In a message dated 18/01/01 8:49:28 AM Pacific Standard Time,
Rick.Yocum@mail.sprint.com writes:
> this was vintage so
> I moved to the right enough to give the Mustang room to pass and
> resisted the temptation of tapping his right-rear as he went my.
>
Just what I would hope everyone in vintage would do - I certainly would,
though likely muttering imprecations into my Nomex).
> I would argue that the level of attention in vintage, at least from my
> personal perspective, is every bit as high as it was during my SCCA
> days. And I would say that from a competitor's perspective, the level
> of attention of those I race against is every bit as varied in vintage
> as it was in MOST SCCA rcing. And you learn to deal with those varying
> levels in both venues.
>
I've been using SCCA, as it's more familiar to most on the group, even though
I ran CASC and Conference. You're right - there will always be varying
degrees of skill and attention exhibited; I think the average level is higher
in regular racing, but that's only my opinion. I also think that those that
are not as aware are (much?) more quickly weeded out by organisers than in
vintage.
I used to be responsible for tech in the early days of the VRC at Westwood,
and I was coming from ICSCC full time seasons after a year's lay-off. All the
vintage guys thought I was being totally unreasonable ("Sure, his wheels may
be almost ready to fall off, but he's a nice guy and he promises to fix it
NEXT time, and he'll go slow today.....) because I applied 'regular racing'
safety standards to vintage. They didn't seem to understand that if we had a
serious injury or two, or a fatality, there would BE no vintage racing.
I must say that locally, at Portland and Seattle (though I haven't run for a
couple of years) the standards seem to be properly high, and as far as I
know, equitably applied.
Bill
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