[Myron Piatek]

Even if you get a deal on a reasonably fast race car, you have to have the time & money to maintain that level. This becomes harder if indexes keep getting lowered. All that does is steepen the learning and financial curve needed, which can get discouraging to start or even maintain a racing program. Slower cars can still be competitive in regular eliminations by (not easily) achieving the current "minimum performance standard" (index), but they have to accept the odds in possible heads-up runs.

There are several opportunities for "fast" cars - qualifying, class eliminations & regular random heads-up runs, without discouraging the slower cars. There has to be a balance for Sportsman racers because too much emphasis on having to be among the fastest brings it closer to a Pro-like atmosphere ($$$) and it's obvious that many can't maintain that level there even with sponsorship. Pro's barely have full fields. Luckily. Stock & SS still, usually, do.

IMO National events are detrimental to Sportsman racing because of the low quotas and high investment in grading points. While a local racer may still not be able to afford to enter a "local" national, the "Baby Gators" trend may be helpful by providing for a greater number of cars to run heads-up for class.

Sure, Stock & SS is "performance based". But even from the start when you could be competitive with a street legal car off the showroom, it was more creativity within the rules and driving skill, not necessarily money. They are, after all, "Sportsman" classes.

Can't help but wonder if this is even a possible a rumor or someone just doing their annual "pot stirring" to see who they can get fired up.