RIP Sputnik Stanza Wagon.

The official reason was cutting "crash structure".

I was prepared to argue the purpose of headlight frames, hood-supporting horns and paper-thin inner fenders until cows come home. However, Jay's brief mention of rust holes, completely home-made suspension, and, um, absent subframe patched with a couple slices of angle iron sobered me up a bit.

Coupled with stuff I knew but didn't bother to mention, like rear suspension that doesn't change camber dynamically by design,  multiple rust holes, and rusty brake lines of which one already blew in a race at Summit, I've accepted the ruling as random but wise.  It was our first car, so a lot of things were done with wrong tools, in a wrong way, with a high potential for disaster.

I can't say that we broke a solid no-exceptions rule (heck, the airplane was missing ALL OEM metal above the first couple of feet), but, as always, using common sense and asking for advance permission before trying to use an old dune buggy seat as your inner fender is a good idea.

that clean sawzall cut is the primary trigger for retiring the Stanza

I'll always remember the first time I saw that car, rolling into CMP on a rented trailer that February when I was playing co-judge to Phil.  And you guys kept getting black flags and coming in- you were the "Guinea Pigs" for my new penalty, the Maddening Metric-Standard 1990's Detroit Car Fastener Penalty, where I handed you a hubcap full of bolts and nuts and you had to make them all mate up.  Good times.

I also remember the debate between Phil, Jay, and I over IoE for that race, and you guys were in contention.  NSF ended up winning it with their _turrrrrrible_ Fury, but it was close.

I have a fun memory from one of the Summit Point races, it was the end of the day, I'm out in the Wagovan, and I ended up in a 4 car battle with the Stanza, a Volvo wagon, and a Subaru wagon.   It was probably the best group of roadracing wagons ever.   RIP Stanza.

Correct - Monticello will be with Sentra and K-wagon.

Dvornik is busy morally preparing himself for the Summit build right now. It will be a fast-looking terrible piece of machinery that will barely do five laps, if that.

I'll certainly save a lot of pieces of the Stanza. One of my future builds needs good sheet metal for patching the floors, and Stanza happens to have a large, perfectly flat, well-preserved roof, for one. Naturally, we're saving the shocks, springs, brakes, and drivetrain, because those are way too awesome to just let go of.

Video from Wednesday's post-mortem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffe3X1fp_Ok