Since the first race of the season is likely to be a NASA race, I’m trying to get all of my ducks in a row. My car is legal in two different NASA series: Performance Touring (PT) and German Touring Sportscar Challenge (GTS Challenge).

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Some of you might not realize that I serve on the Improved Touring Advisory Committee. This is the group that proposes rule changes and classifications for the set of 5 IT classes in SCCA club racing.

One of the first issues we discussed when I joined the ITAC was changing the ECU rule from “anything that fits in the stock box, no wiring changes.” The intent of this allowance was presumably to allow commonly available off-the-shelf “chips” to be replaced.  More modern systems allow for “reflashing” the memory in the computer, which can update the software.  But there’s a problem with the rule’s wording.  It allows more than just chips and reflashes; it actually allows the entire computer to be replaced with an aftermarket system.  However, it can be very expensive to stuff an aftermarket ECU into the stock housing, and make it work with the stock wiring connectors and stock sensors. It was never the intent of the group that proposed the rules that people would do this, but their wording allowed it, and so, of course, people did it.

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