I have read all of this, intentionally not answered because after returning from a family vacation ( never looked at the site all week) this thread had blown up a bit and I was accused of intentionally dodging the subject and there was some big coup in the works. Then baited further to respond.. So to share the irritation, I intentionally did not respond :)Not fair to the few non habitual offenders not for me to respond . So hear it goes.
My position as CRB Member
This change was a result of a post Tom Hart put out about being potentially Dq'ed for having a painted intake. ( Yes, I know it was not legal at the time but many have done for a long time.) So rather than send letters and incriminate themselves with a letter, Wheeler and I took MULTIPLE calls on this asking if they were really going to get Dq'ed for this etc. I felt and still feel that it is a weenie deal, one way or the other. We have a CRB call tonight and we will again speak about this. The entire discussion is a weenie deal IMO. We never expected much backlash at all to be honest. This was nothing more than an attempt to solve a weenie issue ( painted intakes in tech) and created a different weenie issue. No guarantees the CRB will change what we did last month, but we will discuss and have heard your objections and why. Your positions are stated clearly and I WILL NOT get into a debate here. If you would like to call or email privately, please do so.
My personal opinion…
If you are seriously worried about someone applying a thermal coating to their intake, first you should try it and see what the “gains†really are. Don't read the claims from some web site. After you figure out it is a COMPLETE waste of time. Then you should think to yourself for a moment before typing... If someone is willing to paint the intake to hide a thermal coating, do you really think that is their first stop to the dark side? Really? That is about the highest and most expensive unripe fruit at the VERY TOP of the tree you can get. If people are willing to do this, believe me they have 25 things done to the car that are FAR more bang for the buck that you should be worried about. Now that all are so concerned hiding a thermal coating with spray paint, what would it take to check for coating? One spray of brake clean on a rag?
You can paint your transmission case and have it full of coated gears if you chose.. far more beneficial!!
You can paint your diff housing and again fill it with coated gears.. again far more beneficial
You can paint the valve cover and engine block and fill it with coated pistons, rods, cranks, rings, bores you name it. Again, FAR MORE beneficial and MUCH harder to tech than painted intake. But for some reason we have hung our hats on the intakes. As I have said at least 50 times in the past, if someone is willing to cheat to win, wants to cheat to win.. You will not stop them. At some point you have to live with yourself.
Here is the recipe for those that need to cheat to compete and have no conscience.
Cheat the hell out of the engine.. I mean really cheat! Just make sure that you whistle within compression range, make sure intake is not painted or ported, make sure exhaust manifold is not ported, make sure head is not ported from what can be seen by removing the manifolds. If you do that you could win EVERY race for your entire SM career except the Runoffs and never be caught less a protest. Just be careful when you approach the guys at the front, they are strangely in tune when someone has just a little too much.. They may protest. But never fear, most front runners, despite popular opinion are pretty decent guys and usually have a private conversation first and politely question the legality of your car as a potential mistake or some other non offending accusation. In short, you typically get a one time make your car legal before being protested, but not always.
So if you decide to continue to push and finally get protested.. You just refuse to pull apart and say you broke or didn't know how or some other BS reason and head home and take your penalty( if you even receive one). Rumors are that it happened just that way last year.
And guess what you get for all your efforts? You are still going to get beat by the front runners with legal cars. I can't imagine how stupid one would feel after all that.