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January 2018 Prelims

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#41
Peter Olivola

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Peter, that’s exactly what should happen. Think of it as forced arbitration or mediation. Both drivers report to the designated area. An official finds Driver 1 and says we have a report from T6 that your car 73 and Car 37 made contact at the T6 apex. Can you explain what happened? Official then goes to Driver #2 and says we have a report from T6 that your car 37 and 73 tangled at the apex. Can you explain what happened?

 

If the drivers agree, shake hands, agree racing incident or somebody apologizes, no other drivers impacted, no extenuating circumstances like this was during a FCY or Local Yellow, etc the official can release them. The official gets their separate stories first then the drivers can chat with each other about the incident, shake and make up or agree to disagree. The official is there mediating.  Official still has the option of calling for the writing paper or one of the drivers may  protest. But the basic idea is that if you know you have to face the guy you just punted or may punt in a dive bomb pass, perhaps we’ll all be a little more civil out there. And if there is damage to repair, it can be noted in the log books, and the contact investigation can also be noted in the log book (damage or not) if warranted.

 

This is going to call for some judgement to implement. That’s why the definition of “significant body contact” was added. CRB was trying to set some basic boundary conditions.  If there’s side-by-side contact, both drivers continue, nothing but a tire donut or easily buffed out scrapes, I don’t expect that to be written in a log book and it should be a pretty short and reasonably amicable discussion afterwards.  But if your contact resulted in significant damage to the other guys car, you punted him off course, etc, I would expect that contact written into your log book. Enough of those contacts written up, with or without official points on your license and we can have a nice basis for a driver review.

 

Tracks you frequent may be different, but the ones I race out here, Pit lane and BF station is not the place to have those conversations. It may be the place to flag a driver and tell them to report to the DIIS location however. As noted above I feel one of the important aspects of this rule is drivers talking to other drivers face-to-face about an incident in a controlled (mediated) environment.

 

Todd,

 

In addition to dismissing other reasons for stopping a driver, you've limited your example to the lowest level of contact.  We have to deal with the full range of on track behavior.  The initial assessment of a driver's state of mind by an experienced steward should be the first step.  That takes seconds.  Allowing drivers to get out of their cars first opens up the possibility of more than a mediated discussion. The last thing we want is the infield at Bowman Gray Stadium.

 

As proposed, the rule doesn't specify where the incident investigation is to take place.  Left up to individual regions/tracks, some will chose pit lane.  Others will do it in impound.  The important thing is that each region is free to implement this in a way that works best for their situation.  Requiring the location be one place or another will adversely affect some situations and make the exercise more of a burden than a solution.



#42
B(Kuch)Kucera45

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All I can say is the last three reg events I attended there was little to no incidents in our class. Now let's talk about the Major races I've been to,there where a lot of cars that came off the track and looked like a demolition derby car. I'm just confused because I thought the better drivers where in the Majors but you would never have figured that out by looking at there cars.

That being said I feel that the cars should be inspected after contact and at that point determined if it should be put into the log book or waived. We are all going to have some contact and that's part of this sport but it won't help if we have a lot of guys crying wolf over stupid things.
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#43
Danica Davison

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Said it before and will keep saying it again. Easiest solution to the above is electronic logbooks. One database. Has everything. SCCA ponies up and buys every region some tablets, then we pay some kids at the track to teach the old guys/gals how to use the dang thing. And, if there is contact, the steward puts a note. Even if it was ruled a "racing incident", the tech/steward official writes it anyways. Clicks "Submit". Boom. Done. Everyone in the country can now see the notes. If you come to the track with sayyyy 2-3 racing incidents in the last 6 months or a year ... it flags the drivers so that way the stewards can keep a better eye on them that weekend.
 
Time for SCCA to get with the times!


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#44
Mark

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Currently logbooks are assigned to the car via roll cage number. Maybe it is time to implement a log book system that is linked to the member number. 


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#45
steveracer

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Said it before and will keep saying it again. Easiest solution to the above is electronic logbooks. One database. Has everything. SCCA ponies up and buys every region some tablets, then we pay some kids at the track to teach the old guys/gals how to use the dang thing. And, if there is contact, the steward puts a note. Even if it was ruled a "racing incident", the tech/steward official writes it anyways. Clicks "Submit". Boom. Done. Everyone in the country can now see the notes. If you come to the track with sayyyy 2-3 racing incidents in the last 6 months or a year ... it flags the drivers so that way the stewards can keep a better eye on them that weekend.
 
Time for SCCA to get with the times!

I've heard of, and been involved in events where the corner workers commented over the radio "Wholy shit! Did you see what A just did to B?" and the stewards did NOTHING except GRUMBLE when paper was thrown. That, IMHO, is the bigger issue. Nothing will change until the Stewards become more proactive and less apathetic...


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#46
Danica Davison

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I've heard of, and been involved in events where the corner workers commented over the radio "Wholy shit! Did you see what A just did to B?" and the stewards did NOTHING except GRUMBLE when paper was thrown. That, IMHO, is the bigger issue. Nothing will change until the Stewards become more proactive and less apathetic...

 

Yes, I will agree that there needs to be an attitude change for many (not all) stewards. Some SCCA stewards are really good, but many are not in the Southeast that I have met. NASA does a better job at this because they have fewer hands in the pie and what seems like less of a "I am a steward and I am all mighty and powerful" complex. 


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#47
FTodaro

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IMO the merit of contact impound at regional events in addition to the majors is that there are new racers at regional events that need to learn the ways of the road, if you will, and its our obligation to mentor them on racing etiquette. That was not happening at the regional level. People were making bad decisions and there were little consequences. So the intent is more about education than punishment.

 

Now the BS that happens at the majors, is with more experienced drivers who know what they could get away with, so there it should be more about punishment.

 

I think its a step in the right direction, as you have drivers who do not want to throw paper and stewards who do not want to contend with protests. This solves that problem by putting in a forced confrontation, get the problem out on the table and learn from it.


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#48
Jim Drago

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Said it before and will keep saying it again. Easiest solution to the above is electronic logbooks. One database. Has everything. SCCA ponies up and buys every region some tablets, then we pay some kids at the track to teach the old guys/gals how to use the dang thing. And, if there is contact, the steward puts a note. Even if it was ruled a "racing incident", the tech/steward official writes it anyways. Clicks "Submit". Boom. Done. Everyone in the country can now see the notes. If you come to the track with sayyyy 2-3 racing incidents in the last 6 months or a year ... it flags the drivers so that way the stewards can keep a better eye on them that weekend.
 
Time for SCCA to get with the times!

We are paying $20 per race compliance fees which I am fine with.. The last time they did this our class funded the entire SCCA tech department and the tools purchased with our compliance fee dollars were used in all classes. Sadly many of those tools at this point are MIA or locked away in some storage trailer some where.   Use some of our dollars to start an electronic logbook program using SM as test group for year one and then implicate for all classes in year two.  
 
I read these threads and say yup.. nothing is going to get done here :(


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#49
Danica Davison

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Currently logbooks are assigned to the car via roll cage number. Maybe it is time to implement a log book system that is linked to the member number.

 

Good idea as well. Add that to the database. Similar to registration platforms, dlbracing/motorsportsreg, you have a "garage" of cars in your garage. Each car in your garage will have an electronic date the last time it was annually inspected.

 

If Topeka Kansas wasn't in the middle of nowhere ... I would hire myself to work on this project.


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#50
Jim Drago

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Good idea as well. Add that to the database. Similar to registration platforms, dlbracing/motorsportsreg, you have a "garage" of cars in your garage. Each car in your garage will have an electronic date the last time it was annually inspected.

 

If Topeka Kansas wasn't in the middle of nowhere ... I would hire myself to work on this project.

John Carter could have had this working in less than an hour :(


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#51
Danica Davison

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We are paying $20 per race compliance fees which I am fine with.. The last time they did this our class funded the entire SCCA tech department and the tools purchased with our compliance fee dollars were used in all classes. Sadly many of those tools at this point are MIA or locked away in some storage trailer some where.   Use some of our dollars to start an electronic logbook program using SM as test group for year one and then implicate for all classes in year two.  
 
I read these threads and say yup.. nothing is going to get done here :(

 

Jim, we don't need to pay a dime. I am sure you have an idea of how much money the SCCA has in the bank. Plus, how much would this really cost? It wouldn't be that complex of a database, imo. Import all of the members in there with a full comp license. Have all of the drivers manually add their cars to their garage via an online portal. Then, going forward, the SCCA imports new full comp licenses into the database on a weekly basis. On the driver's first weekend after the change, he brings his old logbook with him to tech .. and the official can then add to the dates of the car/gear checks to the database. After that, you can say good bye to the tech book. Wouldn't take that much longer because they are already wasting time flipping through pages trying to find the last annual anyways and this process would only occur once.

 

Will improve registration too. Registrar can run a report out of the database that shows who is up to date on their tech inspections, and they can give the tech sticker right there at the window so you don't have to get into two lines. Run a query/vlookup on the member number for those that are entered in the race ... and if you have a driver that has something out of date, it flags it on the registration sheet and those people have to go to the second line in tech and get their checks done. Boom. Simple. This DB would improve SO many processes. Another thing that's a little off topic would be to change the memberships to calendar year.  If you buy membership midway through year, the membership fee is prorated for the first year.

 

This type of process would be too difficult to only use one class as a guinea pig (I would think) .. because you are asking the tech/registration/stewards to do two different processes ... and you KNOW somebody will get confused and it will be a disaster lol. I would say the better guinea pig would just be using it for the Majors/Supertour for a year and work out the kinks. That way, you have more national office resources available for training/questions/troubleshooting.

 

I am going to talk to Lee Hill about this the next time I see him, which will be at the Jan Majors. I think we have talked about it before and I think he sounded positive about it but this was like a year ago so I don't remember that conversation very well.


John Davison
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#52
Jim Drago

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Jim, we don't need to pay a dime. I am sure you have an idea of how much money the SCCA has in the bank. Plus, how much would this really cost? It wouldn't be that complex of a database, imo. Import all of the members in there with a full comp license. Have all of the drivers manually add their cars to their garage via an online portal. Then, going forward, the SCCA imports new full comp licenses into the database on a weekly basis. On the driver's first weekend after the change, he brings his old logbook with him to tech .. and the official can then add to the dates of the car/gear checks to the database. After that, you can say good bye to the tech book. Wouldn't take that much longer because they are already wasting time flipping through pages trying to find the last annual anyways and this process would only occur once.

 

Will improve registration too. Registrar can run a report out of the database that shows who is up to date on their tech inspections, and they can give the tech sticker right there at the window so you don't have to get into two lines. Run a query/vlookup on the member number for those that are entered in the race ... and if you have a driver that has something out of date, it flags it on the registration sheet and those people have to go to the second line in tech and get their checks done. Boom. Simple. This DB would improve SO many processes. Another thing that's a little off topic would be to change the memberships to calendar year.  If you buy membership midway through year, the membership fee is prorated for the first year.

 

This type of process would be too difficult to only use one class as a guinea pig (I would think) .. because you are asking the tech/registration/stewards to do two different processes ... and you KNOW somebody will get confused and it will be a disaster lol. I would say the better guinea pig would just be using it for the Majors/Supertour for a year and work out the kinks. That way, you have more national office resources available for training/questions/troubleshooting.

 

I am going to talk to Lee Hill about this the next time I see him, which will be at the Jan Majors. I think we have talked about it before and I think he sounded positive about it but this was like a year ago so I don't remember that conversation very well.

all good points, seems like a very easy or at least very doable and much better long term plan.. been on the 'agenda" for years now.. Much like email blasts to particular classes for pertinent info like rules changes, suggestions, inputs etc.. never happened. That was started when I got on the CRB, which was 9 years ago


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#53
Tom Sager

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Getting off topic a bit but yes registration and tech needs to be done electronically. Annual tech sticker on car for SCCA (like NASA) and no need to go to registration or tech.  Sign track waiver when you get there if necessary and proceed. 


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#54
FTodaro

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I think the SMAC has been talking about electronic log books for some time, maybe they can comment on the push back, if any.


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