Originally Posted by FricFrac

A common misconception.... To infer that the ultimate ability in driving is to do it the "old fashioned way" is a narrow perspective of what represents skill. If cars were developed without a clutch from the very begining would racing be missing something? Should we have a cockpit like an aircraft where the lift on each lobe on your cam can be adjusted in real time by the driver to optimize the performance of the vehicle or perhaps being able to change the length or diameter of the exhaust or intake on your engine on the fly?

If you really want to be a purist shouldn't you be adding coal to your steam engine and adjusting the preasure? I don't think we'll see you on the race track with your Model T Ford and its 3 inch wide wooden spoke wheels even though that's real old school racing...

Lets face it - you rely on this technology that is common place (fuel injection, power everything, computer tuned systems, etc, etc, etc) but when something new comes around its cheating or beating the system. Well the whole automobile itself is a piece of technology and what you drive today minus the SMR is more of a far cry from the first automobile than just the SMR technology itself. After a period of time all transmissions will have some form of SMR and we'll forget that we ever had to blip the throttle....