X-Mozilla-Keys:                                                                                 
Wrathall Mark wrote:

Do Rotaries even meet The Air Racing associations definition of "Piston
Powered"? If you do qualify, is there anything to stop them changing 
the rules if you become too competitive? This was always a problem in 
Motor-racing with Wankels. Get to much of
an advantage, and the powers that be will ban you.

Right on Mark. That has angered me more than once in road racing.
At one point in time IMSA made RX7's carry 458!!! pounds of ballast.
Walt Borhen was so disgusted with this he openly threw the
weight out of his car in front of the officials and was disqualified
from
sixth place :-)

Now-a-days SCCA has a separate class for Rotaries.
Despite all that something like 50% of the winners in the last 
SCCA runoffs were Mazda most of those were rotary powered if 
memory serves me right.

The same thing is happening in import drag racing. Abel Ibarra 
sometimes cannot race for money. They pay him $5000 to just show up
and do a demo run. This of course has the desired effect on
the competors and spectators. They now know piston engines 
are second rate.

Paul Lamar
 
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