html table, create wrapper div with class

Hi,
I'm converting DocBook 5 to html (docbook-xsl-1.79.2) with a customization
layer.
I now need to wrap my table elements inside a div with a particular class
(say 'tabular-wrapper' for example).
My tables in the DocBook XML source are HTML tables.

Currently the tables are rendered by the stylesheet as:
    <div id="the_id" class="">
        <div class="-contents">
          <table class="tabular"> ... </table>
        </div>
    </div>

I want the tables to look like this:
    <div id="the_id" class="tabular-wrapper">
        <div class="-contents">
          <table class="tabular"> ... </table>
        </div>
     </div>

or perhaps
    <div id="the_id" class="">
        <div class="-contents tabular-wrapper">
          <table class="tabular"> ... </table>
        </div>
     </div>

It appears that the $class variable the formal.xsl stylesheet
(htmlTable.with.caption template) refers to is blank.
<div class="{$class}">

As a last resort, I can copy the template into my customization layer with
appropriate edits.

My question is whether that is the best I can do?
Or is there a way to populate the $class variable just for tables?

thanks for any ideas!
--Tim