Jamz, you're chomping at the bit. I'm a mid pack guy who doesn't want to do a tear down. What's your solution?
Ok, to summarize; we need invasive tech to give everyone comfort that we are all competing on a level playing field. We also need to make this doable for the guys without the ability or finances. I see the former as a situation with no solution, no way around us needing tech. Therefore we have to work on the latter; provide tech to guys without the means to do so or even the desire to do so. Just as a side note before going into a possible solution. I saw Charlie Hayes pull the gearbox out of the car in about 45 min. and then go on to pull the head with just as much speed. How many of a 40 deep field can do that? How many want to do that?
The solution I think is to provide a way for a guys car to get stripped down by someone other than himself while he goes and has a beer after the event with all of his friends. Further the car needs to be put back together for him as well so he can load up his car afterwards and go home without having to spend additional money to get it back together for the race. What type of person does this kind of work??? A mechanic!!!! So the next step is how to pay a mechanic to perform this work.
First, not all people will want a mechanic regardless even if that mechanic is a trusted East St , OPM, Tiley, Rush ETC mechanic. Danny will always have the track side support to have OPM do all of his tech work. So no matter if there is a paid mechanic there qualified to do it, Danny will not take advantage of that and he will have his builder tear down and reassemble. Me, I can afford a mechanic or a pro shop to do my tear down, but I have extreme trust issues so I would never have either a 3rd party mechanic, or a major shop mechanic do my work. So I will never take advantage of the on call mechanic either and do my own work.
This mechanic will be able to go as deep as anyone wants. If consistently fewer cars are taken deeper than they are today, we can reduce the number of cars being torn down at any particular event. For example, if at every big regional with over 10 cars, one or two cars are asked to go deep in tech, and what is teched is changed every event, we dont have to do 10 cars at only huge events. You have to do so many cars right now at the huge events because these cars aren't checked for anything at 99% of the other events. This is a long game program. But if you knew that some sort of really invasive tech was going to be done at most well attended regionals, and you only check one or two cars, eventually you get around to having a look inside most cars for most things. This alone puts the brakes on a lot of the things we are seeing right now. It also gives the class time to make adjustments before the entire top 10 are DQed for the same thing.
So back to how do we fund this?
At multiple regional events with NASA and at the championships there was a dyno on track to help with identifiying outliers. At the nationals, Drennan's car was on the dyno I believe no less than 3 times. Might have been no less than two. At least 4 or 5 other guys also had multiple trips to the dyno. There was also a whole slew of tech personnel on hand. That dyno cost. I would imagine the dyno cost was north of $1000 to have it available. However it is diced up, there is money currently involved with even the level of tech we are doing now. So what I am asking is, can we have a qualified mechanic on call at appropriate events that would accept a couple of hundred dollars to tear down one or two cars to any level the stewards decide for a singular thing? Would a mechanic take the job if he captured that couple of hundred dollars per event, but only had to do the work a percentage of the time ( considering the Danny and James affect where we wouldn't take advantage of this mechanic but he still gets paid)?
The SCCA is talking about something similar to this suggestion with their roving tech team idea.The only difference is that I would have this roving tech team equipped to conduct the tear down and inspection.......... on fewer cars per event. Consistency is the secret here. Consistency allows you to look at fewer cars more often. Anyway, SCCA obviously has some sort of financial model they are considering for this roving tech team. So we are looking at the delta on how there are planning to pay this team to inspect to one man actually performing the tear down. I think that for about $250 we could find a qualified person to do the necessary mechanical work to conduct just about any tech request. I feel this way because I have asked a few. And when you consider that not every tech session would require the gearbox or engine stripped all the way down, and that they wouldn't have to actually do the work for some percentage of the weekends, I have found a few different mechanics willing to handle that contract. At some events maybe it is the intake manifold or the exhaust manifold and doesn't require the engine or box to be pulled. So with these assumptions, I think we can figure out a way to fund an on call mechanic program to allow the guys to come and compete without worry that they are coming home with an incomplete car and a sunday afternoon filled with work that they are not interested in doing.
Now of course there is going to be a million reasons why this idea won't fly. But glorious is the man that can find a single way for it to work!! All I know is that there is some really really smart people here and in racing in general. When we look at the problem simply, I am confident that there is a solution if we put our minds to it. Lets figure out a way for racing to be fun again and not put off people that really don't feel like paying a lot of money to not have fun on the weekend.
So there it is. Rip it up, toss it out or whatever. As I said before, no one touches my car so I am saddled with doing the tear down anyway. So if we never figure it out,,,,, so much the better for me when people are DQed and or suspended. Less competition and I have the same amount of fun anyways. I don't need there to be 40 cars on track to have fun. I have fun even when I am the only car on track. I just like to drive. I'd prefer to be driving with you guys, but if the class loses car counts to the point where there isn't any competition, I'll pay even less money to drive and go to track days or HPDE events and still be smiling.
Ron, I am okay with your response to this idea taking a few weeks. I know I have written more words on this post than you can handle in a week. 
Take a couple of weeks to get through it all. That said though, you have written more in the last few months than you have in the few years I have been on this forum so maybe I am having an influence on you. All kidding aside...... I know you have had a big influence on me and for that I am thankful. Hope to see you soon.
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