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Originally Posted by Gdeaver
My post was meant to have a sarcastic tone to it but, this issue is going to become more prevalent in the future. Maybe it started with a transmission, then some wheels and now a entire drive train assembly. What will be next? If left unchecked the very nature of the competition will change. Will this be a good thing for the program? There will always be a few that will push the rules as far as possible until they get smacked down. Then First will come under fire for their heavy handedness. The above post shows the lawyer mentality and then there are the bean counters that can use creative accounting to show that a 5000$ part actually cost 300 dollars. This will get out of control if teams start emphasizing winning over the process and the core goals. This thread and some others should be a wake up call for First that there are going to be issues down the road and they need to be addressed now before things spiral out of control.
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Well I am an avid auto racing fan, and the Series I absolutely love had to deal with something very similar to this. In the mid 90's the CART series had everything going for it, it had several engine makers, and a few different chassis makers... Unfortunetly you had Honda and Toyota that were willing to win no matter how much the cost was, it eventually got to the point to where Toyota was Spending over $200 Million to win the Championship. It got so bad to the point to where both engine makers left and took many of the teams with them. Many of the teams were subsidised by the engine makers when Honda and Toyota left CART things looked very grim. Many teams went to the IRL, other teams closed shop. After CART declared Bankruptancy they were bought out and the Series was able to continue under the Banner of Champ Car. Champ Car has a very simple method of cost control now. They have one Chassis and one engine maker, making it a spec series... I can understand if many teams are fed up with how FIRST is, I personally love the competition and love engineering things, but FIRST better be careful because they could potentially see teams starting to fold because they feel they will never be able to be on a level playing field with the top teams... I hope FIRST is around for years to come, but many teams might not be able to stay involved with the program.