Real rules vs sorta-rules

[Challenger392]

That said, I have an 03 WRX that I probably won't hit a breakout time but you know what? I caged it anyway.

Kudos for going with a cage right off the bat. That's what I did. You will definitely appreciate not having to worry about breakout times. And I wouldn't be so sure about not worrying about breaking out. Being new to hill climb myself I found the speed up the hill to be quite decieving. Once you zone in and are trying to drive quick youll find your going far faster than you thought you would. Until I did the math I would have said my average speed would have been far slower than it actually was.

As for the list of rules, I'm on board with all but #12. I just don't want to see someone new being turned away because they bought a car with too much power.

[dsldubn]

isn't the rules meeting in February? This new season with new rules is just barely starting

I do understand everyone's thoughts on the matter...and of course safety is important, and I agree with some of what has been written here...but it does feel like we keep continuing to take the grass roots out of this racing series. Too bad that we feel we have to keep adding more and more rules. With that said, of course safety is most important, just doesn't seem to be an easy solution that doesn't potentially negatively effect some of those trying to stay within the rules already.

Putting any sort of rule regarding HP into the rules makes no sense...I broke out at Ascutney and Philo with like 80whp.

I've been driving a caged car for a few years, but I don't have a head/neck restraint yet, so I'll be running under break out with a big X I suppose...with these proposed rules, if I was to unintentionally break out, my car potentially wouldn't be allowed to race anymore? Or I'd have to sit out from racing the only two events I had free later this summer. When we are trying to keep attendance up, that might not motivate folks in similar situations to show up.

Just looking at things from other perspectives, is all.

Let's talk about racing That's WAY more fun.

[Chief Geek]

I'm the instigator and I totally agree with Michelle's & Jason's point. Fun is the only reason we do this.

I started this thread was because the most important thing to me is the strength of the club's community because that is what provides these fantastic opportunities. A common thread shared by all of the healthy & long-lived communities I know is having clear and credible "boundaries" for the members that are set and enforced by themselves.

We've set our rules and, while no one claims their perfect, they're pretty reasonable and there isn't much evidence of fatal imperfections. Best I know, it's better to have a group discussion when an adjustment MIGHT be necessary than to run the risk of neglect or indifference.

<stepping down from soap-box> <again>

It doesn't look like I'm the only one that's noticed a slight relaxing-trend in the enforcement of some of our rules. My take-away from this that I'll be joining a solid base of members willing to respectfully encourage everyone to mind the rules we've all agreed to follow.

BTW, this forum-thread is a credit to the club. With many viewpoints expressed, from many different positions, on a challenging topic, it never lost the tone of a conversation. It's too rare a thing on the inter-web. Not bad, considering that, even though we're all adults, the thing that brings us together is the ability to exercise our inner-12-year-old. ;)

Paul

[sdwarf36]

"" isn't the rules meeting in February? This new season with new rules is just barely starting ""

[britracer89]

well stated Shem. Now on with the racing fun!

[shelbyeast]

I guess I need to put my two cents in now. I agree with Paul. It is too bad that Mike shows no respect for our clubs or the rules that we have adopted. I personally believe it should be handled the same way the clubs handled the Rusian guy we had a few years ago that kept ignoring the rules, he was banned from entering another event period. And Mike has ignored the rules far more than the Russian did. Now that he has another car he is going to do the same thing at the other 3 hills. I for one as tech inspector cannot in good conscience inspect his car with the full knowledge what he is going to do, with that being said another person will have to inspect his car at any event he runs in. Most of the people that are running using the breakout rule are respecting it and ahearing to it. There are also cars that run that can't breakout at all and they can run and have a ball. I personally think we have a good set of rules and I hate to think we need to add more just to protect our clubs from one person. That's it for now . Don Taylor

[mtwils]

So I guess I do not understand. I have read the rules and I believe I am following them to the letter. How is that disrespecting the rules? If you disagree with those rules then you should bring it up in the annual meeting and get it voted on and then we can act on them and follow them.

It is of course possible to exclude someone using the "chairman is god" rule, and to have emergency midyear changes and specific club rules in addition to the NEHA rules. I could cite examples of each but I have no need to. However it would be nice to have such new rules mentioned enough in advance so things like non-refundable entry fees (the website?) and hotel/motel reservations would not be affected by such actions.

The cage rule in question has remained with few changes since the 2006 season, except that the 2006 grandfathering has been removed (of course) and I believe a one-run-per-weekend grace was added, and then a 10 second limit on that grace added a bit later. Not sure about what years, but that can almost certainly be seen by an inspection on the website. There has been plenty of time to review and fix problems; nobody has bothered to do so up to now.

And why single out the guy who was actually in compliance with the rules and did not crash? The guy who crashed at Ascutney in May 2013 was NOT in compliance with the rules. He was in a car with race rubber (not DOT approved low-treadwear tires but actual non-DOT race tires) with a cage that did not meet the technical requirements. Why no complaints about his disrespect for the rules? Or the car/driver on non-DOT race tires with no cage or bar at all? (Just saying; I actually support the club's flexibility on this myself, but the rules are quite clear ...and I would not say if people were not publicly calling me out on a forum that I do not usually read and not talking to me in person.)

And why not talk to me directly? I believe my record at and support of the NEHA series shows that I deserve that you at least talk to me before you kick me out, especially when I do not see the rule which I have broken.

As a message to Don - how can you have had any doubt about what I was going to do when you saw and inspected the car? I told Steve Jones by email what I was bringing to the event so he could tell you (and it was by email because I messed up the PO box number when I mailed the entry form and it was returned to me). You had the opportunity to tell me to stay home then; why did you not do that?

Lastly, since my nameserver is even worse post-chemo than it was in the past, who is Paul chiefGeek?

Record:
1986-2004 organized at least 10 of the annual meetings and awards banquets
1981-2006 entered more hillclimbs and completed more runs than any other driver
2002, 2004, 2005 & 2006 King of the Hill
about 15 overall wins, and no I am not looking that up, it might only be 11 or 12.
last NEHA crash Burke 1988 and I drove it home that night.

But I am a speeder and an outlaw, not a racer. To think otherwise is to misunderstand completely.

Michael Wilson

[shelbyeast]

Well I don't know I think I read the same rules and I don't see where it says a person may drive as fast as possible one time what I do see is a penalty in place for ten seconds faster than breakout. So in my opinion the rule is being ignored. At our drivers meeting we always say if you go through two red flags you go home does that mean we are saying it is ok to go through two red flags? Penalties are in place to try to prevent a particular rule from being broken. When the same person continually breaks the rules I think there should be some sort of sanction against that driver or participant. As far as the car that had the accident at Auscutney Yes it did have tubing that did not meet our specs but I don't think we want to start drilling every bar in a cage to check thickness. The cage did do its job by preventing a serious injury which would have been the outcome with no cage at all. As far as the tires it was running it was a prepared car and it can run any tire it likes. As a message to Mike, Yes I did inspect your car at Auscutney but you also got a email from Drew about the enforcement of the breakout rule, so yes believe it or not I thought you would follow the rule I now know better. I will be gone for the next week everyone have a good time at Burke. Don Taylor

[Chief Geek]

who is Paul chiefGeek?

Mike, we've met a few times.

I became an every-event-worker 2-ish years ago and my electronics tinkering created the split time generator so I'm also "the split-time guy".

Starting at last month's Ascutney, I'm driving the red Miata with the white top, #13x. We talked briefly at Ascutney after my father, Rich, and I'd just done our driver change in the waiting line.

I was also the ring-leader of the workers at the Max event that quit working, mid-Sat PM. We may have "cost" everyone an additional run, but I couldn't continue when the "safety system" devolved from marginal to truly reckless. The events I witnessed there, combined with the 6 years I spent as an EMT, influence my stance about racing safety.

Paul

[mtwils]

Actually I got no email from Drew.

I wish I had; then I would not have had to send out the email after the Ascutney hillclimb to the nehalist asking for his email (an email to which nobody responded).

Don - nobody else I have ever talked to has said that it is against the rules to break out by more than 10 seconds, nor that it is against the rules to break out more than once per weekend.

Even so, the penalties listed are clear and specific, and you have known about them for years. And what I did was allowed by that penalty, therefore is not violating the letter of the rule. You should have presented a change at some annual meeting if you disagreed with the penalty.