John,
Since you chose to bring this up on a public forum I will respond
publicly as well.
You obviously do not recall, but in impound at the 2001 Nationals you
were specifically told by this year's protestor that your car was too
wide and that you needed to fix it before coming back. The fact that you
chose not to heed that advice is your problem. And by the way, you may
want to try rolling your car through a 58" wide box as is the proper way
to check width.I think you may find that you were given a break by this
year's protest committee (not that you were intentionally trying to gain
an advantage, but that you may be gaining an advantage unintentionally
because you have not been diligent in assuring your car is compliant and
that the protest committee did not go to the proper length to check your
car).
Likewise one of the other of this year's "FM protested" was told by this
year's protestor in the 2000 and 2001 impound that he needed to read the
rulebook and make sure his car complied with _all_ the rules because the
protestor could see several non-compliances just looking at the car.
If someone tells me that they can tell me that my car is non-compliant
just by looking at it, and that I will eventually be protested if I do
not bring it into compliance, I will read through the rules and check
the dimensions of my car to make sure it complies with everything. If I
don't find the non-compliance I will ask for help because I want to be
legal. There are only a couple pages in the GCR specific to F500s, so it
is not really that much to read and check. The fact some did not
allocate the resources to ensure compliance may not have directly
resulted in a performance advantage, but at the very least it allowed
them to spend more resources on tuning, testing, practicing,
concentrating, etc.
My point is, it is every driver's responsibility to ensure that his/her
car is compliant, and it is his/her competitors' responsibility to
police that compliance. That is the way the rules are specified. If
someone tells you that your car is not compliant then they are being
nice. If you don't make any changes and they protest you, that is
playing by the rules. At this level you need to be prepared for this
IMHO.
J. Brett Howell
www.PebbleMotorSports.com <http://www.pebblemotorsports.com/>
-----original message-----
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 22:19:57 -0000
From: "John Engstrom" <the.engstroms@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Service Manauls
--- In evolution-discussions@y..., "Madurski, Ronald M."
<madurskir@s...> wrote:
> :
> : I'm with Mark, to me being protested is a badge of honor.
> : It means someone actually thinks you are *that* fast. Cool!
> :
> : --Andy
>
> Ummm, one of the protested was actually a bit behind (0.5 sec?) the
> protestor in FM...
Yep, my codriver was .4 seconds behind the protestor. The funny thing
is, the protest filed on my car was the only one I considered
non-weenie. I was being protested for being too wide and width has a
definiate impact on performance. Would I have prefered it if I was
approached beforehand? Sure.
The other two protests on exhaust length could have very easily been
resolved if the protestor(s) would have told the protestees "your
mufflers make your exhaust too long, either remove it before you run or
I'll protest". Once again, the protests on exhaust length were
legitimate, I just didn't like the way the protestor(s) handled them.
> I do agree that the protests are not weenie. The protestors being
> weenie is a definite possibility...
Amen Brother Ron!
John "No not that one" Engstrom
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