Contact between racers -- a metal-to-metal incident, whether minor or major -- is a hazard that comes with our sport. We all want close, hard racing, but we also want to load our car up at the end of the weekend without the hassle and expense of damage.  This is a particular concern in our large fields, where it is easy to cross the line or get caught up in another on-track event. In fact, we have received recent and specific feedback from the racing community that many believe there is a disconnect between each driver’s interpretation of the conduct rules.

The GCR in section 6.11.1 On Course Driver Conduct attempts to define the parameters of on-track conduct, most notably with this phrase: Drivers are responsible to avoid physical contact between cars on the race track….(It goes on to lay the groundwork for corrective action)……  If a driver is involved in significant body contact, the driver and car shall stop at the designated incident investigation site for review of the incident by the Stewards before going to their paddock area…… “Significant body contact” includes but is not limited to: contact resulting in 2 or 4 wheels off course, spins, loss of position, or repairs to suspension or bodywork. The Clerk of the Course at Hoosier Super Tour events will be coordinating with Race Control and the Safety Team to present disabled cars involved in contact to Tech.

Currently, our leadership is looking into the best way to establish a common and uniformly understood interpretation of this part of our rules -- essentially, our expectations for on-track conduct.  While SCCA provides a safety infrastructure and Stewards to deal with these issues, these steps only deal with the fallout of poor conduct - at the expense of valuable track time and potential repair costs.

One idea is to increase the driver awareness and education level by setting up a library of videos that use a known driver doing the narrative on what they see and how things should have been done (are you reading this, Randy Pobst?).  Other ideas involve more punitive measures including maintaining a centralized database of contact logs of repeat offenders.

If you have any thoughts on this topic, please submit comments at crbscca.com.  Let’s all work together to improve our on-track racing experience.