I'm totally cool with teams sending their pros into 17.5 super stock. As one of those fringe guys that might have squeaked into the A if the pros hadn't been there, I still think it was awesome to have them join us. I never quite understood why you wouldn't want your best drivers racing in the class that's most popular with a majority of racers.
Also, the HB guys approached this race like consumate professionals. I thought maybe we'd see Hara, Tessman and Andy struggle a bit as they figured out the ESC stuff, but that was definitely not the case. Those guys were fast from the very first run, and had it figured out before anybody else. I ran what I was told were Hara's settings on my Tekin and picked up .2 immediately. The companies worked together with one of the best drivers in the world to earn this win. They deserve it. It's just a guess, but I'd say way more planning and work with the equipment was required to get the win in SS than what they had to do in mod. Great drivers with the wrong gear struggled at this race.