You are still wanting a potentially innocent "defendant" to pony up $2100 to
prove his innocence. He's already $2100 in the negative before he ever got
protested. And what if he is never protested (as ~99% of us never are?)
And you'd give the accuser a free pass.
It has always been that the accuser posts a bond to cover the expenses borne
by the accused -- expenses the accused would never have needed to cover but
for the accuser's action.
Of course, if the accused is guilty, all expense is on him and the accuser
pays nothing.
What we are saying now is that instead of everyone having to spend a bunch
of bucks to acquire something most will never need, now nobody would..
Nobody, including the accuser, who also did not need to spend unnecessary
money to acquire HIS unneeded documentation.
And we are putting that cost into the overall cost of the protest, to be
borne by the losing party.
So yes, the accuser makes his accusation which needs to be verified one way
or the other, and he needs to pony up the bond to check it out -- whether
checking it out involves opening the engine or looking up a factory
specification. I see no real "extra burden." It has always been a "put up or
shut up" thing. Protest bonds ARE meant to deter unfounded protests, fishing
expeditions and witch hunts, but if you think you really got the goods on
the guy then put it up.
If a competitor can be disqualified for failure to provide needed
documentation at the time of the protest -- a requirement increasingly
difficult and financially burdensome if not just impossible in this era --
you have just made unfounded protests, fishing expeditions and witch hunts
all too easy.
Burden on the protestor? The protestor creates the burden by filing the
protest. The whole point it is that it has to be WORTH that burden. If the
protestor is ultimately correct, then obviously it IS worth that burden. But
we want that burden to be part of the protest. It should not be easy to
accuse someone.
Surely the protestor can afford it with what he saved by not having to
acquire his own documentation. What it really does is save EVERYONE money,
and for what seems an increasingly large number of us, that saving is
significant. What's worse: someone doesn't file a protest because it MIGHT
cost him another $100, or someone doesn't play our game at the highest
levels because he MUST spend several hundred dollars to acquire
documentation for which he has no other need?
Take a Nationals with 1000 drivers. Say every one needed to have factory
documentation or face disqualification if protested. Some spend less than
others, so lets say that documentation cost averages $500 per entrant (the
guy who gets his for $50 offset by the guy who gets his for $2000). You have
just spent HALF A MILLION BUCKS on unneeded documentation. Contrast that
with the $100 out of the protestor's pocket to look up a spec on the
protestee's car, and multiply that by the five protests received that
require documentation to settle the issue -- to me $500,000 against $500 is
a no-brainer.
Half a mil on "maybe" or half a grand on what's needed for sure? Do the
math.
Let's make it even more stupid: Protestee HAS his factory documentation.
It's a pile of microfiches. How do we read those? Well, we go to the dealer,
who has a microfiche machine and read them there. Dealer charges $100 for
the service (which, as someone else pointed out earlier, would be covered by
the protest bond). It would have been the same $100 if we had used the
DEALER'S microfiches, but instead we required every entrant in the paddock
to have his own set. We have saved exactly nothing, cost the protestor the
same amount as before, and ALSO cost all the entrants heavy out-of-pocket
money to no good purpose.
And BTW, that $100 is just a number plucked out of the air for an hour of a
mythical shop's time. Some shops may charge more, some less. And maybe the
shop just uses 15 minutes and only charges $25. Maybe the shop in a burst of
goodwill gets us the needed spec for free (I'd not be surprised if that was
the norm). The cost of finding out ONE pertinent spec is so minimal compared
to the cost of having every bit of information handy "just in case" I can't
see that there is any real issue there.
We should continue to encourage entrants to acquire documentation. The best
reason for doing so is to speed the process. But it is no longer financially
sensible to require it, or to require entrants to spend money needlessly for
something most will never use.
--Rocky
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Cone" <rickcone@bellsouth.net>
To: "Rocky Entriken" <rocky@tri.net>; <Ghsharp@aol.com>;
<autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 6:45 PM
Subject: Re: Subject: Re: shop manuals
> >>Let's take your final drive example. Just for fun, let's make it the
final
> drive of a Boxster. Let's assume it is ultimately legal. What makes more
> sense:
> 1) Protestor pays $100 of shop time for the local Porsche dealer to look
it
> up?
> 2) Ten Boxster owners each buy $2100 worth of documentation on the off
> chance one of them might get protested someday?<<
>
> But in this scenario we are placing an extra burden of cost to protest on
> the protestor and removing that from the protestee.
>
> And.... my point... Isn't the $100.00 incurred by the protestee much more
> managable then the $2100 shop manual. He would have to get protested 210
> times to be in the negative.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rocky Entriken" <rocky@tri.net>
> To: "Rick Cone" <rickcone@bellsouth.net>; <Ghsharp@aol.com>;
> <autox@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 4:14 PM
> Subject: Re: Subject: Re: shop manuals
>
>
> > Who is responsible? Suddenly this is two questions.
> >
> > Who is responsible for finding it, collecting it, presenting it to the
PC?
> > Gotta be the protestee. He should be more knowledgeable about his car,
and
> > what to ask of whom to get the right answers.
> >
> > But, who is responsible for the costs incurred as a result of the
protest?
> > It has to be the loser of the protest. It does not matter if the cost is
> the
> > price of a gasket, shop time for engine reassembly, or the cost of
> acquiring
> > documentation. The cost of the protest is the cost of the protest and in
> any
> > protest the protestor by filing his protest obligates himself to cover
its
> > cost if the protestee is proved legal.
> >
> > It is probably going to cost more to protest a pricey car or even to
> > protest a newer car -- everything costs more. If the potential protestor
> > avoids protesting the Ferrari or the Porsche because of the protest cost
> > (whether parts, labor or whatever) then that's his decision. Should we
> then
> > forbid Ferraris and Porsches from competing because it costs too much to
> > protest them? Newer cars have all kinds of plumbing, valves, sensors,
> chips,
> > computer stuff, etc., that my car does not have. These are all
protestable
> > items. Should they be prevented from competing because there is more
there
> > to protest raising the potential cost of protests?
> >
> > The cost is what it is, always has been, must always be.
> >
> > Let's take your final drive example. Just for fun, let's make it the
final
> > drive of a Boxster. Let's assume it is ultimately legal. What makes more
> > sense:
> > 1) Protestor pays $100 of shop time for the local Porsche dealer to look
> it
> > up?
> > 2) Ten Boxster owners each buy $2100 worth of documentation on the off
> > chance one of them might get protested someday?
> >
> > $100 or $21,000? Which makes more sense? No, they can't buy one book and
> > share it. Who says the owner happens to be there that day? It doesn't
even
> > make sense for SCCA to buy the book for reference, because they (we!)
> would
> > have to do it again for next year's model, and then it may be 10 years,
> and
> > a few dozen Boxster drivers go through the event, before even one gets
> > protested on that final drive ratio (or anything else).
> >
> > Limit the cost to what is needed to answer the question, and do not
> require
> > (but continue to *encourage*) everyone to have to spend money to own
> > something the huge majority of them will never need.
> >
> > All this was not a big deal 30 years ago when everything was on paper,
in
> > one book, and available for <$100 (even at 1970s prices). It is a big
deal
> > when documentation comes in so many different formats, is hugely more
> > complicated, that even if printed takes a whole bookshelf, and costs in
a
> > 4-figure range assuming the manufacturer will even let you have it.
> >
> > --Rocky Entriken
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