This article first appeared in the January, 2016 edition of SportsCar Magazine. SCCA members can read the current and past editions of SportCar digitally here after logging into their account; To become an SCCA member and get SportsCar mailed to your home address monthly in addition to the digital editions, click here.
Words by Jim Wheeler, Chairman, Club Racing Board
Image by Clark McInnis
Racing, especially at the National Championship, extends beyond the racetrack, and many at the 2015 Runoffs were hard at work ensuring things went both smoothly and fairly
By most measures, the Sept. 21-27, 2015, National Championship Runoffs presented by Garmin VIRB was a huge success. Daytona International Speedway was awesome and there was good racing from start to finish. The Spec Miata race under the lights was a true classic – thanks to Mazda for stepping up to make the night race possible.
During the Runoffs week, starting on Sunday’s test day, the Club Racing Board consulted on dozens of issues. The process always started when my cell phone rang – which was frequently. Chief Steward Dennis Dean, one of the Stewards of the Meet (SOM), or Dave Kettler, Chief of Tech, would tell me the class involved and give me some of the basic details of the situation. My next call was to a member of the CRB who had expertise in the class or issue in question. We would then meet with the Stewards and Tech officials to look at the car in question and discuss the problem. A number of issues were also solved well before they needed to be brought before the SOM.
Some issues moved to the first court with the Stewards of the Meet and some moved, finally, to the Court of Appeals. The CRB was extremely pleased with the process. Every action was handled professionally, and it was a joy to work with this group.
As a result of these meetings, the CRB has clarified a number of rules that might have been interpreted a couple of different ways. Imagine that – a rule in the GCR that is vague. How could that be? In addition, we conducted the daily town hall meetings with the various categories. For the most part, everything went smoothly.
One place that caused us concern was the post-race impound process. The Tech crews did a great job of handling the teardowns and compliance checks, but there was a lack of communication from outside the Tech shed. This left the drivers and crews standing in impound, sometimes for hours, without a clue as to what was going on. In the American Sedan race, for example, the top three cars were all found to be compliant fairly quickly, but because of an on-track incident, the cars stayed in impound all day, without anyone telling the Tech crew, drivers, and race crews what was going on. We need to fix the system so that there is timely communication between the SOM, Court of Appeals, and the drivers. Impound should be a positive experience, not a frustrating one.
Runoffs Chief Steward Dennis Dean is working on this problem from the Steward’s end and has asked the CRB for input leading up to the 2016 Runoffs at Mid-Ohio.
