I have opinions on rules as do you all, but frankly I can't think of anything less important right now to growing this class than worrying about rules. Here's the reality as I see it. If folks want to join this class, they need to buy a pan car to race in it. Forget the small sliver of potential racers who have both the inclination and ability to build their own. Also forget a small group of older racers interested in resurrecting old US built pan cars from prior decades...that's fine for some folks to enjoy at a club level, but you're not going to build a new national class around refurbing old cars.
I went to the Midwest Series race in Dayton this weekend while you were in PJ. We had 8 entries in pan. Representing Motonica P8C and P8C Extreme 2. WRC, DFX, a scratch built shaft drive car, and a converted suspension car. In Toledo there are well over a dozen 1/8 pan cars and four or five built by "the guys you say to forget about", including Rick Davis.
That leaves new cars (name two) that you can buy at a hobby shop. And the reality is that means this class will be made up of the new European classic pan cars. (So what is wrong with knowing what the rules are?) So let's stop wasting time moaning about how the Europeans are building them, and lets get busy promoting them. (Look no further than The One-Eight Racers OF Toledo, Ohio) So far all I can see you've accomplished with all this FUD is to take two individual posters on here who wanted to buy new cars and start racing, and manage to convince them to not since there are no rules. Just incredible!
Here's my own personal plan to help grow this class. I've owned my car for all of about 6 weeks now. I've gone to Port Jervis 4 weeks now, I practice with it, I hand my radio to anyone who has an even casual interest in driving it, and I wax poetic about all the reasons that this should be the biggest onroad class, and definately the class most people who are new to onroad should begin with. By next spring, I am very comfortable that at Pt Jervis next spring we will have a core group of folks running these cars and having fun. We won't give a shit about national rules, the same way no one cares about rules at a local level in any class - onroad, offroad, outdoor, indoor. All the cars will have 125cc fuel tanks, one speeds, buggy clutches and current 1/8th scale bodies. The smart guys driving them will put mild motors in them - who cares how many ports they have. No one is going to want to tech them, or claim them, or do anything else with them from a rules perspective. Limited traction and no suspension will take of that issue. The best drivers will win, as they have since the first RC car race was staged.
I can agree with that! Seems like it has been since 1970 when I started racing! I do think you are missing a lot of good points with your attitude tho...
The GT racers in the US, who outnumber 2wd pan car racers a hundred to one, (Eight pan car in Dayton, 3 GT's and only one or two on the track most races.) haven't been able to move ROAR to create a national set of GT rules in over two years of trying. And in spite of this, GT races are run at big onroad events, there are large GT only races run around the country, and GT is run at a club level at many tracks
.(And you can look in various places (like the Midwest Series Site:
http://www.midwestseries.com/about/rules.htm ) and find the rules applicable to that class...
The problem with this class isn't a lack rules...it is a lack of racers, and a lack of cars. Duh.