I saw they were allowing that this weekend at Cruces as well. But this is the first time I've ever heard of this other than a couple joint imca/usra nights up north. I will say USRA is 100 times more consistent than UMP and they actually enforce rules. We've been apart of both at Fulton the past 2 years. In approx 5 years as UMP, I only saw a UMP rep at Callaway once each year, if that, and all they did was check bodies and head on down the road. This year alone, USRA has sent 2-3 of their officials to Callaway more than once, and they checked all kinds of stuff. The a-mod winner was DQ'd for illegal spec heads after header removal following the a-main one night. Another prominent USRA driver up north was DQ'd this season for an illegal tire, another instance was 2 illegal crates discovered earlier this year at Moberly, mid-season at Lakeside, the top 3 in national points were present in the b-mods, 2 had crates and they were sent off to check for legality and came back good, the other had a claim motor and was torn down at the track and found legal. These are just a few of the cases that I know of THIS YEAR that USRA has sent their guys to different tracks to tech everyone. And every time these guys were found illegal, they were fined $1,000+, suspended until the fine was paid, and lost ALL track and national points. This is what tracks need in order to keep classes strong.
Tech is about money more than anything else for the sanction. The list you quote above, it must have cost at least $500 or more to do just one night of that.
2-3 tech guys from USRA--well, , most folks won't work for free, and if they do, not for long and you get what you pay for. So let's assume $100 each for one night of officiating, and that might be on the low side. $300
Travel, food and possibly hotel? Depends on how far they drove, but a hotel is going to cost something even if all three stay in one room. Gas/Food/Lodging at least $150.00
Pulling engines and sending them off for tear down? Ok, sounds great, but how much is shipping, paying someone to tear them down and spec them, send them back to the owner and pay for rebuild if it's legal? I have no idea. Make up a number, but it has to cost something to do all that for two engines. My guess is at least $250 to ship/tear down/rebuild each engine, which is way below what it probably cost, so lets toss another $500 on the pile.
Just those costs alone add up to $1000.00. My guess is it cost a lot more than that, just to go to one track, one night and pull 2 engines and tear them down, rebuild them and ship them back to the owners.
Sure, wouldn't it be great if every night at every track this is the level of technical inspection that was performed. Racers everywhere would rejoice. But realistically, this isn't going to happen because sanctions and tracks need to make money to stay open, and tech at the level most racers would like to see to keep the players in the game in check is too cost prohibitive.
So the only answer is come up with a very very simple solution that requires little manpower to operate and enforce. That was the theory behind crates in Late Models, a sealed engine straight from a manufacturer that was not to be messed with. And that worked, for all of 2 weeks, until some bright spark somewhere said hey, "let's allow rebuilds!" and then it all went straight downhill from there.
I don't know what the answer is. But the facts are that doing tech at most tracks requires manpower and money, something which is in short supply everywhere these days. So a simple, cost effective package of rules that is easy to inspect and enforce with minimal oversight is probably the best anyone can offer, and there will still be cheaters and people who think it's too lax no matter what.