This is exactly my point of view as well.

 

There's no conspiracy, SCCA is pretty predictable for the most part.

Current Street philosophy is to keep late model cars at the top of most classes, save for ES. Also, popular enthusiast cars get preferential treatment. Miata, Corvette, Camaro, Twins. Note that despite Miata being by far the most popular AX car, there's no good place for an NC gen car right now. Not every car gets to be competitive at all times.

R56s were decently popular, and were classed competitively in their day. Now, they are old and considered fairly unreliable cars. The F56 hasn't caught on with enthusiasts at all, but not like it's received the classing shaft - even the JCW was classed in DS with the r56. The R56S was DS competitive through 2018, though likely not 2019. Is the F56 JCW a better car that the R56S?

The R56 base IMO is a better car than the FiST in HS. At worst, there's parity.

STH is a brand new class trying to capture tuned Focus / GTI crowd. SCCAs position is that the Mini is way lighter & smaller than the cars they are targeting, thus too much performance potential.

The STX -> STU move I'll agree was a wrong decision. The R56 was not proven faster than the Twins, just different. But I guess they really had to protect those Twins.

 

Still have my stx jcw r53, but lately I run my track car in smf, any more track mods and it's in xp though. I still win local when I show up, only time the shitbox civics beat me is when it's below 40 and I can't get heat in at the tiny lot we run at often

 

I'd say the NB Miata is the one that doesn't have a place in an ST class. Though I somehow beat 4 ND drivers locally in a severaly underprepped NB

NC is close enough, I can easily get close or surpass drivers in an ND when borrowing a prepped NC.

I've just been asking competitors locally to run STH when I take the Mini. I'm always welcomed. No more big events for me.