Minutes of Meetings and Decisions
Use of bodies not on the BSCRA Approved list at the 2013 1/24 Nationals
Several of the overseas visitors were using a version of the BPA VW Corrado bodyshell that had been rejected by the BSCRA CRC. There appear to be two different versions of the shell with the same part number. In view of the misunderstanding that had arisen because of this, it was decided to allow the cars to run but that they would not be eligible for championship points.
Request for clarification about BOC points for drivers who have membership has not been renewed
Nine of the competitors at the first round of the 2013 1/32 British Open Championship on 27 January 2013 had not renewed their BSCRA membership for 2013 until after the meeting. All of them were registered members for the previous season. A competitor has asked us to clarify who is eligible for BOC points.
It appears that there may have been a misunderstanding over the requirement to rejoin by the date of the meeting, particularly as the 1st February deadline for Nationals eligibility was then only a few days away.
After considerable discussion, the Council has decided that
1. All the competitors at the Netley meeting are eligible for BOC points at the Netley Round.
2. At BOC rounds after 1st February, only the competitors who were current members on the day of the meeting would be eligible for BOC points at that round.
3. Competitors who join or rejoin after 1st February become eligible for BOC points at meetings from the day they join, but points will not be reinstated for the rounds where they were not members.
4. For the 2014 season onward, competitors will only be eligible for BOC points if they are registered 2014 members on the day of the meeting.
BSCRA Council
11 August 2013
Protests Concerning the Sports/GT class at the 1/32 National Championships on 6 May 2013
There had been a power supply cut out in the final segment of the A race which removed
the power from James Cleave and Ross Grogan’s lanes. Power was restored and laps
were added to compensate for the time they were without power -
After very detailed analysis and discussion by a team of officials, the BSCRA Council has decided the outcome of the 2013 National Sport/GT Championships is decided on the 8x3 min totals achieved on the day
The council (and I'm sure everybody else) are disappointed that the finals were not run. Unfortunately the number and complexity of protests presented after the "A" race was more than could be fairly resolved in the available time. There is no perfect solution.
The council consider that the fairest solution is to follow the 2008 Nationals format, and declare a result now. The possibility of holding the finals on another occasion was reviewed, but there would be no way to prevent the use of cars that had not qualified for the final, the track conditions would be different, it would be unfair to competitors who couldn't make the new date, there would be cost implications for the competitors and also for the association. so the possibility of another meeting was rejected.
The lap adjustments made as a result of track faults and protests were based on a detailed analysis of what happened. The Council fully accepted the report which had the following Summary and Recommendations (The competitors concerned have been offered copies of the report ) :
Ross Grogan’s best estimate adjusted total is 259.22 laps. This places Ross in 2nd place overall, although only 0.03 laps ahead of Christopher Aldridge. Since the confidence in the adjustment cannot be as close as 0.03 laps, it is recommended that Ross Grogan and Christopher Aldridge should be placed in joint 2nd place based on the racing undertaken.
Whilst James’ loss due to the track braid up has been estimated with good confidence, it has not been possible to estimate his loss due to the power supply shutdown with so much confidence. Overall there is good confidence that his result should be in the range of between 253.63 laps and 256.3 laps.
With this uncertainty, the recommended outcome is to give a joint 8th placing to James and the original 9th placed driver (Ian Fisher). Indeed this was one suggestion made at the race meeting. Had there been time to run the segmented Overall final, there would then have been 9 drivers and a Round Robin segmented format. The recommendation is therefore that given the residual uncertainty over James Cleave’s correctly adjusted score, he and Ian Fisher should be placed in joint 8th place based on the racing undertaken
Ian Fisher had already raced in the F1 final so his Sports result made no difference to his grade. The solution reached should not be seen as an absolute precedent for any future case.
The council (and I'm sure everybody else) are keen to avoid this sort of problem arising in future. We will be looking at how to deal with the somewhat conflicting requirements of giving protests full and fair consideration, and finishing the racing at an acceptable time.
BSCRA Council
16 May 2013
Protest Concerning the Eurosport class at the Millstream BOC Meeting on 24 February 2013
I have been back to the Rule Book and as it is currently written it is Part 5 Rule 25 that is closest to covering the incident with James Cleave's car at Millstream.
As reported, the bodyshell became too badly damaged to continue, James stopped the car and put another shell on to it, eligible for the class and subsequently post race found to be compliant in other respects when scrutineered.
Rule 25 mentions loss of the bodyshell, I understand the shell was so badly damaged that to continue could have resulted in its loss or in the car being likely to breach Part 5, Rule 18 in that it would cause or was already causing a potential hazard.
Neither of these rules or other rules in the handbook state that the car cannot resume after repairs are made.
Part 5, Rule 6 permits race organisers to issue Supplementary Regulations or variations to the Competition Rules for an event. I understand that for this event there were no such Supplementary Regulations or variations that are material to the incident being protested.
Therefore there was no requirement for the car to be retired from the race, since effective repairs had been made.
Therefore as Competition Secretary my interpretation is that no rule was breached in this case and that the competitor was correctly allowed to continue.
I am only asked to provide an interpretation on this incident and have not been asked to do so about any others at the same meeting.
More generally, colleagues on the CRC have pointed out that at some meetings, often
those with segmented races on multi-
There is certainly a good case for proposing a common procedure and including it in the rules in future so as to be consistent and avoid confusion at meetings if organisers have not chosen to be any more specific than the Rule Book currently is, which allows a bodyshell exchange and only implicitly that it has to be a legal one. However I don't think this a matter of such urgency that it needs an out of course rule change. I suggest a brief discussion at ACM tomorrow and then someone can work up a proposal perhaps with options for next time.
In the meantime Council could recommend organisers to make their policy in this matter clear and defined in supplementary regulations if it differs from the rule book.
Regards
Ian Fisher
BSCRA Competitions Secretary
2 March 2013
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