I have owned and raced lightning Sprints for 7 years now and have to put in my 2 cents. All in all this is a great discussion. Prior to the Tulsa rules for this year being posted, I was wondering how they would do those rules to attract the most cars,and not limit too many cars from coming. I was pleased that their rules were so simple. MKaybe that is waht we all need. Prior to our club meeting a few weeks ago, I made an excel spreadsheet of all the major lightning sprints rules to see how close they really are. I have two cars, and other then RR tires, I think I could run either car in any club in the USA. Now, in our club this year if 15 race features, we had 6 different winners. ALL 6 had bone stock motors. 2 of them on gas (one GSXR and one R1). Those 2 stock motors on gas one 3 races. Neither car had an overheating problem and we raced on some very warm evenings. Neither of those owners are planning on converting to achohol. Our weight rules are the same for every car. 950 without the wing and 975 with wings (we race 1/2 of our races with wings and 1/2 without wings. We averaged 17 cars per night and growing, because lightning sprints are still the best value in open wheel racing. We need to remember that. When I started 7 years ago we were all hopping up our 1200 cc motors to make more HP. Now, the new generation 1000cc motors ( of which I put in the new car I just built) are faster then all those old hopped up 1200s, and much more reliable. Noone in our club has felt the need to modify any of these new gen motors, as they are close to 200 hp stock, THAT is what make our type of car the best value in open wheel racing. IF you do blow up a motor, $1500-3500 and drop in a fresh motor. You can't get that in midgets, any sprints, or even IMCA modifieds. We need to rememeber that the reason we have and enjoy these lightning sprints is because we can afford to race them on a middle class budget. We have a good thing going in this division. We may not ever get all clubs to be on EXACTLY the same page, but I think we are close enough where I could race nearly anywhere. Too many rules can be bad.....but so can too few. Many wonder why not too many people travel a lot in lightning sprints- it is not the rules, it is the cost of traveling. If we could afford to travel 1000 miles to race with other clubs, we could afford a midget or sprint car. Most of us lightning sprint guys would LOVE to race with other clubs, but in reality it costs $1000 to Make any long trip, and most of us just cannot afford to travel that much- BECAUSE we are all middle class mostly non sponsered cars. Just my 2 cents!!! See ya in Tulsa!!!!!