The comments of the SCCA officials are valid, but unfortunately apply
equally to SCCA. I raced SCCA off and on for 30+ years. We used to pride
ourselves in having enough skill to be fast without banging on people, and
the stewards would not tolerate it. Today, any wreck with less than 6
fatalities is a racing incident, and the SCCA stewards are leading the way
by failing to penalize poor driving(I was one, and have seen it first
hand). If you doubt my statements watch the runoffs on Speedvision in
October. Its a demolition derby, and the announcers are proud of it. John
Jim Hayes wrote:
> And not entirely on the SVRA event.
> I raced with SCCA Volvo Historics this last weekend at W-G and had to
> endure the wrath of several of the SCCA Scrutineers and officials over
> vintage drivers. The were apalled at the carnage at the SVRA event the
> week before. I was told 30 cars were damaged in incidents.
> The big issue for them (many of whom have been officiating for over 30
> years and remember the vintage cars when they were new) was why people
> would drive such valuable, irreplaceable cars like an IT car! (If that
> does not make sense, you should try to find an IT car without dents
> -serious dents.) The second complaint was the ignoring of flags. The
> third was poor driving, esp. overdriving the car or the conditions. The
> "more money than sense" comment was made too, referring to the rows of
> transporters with shiny vintage cars.
> These guys, who work numerous pro races, are obviously not very
> impressed with vintage events or drivers.
> Now before you decide to kill the messenger (that's me), I think you
> need to understand I did not question these guys, they vented to me as a
> vintage driver unsolicited.(I do not know how many times I told them I
> was not there the week before!) One guy was particularly upset at the
> damage to the Lotus 17 in the esses incident- he was a big Lotus fan.
> <I'm merely feeding back to the list that vintage has a serious image
> problem with these guys.>
> The problem that occured in the esses did change how they flagged
> incidents. There were numerous full course yellows and a number of"
> black flag all" sessions. I have never seen such conservative flagging.
> They discussed the yellow, waving yellow and full course yellow at one
> meeting. They said the lights were equal to a waving yellow. I asked
> what the local rule was on red flags and it's come to a controlled stop
> on the track and we'll send a pace car out for you when the track is
> clear.
> BTW, our Sunday race ran incident free and I finished in a pack of four
> cars that passed and repassed seemingly dozens of times - then crossed
> S/F three wide. Wild, but clean racing.
> --
> Jim Hayes Winchester, MA, USA
> hayes@mediaone.net http://www.fotec.com/jim/jim.htm
> jeh@fotec.com http://www.fotec.com/
> All generalizations, with the possible exception of this one, are false!
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