Good points, all. I think Brian Evans and I are actually in violent
agreement. ;=) You don't have to have a time capsule car for this,
but there are clearly some mods that are contrary to the spirit. That
is a whole 'nother can of worms. We aren't through digesting this
one yet...
Terry Jackson also has a good point in reminding us that the cars are
the stars. I remember those exact words coming from the mouth of Steve
Earle at just about every drivers meeting. I would join Dave Whiteside
in pointing out that Phil Hill is a consummate vintage racer with
nothing but camraderie and respect for his fellow competitors. I say
Moss can't be trusted in a vintage race, but there's no reason to paint
all former greats with that same tar brush.
I think Jim Hill raises the most important point yet on this thread. It's
a troublesome issue. The SCCA was long chastised as the "Secret Car Club
of America". The result is teardowns, trials, and volumes upon volumes of
disciplinary hearing and appeal reports. Is that the way we need to go?
Can we figure out a way to make fair disciplinary decisions without
painting a red "A" on somebody's chest? Is it necessary to pillory prople
in the town square so that the rest are comfortable that "justice was
served"? The other result of making such things more public is that race
organizers and club directors will have to spend a lot more of their time
dealing with disciplinary hearings and so forth. For the small clubs that
run on volunteer effort, this will mean recruiting more help. This is
already a problem. I don't see an easy answer, but I will discuss this
with the CSRG board at some point. FYI, CSRG is now publishing driver
suspensions in its newsletter. Some are just probations, or one-race
suspensions. I don't know if 13/13 decisions are being reported to VMC.
Bart Brown also brings a different perspective to this as a spectator. I
wonder what would happen if 50,000 fans all wrote to Steve Earle objecting
to "The Moss Incident"? The customer has spoken. ;=)
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