I have to agree with Brian on this one. 😯 I just don’t buy the argument floating around last week on this board and today at the Track that “the racers voted not to race in the rain.”
First, Brad has been especially vocal numerous times on this board that the CSC is not a democracy and that the show is run by the track owners. I don’t agree with that attitude, but you’ve got to admit that he was at least being honest. (Whatever happened to the high-minded concept of “class representatives”?) So how come all of a sudden the racers have a vote? I actually heard one track official berating racers for not bringing rain tires and not being prepared. If we can’t get an answer on this board despite repeated requests, don’t blame the racers. And we wouldn’t have been allowed to use them anyway. (Actually, as Brian points out, the track was only damp and rain tires wouldn’t have been a good idea anyway).
Second, as I said last week and as Brian reiterated, you can’t hold racers responsible for some kind of “vote” at that meeting if it’s not reflected in the official rule book. Not everyone can come to that meeting, and this year in particular it seemed pretty apparent that most of the decisions were being made before the meeting anyway. Doubtful? Go back and look at the postings preceeding the meeting. There was no agenda and certainly no promise that decisions would be made by racers. Again, I’m not saying this is the best approach, but I also recall the arguments by a number of people that racing works best with a benevolent dictatorship. If the CSC is going to publish a rule book, that should be the final word.
Frankly, this was a lousy ending to the season. I hope we can learn from this that we need to be clear about what the rules are so everyone is on the same page about expectations. Let’s quit Mickey Mousing around with a homegrown rule book that is neither complete (for example, there’s nothing in the rule book about weather ending a race, and states that races that are red-flagged before the half-way point shall be continued; as a result race officials were forced to “wing it” today) nor consistent, and adopt a national set of rules that are more completely thought out, that those of us who race multiple series will recognize, and that will be available MUCH earlier in the season. (We can also add some local option exceptions). And then let’s start learning to race in the rain. I can’t help thinking that Nick Neri must have been wondering what the heck is up with us–I’ll bet he has LOTS of experience racing in the rain in Florida! Maybe Doug would be willing to provide a seminar on rain setups–with and without rain tires?? If we are going to wuss out on racing in the rain, let’s have a rain date plan–especially if we’re going to race this late in the season.
P.S. I don’t really buy Brian’s theory that the track ended the race early because they’d already collected our money and the season was over. But I’m still scratching my head over that extended break before the Junior 1 race when it was already beginning to mist/sprinkle–shouldn’t that have been a clue to move ahead as quickly as possible and to shorten races?