EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing

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   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #41  
What are you talking about? Disabling emissions equipment on street vehicles has always been against the law. The majority who do nothing wrong are not getting punished. The EPA was never concerned with people taking a street car, stripping off the pollution equipment, and then running it in competition. However, people kept that pollution control equipment deleted, then ran it on the street.

This discussion about the EPA doing this has been going on since around 2016. Why is it just blowing up today?

Because today the EPA is run by eco Nazis with no understanding of the culture or its contribution to the economy and the domino effect such measures would create, nor do they care. They just want to virtue signal.
 
   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #42  
I abandoned NASCAR about 15 years ago when they made every car exactly the same. Not really much fun to watch anymore. I never liked F1. That said the start of a NASCAR race is the sound of freedom! Really gets your heart pumping. I loved attending the races a couple of decades ago.
NASCAR detuned the 900 hp capable engines last week for the "Allstar" race. The engines were only putting out about 510 hp. You can actually buy a new Mustang GT500 with 760 hp or a GT350 with 526 hp. Yes, they are racing cars that say Mustang on them.

I believe the idea is to make sure the cars stay bunched together for more exciting racing but they end up being too dependent on aerodynamics. They're also trying to reduce costs for the teams.

I used to be an avid fan but I only catch an occasional race now.

Kevin
 
   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #43  
If the EPA really wanted to cut down on pollution in the air, they would be looking elsewhere at the major polluters.

But the major polluters all pay so much in taxes, they won’t.
 
   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #44  
That's the problem - most vehicles aren't subject to emissions testing so it's real easy to take an offroad-only part and throw it on your daily driver without ever getting caught, which in my experience is not uncommon (I used to be a state inspector). This is just another one of those issues where if people followed the rules we wouldn't have a problem, but they don't so here we are.

Quoted for effect.
 
   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #45  
We all shouldn’t have to pay for the few, this similar to gun control.
 
   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #46  
The ratio of nitro methane used in top fuel cars has been greatly dialed back too. It sure hasn't hurt the times that are achieved. Technology changes in all types of racing and they keep getting cleaner and faster. All of indy cars run alcohol and they are far from slow.
 
   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #47  
NASCAR detuned the 900 hp capable engines last week for the "Allstar" race. The engines were only putting out about 510 hp. You can actually buy a new Mustang GT500 with 760 hp or a GT350 with 526 hp. Yes, they are racing cars that say Mustang on them.

I believe the idea is to make sure the cars stay bunched together for more exciting racing but they end up being too dependent on aerodynamics. They're also trying to reduce costs for the teams.

I used to be an avid fan but I only catch an occasional race now.

Kevin
Same here. And it always seemed like the rules favored one entity.
 
   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #48  
A couple of comments. What the OP is talking about has nothing to do with NASCAR, Indy Racing, F1, top fuel etc. Its more the cars that used to be street driven but have been made into race cars. There is lots of amateur/semi pro racing that it affects. I’ve drag raced some and probably 75% of those cars or more started out as street driven. You have others, such as SCCA that have classes for cars that used to be on the street. It’s these classes and people that would be affected.

When I owned a classic Mopar there was the gross polluter worry going on then where older cars wouldn’t be able to be licensed. That was first discussed over 20 years ago.

I can’t remember what year emissions equipment started, 1967 or 1968 I think, which wasn’t much more than a PCV system. The 1970 Road Runner I owned had the coffee can under the hood to catch gas vapors and burn them, it was a California car, which I think was the first year for that.

I owned a 1972 Satellite with a 318 and something like a 2.73 geared rear end. The thing was a dog. The initial timing on the engine was zero degrees. I bumped it up several degrees and that really woke it up. Early emissions was just detuning.

I personally don’t think it has anything to do with the diesel guys rolling coal but maybe indirectly it does.
 
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   / EPA attempting to limit Internal Combustion vehicles used for Racing #49  
The EPA was considering regulating ex-street vehicles turned into non registered racers 5 years ago. The public backlash made them stop. But the laws that they would have used to issue those regs are still on the books. There are no regulations for ex-street vehicles proposed now but SEMA wants to change the law to prevent EPA from making them in the future.

For SEMA it's about protecting a revenue stream for it's members. I don't know what the EPA's reasoning was, other than trying to reduce emissions to make the air we breathe cleaner.

Personally I think that the number of ex-street race vehicles is low and they don't run much, so the emissions should be insignificant and not worth regulating.
 
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