In a message dated 1/22/01 7:02:20 AM Pacific Standard Time,
rebjrmd@ix.netcom.com writes:
> In addition, I would add a third class, LOOKING FOR LOOPHOLES. In
> this case, competitors try and look for either inadvertent omissions,
> contradictions or things that the framers of the rules should have
> considered but
> didn't. I would also refer to this class as "race lawyering."
>
Good synopsis, Dick.
Let me add one example of 'lawyering'. I was on the executive of the local
MG/Jag club some years ago. I AM a lawyer, and could read the rules the club
had for concours in a critical light (don't laugh - many people take that
sort of competition VERY seriously, especially the Jag crowd).
I pointed out to the guys in charge of running our part of the concours at
Van Deusen gardens that the rule allowing cars with non-original dress up
bits to be judged as if original, as long as the original parts were also
present was open to abuse. Some of the entrants had steering wheels, road
wheels, a nice set of stock carbs, to offset the Weber under the bonnet -
there seemed no end, and I felt that it made the idea of judging on
originality a bit of a travesty.
As I got nowhere with the organisers, I decided to offer a concrete example
of what I was talking about. I entered my TVR Grantura (it was then and is
now an occasional race car, with period crossflow HRG head, Webers, magnesium
wheels etc., all proper period options from the factory), and brought my MGA
Mk 2 coupe and parked it behind the TVR. The organiser went nuts about having
a TVR in an MG class, but I calmly pointed out that all of the non-stock
parts on the TVR (eg body, frame, etc.) were present, in assembled form,
parked right behind it, and that by their rules, they were obliged to judge
the TVR as an entrant in the MG class.
After much ranting and hair pulling, they realised that my logic was
unassailable, and the rules were changed the next year to preclude that sort
of thing, as I had been advocating from the beginning. It just takes an
extreme example that can't be ignored, before some people will really examine
the rules they have been using, decide what it is they are really trying to
do, and attempt to do it.
Bill S.
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