Perfect rally drivers 'demanding' the perfect rally???
I like Zimmer's tone best of all the posts made in this thread thus far. OFPR 2002 is a done deal, the results are FINAL, most of the folks who are belaboring this situation were no-shows at the event or have never run in the class, and no one at the event chose to protest the Production results despite the fact there was discussion before the event concluded and ample opportunity to raise the issue when something could have been done about it. At the final ranch service Jamie made a point of looking me up and asking, directly, what she should do. I, like others, said, "If you have your time card, keep running" and I'm still comfortable with the advice I shared.
Mull this:
- The trophy Jamie's seen clutching in the awards ceremonies pictures is for her WELL-deserved ClubRally win Friday.
- With just five Prod entries, there were no ProRally trophies for 2nd place or lower.
- There was no prize fund of which I am aware.
- As Doug Shepherd mentioned in another thread, the ranch stage was more a test of driver intelligence (experience?) than one of car preparation, speed or daring-do. It was yet another example of a stage where there's plenty to lose for little possible gain. Jamie didn't break her car trying to outrun anyone, she wasn't showing off, she wasn't being pressured from behind, she simply made a choice to turn left when she knew she was in trouble in deep sand. She now knows that angling right there puts you on reasonably undisturbed grassland that allows puny 2WD Prod cars (even heavy ones) to scamper up the slope (I believe her second pass was MUCH less eventful).
- So far as I'm concerned, there's a BIG difference between getting stuck in a known, largely unavoidable hazard of the rally that's part of the event to give something back to the local community and finding oneself mired and unmoving on a stage where the team risked more than they should have.
So far as who was "damaged" at the time an apparently empathetic call to NOT collect her time card was made is concerned (and several people had the chance to demand she surrender it), there were just two: Jeff Field (who was not entered but may now find his second-place standing in the season points at risk if he really is done for the season) and me (see *Details below). Holding a half-hour lead in class and knowing in my heart there was a real chance the PRB would not grant my request, there was no way in hell I was going to open myself to the name-calling and ridicule which I would have deserved had I done something as petty and unsportsmanlike as insisting the 'letter of the rules' be adhered to in that peculiar situation.
So, in the long and short of it, I'm glad things worked out as they did. I'd rather have the situation at hand rather than argue about an exclusion caused by a minor error in driver judgment on a "display" stage. Such a decision surely would have embittered more people than the current one and may have even risked alienating a group of our west coast rally family.
There, I said it. Flame away - I have three Nomex suits at hand ...
Halley ...
http://www.realautosport.com
*Details:
After Maine and before the PRB met in Bemidji I sent a request to have my Car Zero duty at Cherokee Trails 2002 counted as one of the five 'entered and participated' credits I needed to be listed in the 2002 championship results. I was asking for no points, just the opportunity to run Ojibwe, Wild West and LSPR and take a shot at matching last year's Donison Cup podium finish. In a split vote the PRB chose to deny my request, an outcome I see as ultimately fair since granting the request could have been looked on as blind-siding Jeff Field. My guess is he figured I was out of the championship when I was a no-show in Maine. The PRB's decision ended my negotiating and finagling a way to run Wild West which, in the long run, is something of a relief.
For whatever it's worth, I'll be following up with the PRB to include such an "entered and participated" option for the 2003 championship (which will shadow the precedent set in ClubRally where organizing committee members are awarded points toward their Divisional Championships). So all may not be lost if you simply do not have the funds to compete in five rallies next season. If you like the idea, join me in sending such a request to the PRB, I need some support to see it through.