White House Update: EPA Car Conversion Race Modification Restriction
Does a current Environmental Protection Agency mandate to ban the modification of production cars go too far in enforcing clean air standards?
A few month ago, following the 2015 SEMA Show Las Vegas, I received notification of a petition presented by SEMA (specialty equipment market association) members addressing what the group considered to be over-the-top proposed legislation, that as written, would effectively ban the modification of street cars and their gasoline engines from race tracks in the U.S.. We signed the petition and forwarded the response to President Barack Obama’s office.
The Environmental Protection Agency assured SEMA members that if the proposal was enacted into law, current professional racing teams would not be affected, that there would in essence be no enforcement of the mandate at sanctioned race tracks or subsequent fines. Great, that’s good news for IMSA, Indycar, Nascar, and others, but those aren’t modified street cars.
What SEMA members look to is small town anywhere U.S.A. county fair and rural byway ¼ and 2 mile dirt, paved ovals, and the occasional line it up and shoot, drag strip. This is where most cars racing are modified street cars.
On any weekend thousands if not hundreds of thousands of us participate in racing – most of it done in modified street legal cars, light trucks and motorcycles.
While we do see smog compliant entrants from time to time on the race track, drag strip, and autocross, they are more often than not the exception. If the proposed E.P.A. legislation passes into law as written, thousands of otherwise law abiding citizens would effectively become outlaws.
