43 replies to this topic

[dtfastbear]

Gang,

Working in conjunction with NASA NorCal leadership, the Race Directors and the Series Directors, I've got some news about a revised approach to deal with what I think we all can agree is too much contact in Group A. This is largely in response to a lot of feedback from the drivers.

At a high level, we've backed away from the "no dent" policy as a blanket rule. However, we are going to begin enforcing the 50/50 rule and if a driver is found at fault in a car-to-car incident, they will have to fix their own damage to a much higher standard. Let's call it 5/5. The intent is that this will be a financial and effort deterrent to repeatedly cause body damage.

Because we feel that the underlying cause of the contact is a lack of common understanding of the racing room rules, the blocking rules, the relative concept of "rough driving" or aggressive driving, we're going to take a pro-active education and communication approach. In practice, this means that you will have to fill out a contact form for ANY and ALL contact with another car on track. The current rules state you only need to do that if the damage is worse than 50/50 or if a car loses a position or deviates from the track. We feel like documenting EVERY bit of contact will give us more data about what's really happening out there and also give us more opportunities to have people talking to each other about what's expected of them. Expect Drivers' meetings to last a little longer, as we'll be using those to review incidents/videos so that we can come to that common understanding of how we want to race in NorCal Group A.

The Series Directors (yours truly, Scott Neville and Jim Bucha) will form an Incident Review Board and will be reviewing all of the contact forms. We'll deal with the minor incidents and hand the serious ones over to the Race Director (Dave Lang) for action.

We want to explicitly state that all drivers are expected to run a camera in every session and every race. This isn't a "requirement" per se, but if you are involved in any sort of incident and cannot provide footage, your version of the story will be substantially discounted in the investigation. Get a freakin camera!!

We are going to move forward with the "no move" rule, but we will be sure to clarify it before the next event. Essentially, we're trying to get you all to focus ahead, more, to focus on flags and to foster more COOPERATIVE passing rather than "racing from the front" where drivers are spending many laps holding cars behind them through legal but defensive driving.

Lastly, we are going to find ways to get all the drivers talking more to each other. Scott, Jim and I are committed to giving Group A an identity and sense of community instead of Miatas and E30's being so separate.

NASA regulars will get an email with these changes spelled out in more detail, but since the court of public opinion is in session, I figured I'd summarize here.

Can you guys get behind this?

Cheers,

Dean

[Charlie Hayes]

Sounds good to me!

[Duncan]

Sounds good to me. I think this is a much more reasonable approach.

Duncan

[plane]

Dean - Thank you for meditating. I think you are getting us to the same place, but with a much more pleasant tone.

Honey v Vinegar (Your grandmother is always right.)