RA novice driver rules

JVL wrote:
>I suggested that it was a curious thing that the rules were imposed by 2
>principles at Rally America Havir and Niday both of whom dove in feet first
>and crashed turbo 4wd cars, Niday after a couple of events in a stockish Golf
>prior to building his turbo 4wd thing; Havir crashing his car several times,
>obviously driving way over his head.

I don't really want to get into a fight between John and Richard, but, as someone who was working on the SCCA/RA rules when the Novice Driver rules were introduced, I feel obliged to offer my own explanation of the introduction of the rule.

The Novice rules were introduced to the rulebook discussion near the end of 2004. I had been effectively the editor for the SCCA rulebook at the time, but I was having a pissing match with Doug Robinson (over driving suit rules) that would lead to me stepping down from my work on the rules. I recall seeing a draft of the Novice rules around Prescott. Christian incorporated them into the rulebook because I had stepped down by the time that they were ready.

While I had nothing to do with the drafting of the Novice rules, I agreed with their intent. Other race series don't just allow new drivers to go out and compete in the fastest cars. I remember having concerns about limiting novice driver to specific classes, because some G2 cars are fast and some PGT cars slow, but the fact that drivers could request exceptions seemed like a reasonable fix.

I don't recall the Novice rules having anything specifically to do with JB's or DCH's offs. JB's was at Sno*Drift at the beginning of 2003. IIRC, DCH's big off was at Wild West, still more than a year before the Novice rules were brought up for discussion.

To me, the Novice rules seemed a response to a general perception at the time that rally was not safe enough and action needed to be taken to make it safer. Remember that this was after the spectator deaths at Sawmill, Mark and Roger's deaths, and a bunch of other accidents that got the wrong kind of attention. (JB's and DCH's may be considered part of that last group, but they were not the only ones by any means.) This was when SCCA was making their eventual decision to dump rally for insurance reasons. This is when 34mm restrictors were introduced to Open class.

In my opinion, the Novice rules were just one more thing to try and make rally safer.

alan

Hi Alan,
My only point was that in the NEW Corportate world Rally America, and high stakes Media promotion, and supposedly a fresh take on everything, it is sorta high irony [/] that the CEO and COO of the Organisation which has adopted this rule banning novices from jumping more or less straight into supposedly high powered 4wd cars both did jump more or less straight into them and both flipped, with Havir flipping several times.

See? Irony? Tee hee? An obvious case of "Do as we say, not as we did"....

There's no point commenting in any degree about the execution of the rule where virtually anybody who is "famous' can still begin in a turbo 4wd, or if the idea is ill concieved in its supposition the if turbo 4wd is dangerous, then supposedly a novice would be safer in say Derek Bottles old VW, the decision was made, rules are rules!

But it is funny.

Course, a lot of stuff is funny to me.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Understood and I mostly agree with your points.

It is ironic that JB and DCH benefited from the system before the Novice rules. On the other hand, maybe they didn't benefit because DCH had lots of repair bills and it was (IIRC) two years before JB ran another rally (where he broke the car over a big jump). So, maybe it have better for them to stay in slow cars.

I also tend to agree on the oddity of some of the exceptions to the Novice rule, but I am not going to judge because I don't know the entire story.

I don't agree that rally is any more corporate under RA than it was under SCCA. From what I saw, SCCA behaved in a much more corporate manner than RA does.

alan

tipo158 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Understood and I mostly agree with your points.
>
> It is ironic that JB and DCH benefited from the
> system before the Novice rules. On the other
> hand, maybe they didn't benefit because DCH had
> lots of repair bills and it was (IIRC) two years
> before JB ran another rally (where he broke the
> car over a big jump). So, maybe it have better
> for them to stay in slow cars.

Well I wouldn't suggest that anybody benefits from the turbo 4wd craze except shops selling an unrealisable dream to people with a lot more money than sense, and the in for a short while then drop out 80 or 150K broke model bears witness to that, and the Subaru importers advertising department.

>
> I also tend to agree on the oddity of some of the
> exceptions to the Novice rule, but I am not going
> to judge because I don't know the entire story.

Agreed, it's just odd, and hence looks bad.
>
> I don't agree that rally is any more corporate
> under RA than it was under SCCA. From what I saw,
> SCCA behaved in a much more corporate manner than
> RA does.

Well the only real manifestation is the way this Wasserman Group/Havir/Block?Pastrana/Mirra/ etc thing is playing out.

I think both RA and SCCA are too ad hoc, too winging it, too whim decision-then-dig-the-heels-in-and-fight-tooth-and-nail in the goals, operations, and especially in the governance and rule proposal and rules implementation.
In that respect I say they're like "corporations" in that we-consumers either former, present or potential, have zero say in anything.
Its essentially take it or fuck you you're with the Terr'ists.

>
> alan
>

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

niday ran more than a couple events in a golf.

he owned two of them. and ran for several seasons in golfs.

one of his worst wrecks was in a fiesta back in the late 90s.

he had been rallying for several years before he bought shadbolts old impreza. and when he wrecked it at snodrift it was still pretty tame as far as AWD turbo cars go.

Rules shmooles. An "indepth" memory analysis of who did what, when, and why on pieces of rules is just dancing around the tip of the iceberg.

The CORE of all these kinds of issues has been the misguided 20-year effort to "professionalize" American Rallying; and gain National and International acclaim through sponsorship and media attention. This has burdened everyone involved with a greatly skewed perception of everything from level-of-risk to the required depth-of-pocket. "Growing the sport" in this way has been the death of it. It's a self-destructive mind set.

American Rallying would be far better off today had it continued to develop it's own craft as a "participants only" sport with all competitors being equal and letting the seed sort out beginners.

Rich Smith

Rich Smith Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rules shmooles. An "indepth" memory analysis of
> who did what, when, and why on pieces of rules is
> just dancing around the tip of the iceberg.

That sucks. I am a bad dancer.

I posted on this topic to explain how a decision got made.

If you don't care about how the decisions get made, cool. Don't read my post.

If you want to use my post to complain about what you perceive as problems with US rallying, cool. Just don't expect me to bite.

alan

Greg Donovan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> niday ran more than a couple events in a golf.
>
> he owned two of them. and ran for several seasons
> in golfs.
>
> one of his worst wrecks was in a fiesta back in
> the late 90s.
>
> he had been rallying for several years before he
> bought shadbolts old impreza. and when he wrecked
> it at snodrift it was still pretty tame as far as
> AWD turbo cars go.
>
>


Also, Havir started out in a PGT WRX, then bought (IIRC) Seamus Burke's GC8 Group N car which has been rebuilt many times and used mostly as a rental (or really, loaner. Kyle Sarasin ran it at Oregon). Then he was Prodrive's only sucker, er, customer in the U.S. (Which is how he put it to me) and had the megabuck Open class car built. So it's not like he started out in the million HP beast and immediately started crashing.

Just for the record.

Doivi Clarkinen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Greg Donovan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > niday ran more than a couple events in a
> golf.
> >
> > he owned two of them. and ran for several
> seasons
> > in golfs.
> >
> > one of his worst wrecks was in a fiesta back
> in
> > the late 90s.
> >
> > he had been rallying for several years before
> he
> > bought shadbolts old impreza. and when he
> wrecked
> > it at snodrift it was still pretty tame as
> far as
> > AWD turbo cars go.
> >
> >
>
>
> Also, Havir started out in a PGT WRX, then bought
> (IIRC) Seamus Burke's GC8 Group N car which has
> been rebuilt many times and used mostly as a
> rental (or really, loaner. Kyle Sarasin ran it at
> Oregon). Then he was Prodrive's only sucker, er,
> customer in the U.S. (Which is how he put it to
> me) and had the megabuck Open class car built. So
> it's not like he started out in the million HP
> beast and immediately started crashing.
>
> Just for the record.
>


you are mostly correct about DCH. his first car (built by rallispec) later become utechts GN car. he put down some good stage times in that and got some good results at LSPR regionals. dougs second car (cpd1) was the prodrive car that graham price later rebuilt and added the newer front end to. the car kyle is using (cpd2) was also built by pricey (niday kept the bare shell in his garage for a while) and was used by kintigh and lauchlin as well. he did rent a white gc8 from VSC once. i had a a lot of time to talk to jb on the long tow with niday and the cpd crew out to snodrift the year jb smashed up the back of shadbolts old car.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2008 02:00AM by Greg Donovan.