Why steal my neon

Yes, go to your local SCCA meeting and look for furtive-appearing folks in "Neon Racing" shirts. The Showroom Stock rules were just changed to give your car one more year of eligibility :)

Showroom stock rules? One more year of eligibility for what?

Eligibility to race. It's totally arbitrary.

SCCA Showroom Stock road racing. For many years you could not run a Showroom Stock car more than five years; the intent was to make sure the cars on showroom floors were the same ones out racing. The Neon slaughtered SS - so much so that other manufacturers were granted "trunk kits" of racing-only special equipment to keep up.

Anyway, for reasons known only to themselves the SCCA just extended Showroom Stock eligibility from five to ten years. So a lot of decomissioned SS cars have a new lease on life.

In truth, the Neon in question isn't an ACR (probably) and therefore wouldn't be much use; but I liked the conceit of SCCA road racers everywhere sneaking out in the dead of night to "repossess" cars recently made eligible again.

Probably because they have realized that stock car racing is dead. NASCAR killed it. None of the stock cars you see racing on TV anymore have anything to do with a real "stock" car, they all run modified vehicles.

Stock car racing should have a simple rule:

You drive it off the dealers lot and right to the racetrack, and you DON'T TOUCH IT, you just race.

Once they got away from doing that it killed the sport. Stock car racing today is just another rich man's toy car race. I personally have found Indy car racing much more interesting now. They at least don't pretend their cars are "stock"

Ted

Are they even modified? "Modified" to me implies that they start with a stock vehicle and replace certain major components. Do they even do that, or are they 100% scratch built from custom or specialty catalog items, question being, what parts are from a factory car?

Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")

A brief moment of clarification:

Showroom Stock racing has nothing to do with NASCAR, ARCA, or any other "stock" car racing.

Showroom Stock consists of buying a car off the showroom floor, putting a limited cage, fire extinguisher, and safety equipment on it, changing to lighter wheels and R-compound tires, and going racing. It is run by the SCCA; it is primarily for amateur and hobbyist racers. The SCCA Runoffs will be televised Speed Channel this year and features "real" cars in competition. It's great to watch and while you might need $30-40,000 to compete for a year in it, that kind of money won't get you anywhere near a single "stock car" grid.

"Showroom Stock" sounds a whole lot closer to what my Uncle J.T. Putney used to drive (#19 Chev. Impala) in the 60's as a Grand National NASCAR (evolved into Winston Cup/Nextel Cup) driver than todays NASCAR "stock car".

Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")

Mike, There are a couple things you can do.

1) have you tried to go back to the dealer and explain to them that these problems have come up as a result of their work? If so, what outcome did you get? 2) If you have the Haynes Manual for the car, have a quick look at the wiring connections and color codes to see if they are correct for the ignition switch

3) if you have the old ignition switch, compare both of them to ensure contacts are correct and identical, sometimes (very rare) contacts can change from year to year.

4)for the door beep, there is a contact on the keyswitch that will activate if there is a key present. check this contact out with a multimeter. The beep will also occur if your headlights or parking lights are on. something else to check out.

Also, if the turn signal indicators arent working, check for any pinched or broken wires or contacts in the steering column, but first, check the fuse for this and make sure it isnt burnt.

I know after my chrysler dynasty got broken into and ignition damaged, my overhead map lights function oddly, for instance, you turn on one, and then turn the other one on, both go out, but leave one on and open the door, and it goes out again. Never did that before the mishap.

Tom Sajnovic usenet(AT)djphuze.com