Ok, thank you for that clarification as to where a Diesel Powered Lakester would compete, in class. Now, the second part of my question; Why is there not a catagory for Diesel Powered Lakesters, since there exists an unfair advantage for the gas powered lakesters and since there are presently catagories for Diesel Powered Streamliner, Trucks, etc?
Thanks,
Ralph Thomas
The way I see it, there are a few things that come into play.
The points competition at Elmo. Adding more classes means open records, and those are often a big advantage to garner points.
I understand the points chase I guess, but sometimes it interferes with legitimate efforts at record setting. The minute "sandbagging" becomes an important way of setting records, then it works against the primary goal of LSR. My opinion is that open class points need to be tweaked a bit. I'd like to see it be that open records can never go over 200 points until the second year. You get no bonus points for running against yourself. Well at least for 1 year.
Added work to the rulebook committee. No way around this one that I see, other than volunteering to help. The saving grace when it comes to diesel classes, is that they are "small". There is no vintage and no N/A classes. Diesel classes are currently less than 20% the size of a gas class. All of them are supercharged, and in my opinion, all should be "fuel" classes since there is not "event diesel" like the rulebook states. Event diesel at Bonneville for the last two years is me sending Kodiak Johnny to the truckstop to buy pump fuel. And at Elmo, it's 100% honor system. While gas racers get to fuel up on racing gasoline, diesel racers cannot fuel up with racing diesel.
Red Hat dilution. Let's face it, if they open up more diesel classes, there will be a number of those who could not get a Red Hat with their gas entry, repowering to diesel to get their hat. Many of the existing diesel records were set with gas racers that were repowered for diesel. I'd hate to think of Diesel Racing as being a boooby prize, but it is perhaps thought of that way by some.
Here's what I would do if I were you, if your heart is totally set on running a diesel-powered lakester, and you are not willing to cover the wheels. I'd petition for a rule change that permits lakesters to compete in DS. This doesn't require significant rulebook editing, doesn't make more Open classes, gives you a competitive arena, and would hopefully get more diesel lakester entries to prove a new class is viable.
Because there is a Catch-22 in effect. You are to build to the rulebook. There should be at least 3 entries to start a new class. But who would build something that there is no class for?
My goal is to help where I can to establish a greater presence of diesel racers in all venues of amateur motorsports. I would love to see more diesels run LSR. I also want to see a specific Production class for diesels like all the spark engines have. Since diesel car engines are small, and diesel truck engines are large, it doesn't even have to segregate by body style. For gas, there is Production Car, Production Supercharged Car, Production Pickup, Production Mini-pickup, maybe more, and I won't even get into the M/C's.
