Howdy,
On Thu, 18 Feb 1999, Jay Mitchell wrote:
> And there's not the slightest evidence that the rewording reflects the
> "opinions and wishes" of anyone but the SEB. However, I do agree that
> they have full authority to recommend rules changes to the BOD for
> approval. If all they changed was the fuel line section, however, they
> have NOT made it illegal to accomplish the function.
I don't have the Fasttrack here in from on me, but I seem to recall that
they changed most everything I could think of to add another gas tank,
including some wording to the effect of "we don't want to see secondary
gas tanks".
> WRONG! Even SEB members will tell you they have no idea of the original
> intent of many of the rules. The only POSSIBLE interpretation has to be
> that the rules mean what they say, LITERALLY. You are in no position
> whatever to claim to know what "99.9%" of the SCCA may or may not
> believe.
I guess. I can tell you that _I_ certainly wouldn't read "unrestricted
fuel lines" and think "Hey, that means I can put another gas tank on the
car!" but maybe I'm just weird.
> See above. The type of device in question has appeared in a number of
> different Nationally-competitive SP cars for more than a decade. This is
> most certainly NOT "getting away" with anything. It's reading the rules
> for what they SAY rather than what you might WANT them to say. There's a
> difference in the two.
I can't speak for previous history and will make no attempt to. Hopefully
the SEB thought about implications and such. I can tell you 100% that its
impossible or just about impossible to write a rule that can't be bent if
you're trying to help the competitor. I'd read the fuel line allowance in
SP as a way to allow the competitor to add FI systems and replace old
lines, both of which help the competitor. But, when you say
"unrestricted" some people (and in this case most people?) will happily
bolt on a jet assist pack, dribble some fuel on it every now and then,
and call it a fuel catch can... :-)
> This isn't about cheating, and it's not about "bending" rules. It's
> about very literal, reasonable readings of ALL the SP rules - not just
> the section on fuel lines - and a common conclusion by lots of respected
> competitors that this has been perfectly legal all along. Trying to
> outlaw the function served by the device is futile, IMHO, without some
> major restrictions to other presently-allowed mods.
I dunno who it was talking about the hungarian vs. prussian stuff, but
this is a common problem in when you use a restrictive approach and also
try to help people. If I'd been the SEB and wanted to change stuff to
make it more clear, I think I'd just have made fuel systems upstream of
the injector / carburetors free to change at will, along with some safety
restrictions. But I suspect people would've complained about that as
well.
Was the car that prompted this protested or was it an impound inspection
thing? If it was protested, than perhaps the SEB was forced to offically
look at this area of the rules to make stuff more explicit?
Mark
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