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Left: The now-illegal differential cover. Right: The complete Whiteline S197 Watts Link kit.
There were many reasons to be disappointed by the SEB ruling on the Watts Link allowances. Some are selfish - as Vorshlag recommends and sells the Whiteline Watts Link that is directly affected by this ruling (which should be once again legal by 2014). Others are a general disappointment that our friends in the SCCA rules making hierarchy can
re-interpret the rules the way they did. It makes us feel that either logic has failed, or there are other,
commercial considerations that have swayed their decision. This move just
makes no sense. This is a problem they
created 100% in committee, by using tortured logic and nit-picky interpretations of previously "unrestricted" boundaries.
After this ruling was made, an argument was put forth by SEB members on public forums that the alternate cover was banned because it provided "unintended advantages", such as longer bearing life, additional oil capacity or increased differential cooling ability. We argued then that this simply wasn't the case.
What they ignored, of course, is that for the S197 chassis in question, there are
multiple factory equipped differential covers that we can legally use from update/backdate allowances, including the cast aluminum covers shown above, and even one with a
factory equipped differential cooling system. Which would, logically, allow for even cooler rear differential fluid than the Whiteline cover theoretically/supposedly could. Not that any of this amounts to
any performance advantage when
driving around in a parking lot for 60 seconds, though.
An internal argument was supposedly made during the early stages of the lengthy SPAC/SEB deliberations on this issue that allowing differential cover swaps would provide "unintended consequences" to other
IRS cars in Street Prepared. It appears the committees were debating the issue before even familiarizing themselves with the rules, and apparently whoever made this argument was not aware that stick-axle cars in Street Prepared
had a set of additional allowances over the IRS cars with regard to the rear suspension and lateral locating devices.
And just for a similar example, when similar clarifications in the past were brought up
for the Miata chassis, they ruled to allow the
broadest possible reading of the given allowances. Specifically the reading of the Stock Class swaybar allowance, which uses wording that is not as open as the SP wording, allowing competitors with Miatas to cut off
welded chassis brackets in order to install alternate swaybars. In a
Stock class. But we cannot unbolt a part in SP? That seems backwards.
In the case of the SP solid axle lateral locating devices, the SEB used the
tightest possible reading of the rule to disallow multiple brands of Watts Link kits that require alternate differential covers, but in the same instance used the
widest possible reading of the rule to allow the alternate style that uses
a giant girder bolted across the rear frame member - which is a violation of a Street Prepared wording that forbids "chassis stiffening" from these lateral locating parts. They over-analyzed this rule, glossed over the actual specifics, ignored the common aftermarket solutions, inflated the "What ifs?" to ludicrous proportions, and kicked out the most logical methods of attachment for Watts Link kits.
This is particularly galling because even a
casual read of the section of the rulebook that gives additional allowances to stick-axle cars in Street Prepared leads the reader to believe that the original rules makers who came up with them (a completely
different set of volunteers than those serving now) thought the stick-axle cars were at such huge deficit compared to other suspension types in Street Prepared that they gave these cars many
extra allowances for rear suspension correction devices, and wrote them as to be unrestrained by minute restrictions.
Someone from the SEB even suggested on a forum after the ruling came out that there was an "easy fix" we could do and make this system legal. If we would just fabricate a huge plate steel structure to bolt on
around the factory differential cover, to take the place of the compact cast diff cover that Whiteline spent a good deal of engineering time and money producing, then the rest of the Whiteline Watts Link kit could be used. Never mind the fact that bolting on a giant plate steel welded structure would likely end up
inside the trunk, as the space between the rear axle and the spare tire well was
very tight. There are also many hundreds of pounds of suspension loads passing through this diff cover, and it is beefed up to handle those loads. Could a bolt-on ding-dong work as well, without having to gain a lot of weight or space? No. There were even spit-balled CAD prints posted and everything. Was an enormous contraption that Rube Goldberg himself would be proud of. I dubbed this monstrosity the "SCCA Clusterf**k Cover 9000", which made even the SEB member who posted it laugh.
In the end, we would have to chuck the entire Whiteline kit and start from scratch, burn dozens of hours fabricating, machining, measuring, and testing an all new system - or buy one of the two competing brands that was now the only legal option. This isn't uncommon - the SCCA often completely ignores common, bolt-on, aftermarket solutions available for most cars and just
expects autocrossers to have to make custom-fabricated-anything to work around the tortured rulings (and clarifications) that they come up with. This is a fundamental problem with the rule making process within this club - they are either ignorant of or willfully ignore "what is out there" for their members to buy and use for autocrossing.
The SCCA Solo's often stated motto of
"Make it Easy, Make it Fun" was trashed by reading this rule in the tightest possible way, then turning around
in the same breath and suggesting the rule
was too restrictive and then offered up additional allowances should be written into the rulebook to correct this issue
for next year. But this could have all been fixed in one fell swoop - the SEB has shown in the past that it has
the ability and the will to correct minor issues like this by issuing a "Technical Bulletin" when the rules have some leeway, like the rules did here. This allows the SEB to either tighten up the allowances, or relax the restrictions because the rules don't say exactly what they
thought they should say. But they failed to do this, threw out eight brands of off the shelf Watts Link options for the 2013 race season, and lost at least two competitors and a regular SCCA sponsor in the process (and a new manufacturer).
If reading this text above makes me seem bitter and angry, then it isn't
half as angry and let down as I feel. But it goes back for decades - it is just one more botched SCCA ruling among hundreds of such mishaps over the past 25 years that I have witnessed. Jason M here at Vorshlag is just as disappointed about this, and has also been let down as often as me over the same time period of his racing in SCCA Solo. This "banned year" for a product and company we had worked hard with in 2012 was just the last straw, for us.
We are done for 2013.
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