IMHO, it's the same whether it's a local, regional or National event. The
host club has the right, and the obligation, to uphold as high a level of
safety for moving events as possible. At best, crashes and/or injuries
tend to spoil the fun; at worst, the suits drag it out -- expensively --
in court for years, and no one wins.
It's best to have any special rules or regulations in writing and
available for all participants. Based on those rules (and/or sometimes
looking even beyond them), event chairs and organizers and workers might
have to make quick judgments in specific situations, such as
DISQUALIFYING an entrant for violating rules you've set down.
It's also good to keep in mind, especially at a National event such as
the VTR Convention, that you are attracting lots of people who may like
the cars a lot, but have little or no experience in the types of
motorsports activities offered -- autocross, rallye, gymkhana. Sadly, you
might have to lower the quality and really raise the safety level of
these events because of that.
Case in point: a fellow SOLer (and good friend) detailed last week the
Solo (II) Flight of a Spitfire during the autocross. Fortunately, no one
was hurt during that incident. Knowing the person involved and the high
level of skill she brings to each event, I have to believe she did
everything possible to minimize risk to herself and anyone else. The
points are: (a) you don't know most of the competitors well enough to
judge whether they could respond similarly in such a situation; and (b)
the course probably was set up badly insofar as such a situation could
develop. A less- (or un-)skilled driver might have fared much worse,
damage AND injury(ies) could have been much, much worse.
You can't always foresee every possibility, but again you do what you can
to be safe and fun. Don't worry about being pushy if necessary. Do what
you have to do to keep things under control. Inevitably someone will be
upset over the course of the weekend, but the vast majority will be
happy, have fun and thank you for it.
BTW, liability is handled in most cases through VTR's master policy,
which in turn is through K&K (I think).
Andy Mace, who has *been there, done that, got the T-shirt, etc.* as a
member of the host club of the 1989 VTR Convention, Albany, NY and lots
of other local events....
|