Well from what Eric said on FB, Yamaha R3's and KTM RC390's are now legal in 300SS/SB.
Everyone with an R3 and RC390: "Yay! this is what we've been waiting for and campaigning for!" "Allow us to list the many, many great reasons for this new rule change!"
Everyone with a 300: "Nooooo!" "You just opened the flood gates to making our bikes the slowest on the grid!" "Time to sell the 300, abandon the class and move on to something else."
CCS just killed the class with that rule. That class was for made for the Ninja 300, but racers will be leaving it because it's not competitive anymore. The grid will shrink to a few R3's and RC390's and then be gone in a year or two. I could maybe let the R3 squeak in but not the RC390. In 500SS those damn things always left my 300 in the dust on the straights even when I was running MR12 and a great tune.
It's unfortunate because the Ninja 300 is the most plentiful ultralight there ever was, and there are enough of them out there to support a class completely dedicated to just that bike for the next 10 years. There are more out there than SV650's.
I feel like this rule change was a response to R3 and RC390 riders being pissed off by the Ninja 400 being allowed in 500SS, which in itself was a bad decision. If that had not been done, those guys would not be complaining and whining so hard to get in another class where their bikes are more competitive.
I understand the CCS concerns with these classes: "How do we allow the most bikes on the grid?" But they have to be
real careful with non standardized bike classes. CCS needs to stick to hard CC limits to maintain fairness and avoid pissing off existing racers. People invest serious money in building bikes. What do you tell the guy who this year decided to build the best bike for 300SS, dumped $3000 into suspension, paid for tuning, exhaust and all the other race bits on a Ninja 300, only to hear that next year a whole bunch of faster bikes are allowed in his class?
So now what. Kinda hard to undo bad rule changes.
