re: wanna-be racer (13/13 rule)

["Michael Wendell" <mwendell@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

mark estes<mestes@domain.elided> asked
> Could you explain the 13/13 rule?


in club racing, 13/13 refers to 13 months of probation, followed by 13
months of suspension. if a driver is involved in an incident, that
driver is placed on probation for 13 months. if the driver is involved
in another incident while on probation, that driver is suspended for
13 months. the rule was originally designed for vintage racers who run
expensive, irreplaceable hardware on the track with other people in
expensive, irreplaceable hardware. marque club racers however are
rarely running irreplaceable machines.

the definition of incident is usually the problem. tap the wall at
pocono? spin in turn 5 at summit? single car incident, yes, but in
most clubs, that might put you on probation for 13 months. the
enforcement can be very arbitrary, even selective, as well. some
people can have major incidents, and because of who they are, receive
no punishment at all (and no, i'm not saying anything more about
this).

so, does this rule make great drivers, safer drivers? maybe. i don't
necessarily think so. i think in general it will create more cautious,
more tentative drivers (and i think tentative drivers are unsafe), but
that's just my opinion.

as far as club racing goes, i have other reasons why i chose scca over
bmwcca racing. the primary reason is the size of the fields. in ITB, i
can expect to race against 30 other cars in my class, maybe 45 cars of
similar performance on the track in my heat. the competition is fierce
and constant. the marque club races i've seen have been very
different. they may have 30 cars on the track, but they're in 15
classes! the speed differential between the guy running his 1600 in
the stock class and the guy running an ex-dutch-touring-car E36 is
phenomenal (i've been in similar situations, running my 318i ITB car
on the track with porsche GT cars, sucked). nope, i'll take 45 similar
cars, and hard racing. need another reason? i can run a full season of
events within an hour's tow of home, with marque club racing i'd have
to tow all over the east coast to run every month. if i really wanted
to tow all over the place, i could run every WEEK in the scca.

and you know what? bumping the guy in front of me occasionally is
pretty fun too.

m.

------------------------------