in Las Vegas last fall (unleashed 2010 rules) the opportunity to attract additional PM cars that are not regular WCPM member's is still a possibility and there will still be interest to come and race with us. With the current GSA rules it limits the number of cars that would have any interest in racing with us due to the updates and OD etc. My opinion is that we need more cars not less cars to continue to grow our series. If we look back at previous car counts last year I think your car count may be somewhat higher than actual per event.

[promod63]

How many nitrous cars will we lose by letting "outlaw" blower cars (ie 20%) come to the 1 or 2 races they may attend. Again folks, shouldn't this be all about parity?

Joe, you were the first to tell everyone the last couple of years that if you didn't make a mistake, nobody could run with you. Are you so sure that you want to ruin the series by keeping that advantage??

NHRA is trying to make parity in the class. Surely the blown cars that have had such an advantage for so long can't be scared of actually having some competition.

How many people have showed up to race with us in the past when we have bent the rules. Very very few. I promoise that we will lose more of our good quaility cars that we have in our group than we will gain. I know of 2 for sure.

[bossman]

what is the major difference between the two class rules that would keep people away or cause so much trouble?

[skooz123]

The biggest point of contention is 5.5% reduction in blower speed.

[BLOWN AWAY RACING]

I feel that we already made the decision as to what rules we would be following at our 2010 meeting, just because the unleashed program dropped pro mods for this year doesnt dictate that we cannot still follow the rules we agreed and voted on. Although some teams disagreed with this concept. I then came up with the idea of a poll to get the general consensus of what the teams wanted to do about a way to handle the issue.
The purpose of the poll i recently took was to develope a way to
handle the question of the 2011 rules. I had thought that i came up with a fair and unbiased way to put this to rest. I thought that which ever option ended up with the most votes would be the way our association accepted. This was my intent. After each team answered the option question, they were then asked if they thought this was a fair way to handle this. Amazingly all 13 representatives told me that they agreed it was a fair and unbiased way to handle the situation. Although the results didnt come out the way some wanted or anticipated, it now has been said that the most votes want to vote agian, thus being the people who voted for option 2 or 3. I sure wished that if those people felt that way when they made thier choices they would have indicated to me that there should have only been two options instead of three. It would have made a lot more sense, although now after the poll they want to combine option 2 and option 3 to say this is what should happen ie: A revote. This is only my opinion.

With all things in consideration, it is my job i accepted to finish what i started. With this in mind i didnt contact anyone who voted for option 2 or 3. I felt they already made thier vote as to the two choices. I did contact the 5 representitves from the teams that voted for option 1. Requesting that they please vote for option 2 or 3.the results are as follows/

option # 2 = 9 votes
option # 3 = 4 votes

with this new total i have requested the help of mr. Greg perrine our tech director. I gave him a list of the 9 teams which were represented in our meeting in las vegas. He will be contacting each team requesting a vote if you would like to see our association follow the gsa rules or the unleashed rules. After he has contacted everyone he will then post the results on our website. I would hope that no matter the results we can put this issue to rest. I am sure not everyone will be completly satisfied with the end result, although we need to get this behind us and get back to doing what we all love "drag racing". My only recommendation as a member of the west coast pro mods is that you make your choice for what is the best decision for the association, not what is the best decision for you as a individual.

[Garyu]

Hey Tommy, I must say that I feel your last comment is not right. When you called, you did not present this as a vote between GSA or Unleashed. You were asking what I though was a fair way to handle this and you listed the three options.

A - Go with Unleashed
B - Just people at the meeting Vote
C - All members in good stading get a chance to vote.

I will say it out loud. I voted # 3 becouse I thought it was the fair thing to do.
To me number "B" is unfair becouse not everyone could afford to go to Vegas.
If you had a D that said go to GSA I would still vote # 3 to give everyone the chance to vote.

Your comments now seem like the intention was to decide if we go to Unleashed or GSA
There is no way that GSA could win that pole with the number of people vrs the three options.

The majority of the pole wanted a revote. That does not say that Unleashed is out. I
for one again was led to think that the pole was about being fair not making the decision for the rules.

Sorry Tommy but with all do respect I do have to say this as I really disagree about your comment.