@chazilla wrote:
That’s great angie, but I don’t think you realize what that would entail.
Chaz, I certainly do realize what that would entail. I wouldn’t offer to be a part of such a huge undertaking unless I thought it was important.
A comprehensive set of rules – one that would satisfy the needs of the series would be an immense undertaking.
Yes it will be a big project, but given that this is the birth of a series that we want to be credible, to grow, and to prosper, I certainly think it worth the time and effort to create our own set of rules. You are ready to have a paid series Race Director and Tech Director, but not have our own rules?! The system we had for this first year worked ok, mainly because everyone cut a little slack to the series because it was in its first year. I don?t think racers are going to be so forgiving as time goes on.
At this point, if someone is interested in the series, that has never run at our local Colorado tracks, and ask for the rules, what are we going to say?. Shifters by SKUSA, except we have these tire specs, these weights and the this and the that; the rest of the classes run by IKF, except for this rule and that rule; then there is the race procedure – I doubt that we will all agree on one organizations current procedures over another, my guess is it will be a combination of each, plus some of what we do around here. It would be a whole lot better to say ?here is the rule book?. Everyone has to know what they are running against, and what is required of them.
If we were starting from scratch, it would be much more difficult, but considering that we are currently racing under SKUSA and IKF rules (loosely), it will be slightly less difficult (I didn?t say easy). In the long run, if we are going to continue the series, and have it grow, we will have to have our own rules OR be sanctioned by an organization that we can agree on their rules.
Our current set doesn’t even cover all the real tech issues surrounding the classes and there’s a lot more to competition rules than tech specs.
You are right, our ?current set? as you call them, are really only a few modifications that we have added. They don?t begin to cover all of the exceptions to the rules that we currently have. For instance, in the Junior 1 class, if we were following IKF rules exactly, there would be no electric starters used, the pull start must be in place. Also, there is an assumed “open clutch”, which is not documented. I am sure these kind of assumed exceptions are in every class.
Anyway, it makes sense that since we are using other rule sets now, it won?t be impossible to mold them into our own. Take a copy of each and start highlighting and marking out, making notes, etc. Of course, the actual copying of the rules and notes into a finished form will take a little time, but certainly can be accomplished. Once they are completed, updating them will not be so hard either. As far as printing costs, I believe most racers would not hesitate to pay as much as $10 for a hard copy of the rules, which would easily cover printing costs. However, if it is available on the internet to download and print for FREE, I imagine the majority of racers would choose this.
Better to find a sanctioning body or bodies whose rules work for us and save ourselves the headache and printing bills that we’d get trying to write up our own.
It is wrong to require people to run by rules that they cannot easily get their hands on. In order to get a legal copy of the IKF rules, you have to become a member, at a cost of $50. If we charged only a fraction of that, it would easily cover our expenses. How fair is it that the shifters don’t have to pay for rules, because the SKUSA rules can be downloaded for free, but that others have to pay? And since we still are going to have to have a written set of exceptions to the rules, tire specs, AND specify which set of race procedure rules we are going to agree upon, it makes sense to create our own.
I am really interested in what others have to say on this subject. I have spoken to many folks around the pits, and read the forums, and it seems like rules are pretty important to the majority of racers.
Angie 😕