2013 Rules Proposals

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walterclark
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Re: 2013 Rules Proposals

Post by walterclark »

This rule change is intended to plug some holes in the rules whereby a competitor could remove a good bit of weight (door bars, bumper reinforcements) compared to someone who did not for the obvious safety reasons and not get dinged for excessive lightening. And removing safety items in particular to get to less weight, which was sort of encouraged by omission from the existing rule is not what we should be encouraging.

We do allow updating and backdating. My take is if the added reinforcement to the newer door, making it safer and heavier, are bolted in then they would need to be moved to the older door, but if factory welded in place or physically incompatible, they would not. Lacking a couple bolt holes would not constitute "incompatible" but interference such as the older brace needing to be altered or cut away to fit the newer one would.
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sachilles
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Re: 2013 Rules Proposals

Post by sachilles »

Is a couple pieces of DOM suitable for the bumper beam?
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Re: 2013 Rules Proposals

Post by Chief Geek »

walterclark wrote:This rule change is intended to plug some holes in the rules whereby a competitor could remove a good bit of weight (door bars, bumper reinforcements) compared to someone who did not for the obvious safety reasons and not get dinged for excessive lightening. And removing safety items in particular to get to less weight, which was sort of encouraged by omission from the existing rule is not what we should be encouraging.

We do allow updating and backdating. My take is if the added reinforcement to the newer door, making it safer and heavier, are bolted in then they would need to be moved to the older door, but if factory welded in place or physically incompatible, they would not. Lacking a couple bolt holes would not constitute "incompatible" but interference such as the older brace needing to be altered or cut away to fit the newer one would.
That makes sense.

Maybe Don's and Walter's goal could be met with something like:
"The definition of "excessive lightening" includes component removal, or update/back-date part exchange, that materially degrades the performance of the OEM safety structure."

This leaves the definition of "materially" up to our inspection team and increases the club's reliance on their knowledge of model & year specific details. Fortunately, Walter's brain was defragged recently so it should be no problem. ;)

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Re: 2013 Rules Proposals

Post by Terry.Murphy »

All,

To my error, I missed a submission that was sent before the deadline. I will have 25-30 amended copies with me to hand out today. It reads as follows:

"Jamie Melhuish
jamie.melhuish@gmail.com
General Regulations
35.

Proposed text is:
35. Annual points are computed by dividing each driver’s time for each event into the winning time for the event. For Class points the winning time for the class is used. For King of the Hill points FTD is used. The resulting fractions are totaled for the year, highest total wins. A DNS or DNF counts as a zero fraction. If there are 5–6 events, then the worst event for each driver will be dropped. If there are 7 or more events, then the worst two events for each driver will be dropped. All events that are not dropped must be in the same class to qualify for the class placings. If an event is rained out both days, all drivers who have gone through registration will be awarded a score of 1. Any entrant running under a promoter's exception and not meeting these rules will have that event be excluded from the annual points. Events that impose additional restrictions on drivers or cars beyond these rules, other than those required to use the hill facilities, will not be included in the annual points.

Removed sentence reads:
A driver must enter all events, minus any that can be dropped, to qualify for year-end placings.

Thoughts:
The current rule is supposed to encourage people to enter all events in the NEHA series. However it is a "stick", not a "carrot", and I am skeptical that it actually works. My belief is that few if any of our competitors feel pressured (encouraged) to enter all events because of this rule. More likely they wish to enter because they like hillclimbing. However some regular competitors in the series have been hurt by this rule, including myself. I would like to show up in end of year points, even if I only did two or three hillclimbs. (Of course I want to do them all!). If we really want more competitors at hillclimbs, then some form of advertising, marketing, word of mouth/social media, etc. might be more effective."
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