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John,
Since you chose to bring this up on a public forum I will respond
publicly as well.
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Brett, I'm happy to discuss this in a public forum. I'm glad you
responded publicly - thanks.
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You obviously do not recall, but in impound at the 2001 Nationals you
were specifically told by this year's protestor that your car was too
wide and that you needed to fix it before coming back.
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure that during impound at the 2001 Nationals
(last year's Nationals) no one said a word to me about being too
wide. Then again, if you know what was said to me better than
I do, I'd like to give you a call the next time my wife and I have
a disagreement about whether one of us informed the other one
of something that was going to happen. :-)
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The fact that you
chose not to heed that advice is your problem. And by the way, you may
want to try rolling your car through a 58" wide box as is the proper way
to check width.I think you may find that you were given a break by this
year's protest committee (not that you were intentionally trying to gain
an advantage, but that you may be gaining an advantage unintentionally
because you have not been diligent in assuring your car is compliant and
that the protest committee did not go to the proper length to check your
car).
***********************************************************************
Wow Kreskin, you said "...you have not been diligent in assuring
your car is compliant..."?!?!?!?! So which is it, are you reading my
mind or have you engaged in a covert operation to watch my every
move for the last couple of years? As for the protest committee not
going to the proper length to check my car, I didn't realize that 1) you
were there when the protest committee was measuring my car and
2) you are an authority in the gordian knot-like subject of measuring
overall width.
By the way, rolling my car through a '58" wide box' wouldn't really
prove anything since the rule states the overall width of an F500
is 55" maximum.
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Likewise one of the other of this year's "FM protested" was told by this
year's protestor in the 2000 and 2001 impound that he needed to read the
rulebook and make sure his car complied with _all_ the rules because the
protestor could see several non-compliances just looking at the car.
***********************************************************************
Why didn't the protestor(s) tell the other protestees they should probably
remove their mufflers because they might be violating the rule governing
exhaust length behind the rear axle? Seems to me that would have been
the sporting thing to do. Then again, and this is just speculation on my
part, maybe the protestor is more concerned with winning a National
Championship by protesting faster drivers instead of setting up his car
and out driving them.
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If someone tells me that they can tell me that my car is non-compliant
just by looking at it, and that I will eventually be protested if I do
not bring it into compliance, I will read through the rules and check
the dimensions of my car to make sure it complies with everything. If I
don't find the non-compliance I will ask for help because I want to be
legal. There are only a couple pages in the GCR specific to F500s, so it
is not really that much to read and check. The fact some did not
allocate the resources to ensure compliance may not have directly
resulted in a performance advantage, but at the very least it allowed
them to spend more resources on tuning, testing, practicing,
concentrating, etc.
My point is, it is every driver's responsibility to ensure that his/her
car is compliant, and it is his/her competitors' responsibility to
police that compliance. That is the way the rules are specified. If
someone tells you that your car is not compliant then they are being
nice. If you don't make any changes and they protest you, that is
playing by the rules. At this level you need to be prepared for this
IMHO.
J. Brett Howell
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Yes it is every driver's responsibility to know the rules and comply
with them. Protests are the method defined in the rules to ensure
that the participants are legal. It is my opinion, however, that
competitors should take the time (if it's available) to talk to people
about what they think is illegal with their cars and give them a chance
to fix it before filing protests - especially if the illegality appears to be
either a) an oversight or b) something that provides no competitive
advantage. By the way, we did ask one of the protestors (via email
on another list) what it was that was illegal with our cars. We received
a reply that stated "I would be happy to talk to anyone. I will not,
however, be telling individuals what I think is wrong with their
individual cars. "
John "Not that one" Engstrom
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