Howdy,
On Mon, 2 May 2005, Larry Steckel wrote:
> The issue of illegal parts at local events isn't trivial in my opinion.
> Since cars are not tech inspected at events for illegal parts, it is
> indeed up to the competitors to police their class. It seems that
> everytime I went to a Regional event, I always found several cars in my
> class running something illegal, whether it was a rear sway bar, or a
> gutted air intake or an upper strut bar or whatever. I would make a
> list and present it to the event Chair and ask him to re-classify the
> offending cars into the proper class.
>
> Now I'll grant you that a majority of the time it was newbies who hadn't
> bothered to buy a rule book. But ignorance of the rules is not a defense
> at any level of our sport.
>
> If such drivers aren't going to bother to learn the rules, then the only
> way they are going to learn the boundaries is to be on the short end of
> a protest. Isn't that the way this game works? Plus, it isn't fair to
> the people in a class who work to make their car legal to have to put up
> with running against people who don't care, or figures it just doesn't
> matter. Even on a Regional level.
So you don't talk to the driver's first? Just tally up a list of stuff
that's wrong and expect the event officials to do your dirty work for you?
I'm a big believer in knowing and following the rules. I'm also a big
believer in making autocross accessible, attractive, and fun. Sometimes
being anal about rules enforcement, particularly with newbies, is not the
proper message to send as a fellow competitor.
Mark
|