WSpohn4@aol.com wrote:
>
> 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.
Well done, counselor!
Grant Reynolds, J.D.(Columbia 1960)
Also SCCA Steward
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