[Mad Mike]

It's been incorrectly alluded to several times, so I thought I'd share with everyone the "next 3 cars" rule in its entirety ...

7.11.H "If a competitor has crashed and is not visible from the stage road, or leaves the stage road, and does not require medical assistance, they must show the OK sign to the next 3 cars."

The rule book has enough problems without folks applying pieces from one section to other parts of the rule book. If you don't have a copy yourself, the entire PRR can be accessed online here - http://www.scca.org/amateur/performance_rally/03rulebook/index.html

Halley ...
Owner/Driver ProRally #86 - world's first New Beetle Rally Car
RealAutoSport, LLC
http://www.realautosport.com

 

[Don Kennedy]

You're absolutely correct. And the whole stupid section should be re-written. Any time you're out of the event in the middle of a hot stage, you should be required to display the OK until sweep. What in Gods name else do you have to do anyway? Enjoy a nature walk in the woods? Walk down the hot stage to either start or finish to do what? Even IF there was a valid reason to go somewhere, there's 2 people in the car and 1 can go if they must and the other can stay and display the OK. Period. The end.

 

[jblewis]

Amen!

JBLewis

 

[rally to cave]

>7.11.H "If a competitor has crashed and is not visible from
>the stage road, or leaves the stage road, and does not
>require medical assistance, they must show the OK sign to
>the next 3 cars."

Read that rule carefully. It says if your NOT VISABLE from the road you must display it for three competitors if you DO NOT need medical attention.

If your visable, then you must display the OK sign to all cars.

I agree, this rules needs clarification.

Paul Nelson
Navie

 

[Rallychick from Oregon]

Where does it say that if you are visible that you have to show the OK to everyone? Mike's post of the rule didn't say, so I just want to be sure that it's actually there before I go writing yet another letter to the PRB.

Thanks,

KT

 

[Adrian Wintle]

RE:

>
>>7.11.H "If a competitor has crashed and is not visible from
>>the stage road, or leaves the stage road, and does not
>>require medical assistance, they must show the OK sign to
>>the next 3 cars."
>
>Read that rule carefully. It says if your NOT VISABLE from
>the road you must display it for three competitors if you DO
>NOT need medical attention.
>
>If your visable, then you must display the OK sign to all
>cars.

Actually, if you read the rest of the rules, there does not appear to be a requirement to display the OK sign EXCEPT in the conditions mentioned in 7.11.H. However, the following cars are required to stop if no sign is displayed - even if the crew have put out all their triangles, etc...

Personally, I think 7.11.H is correct for the situations it covers:

1) you put the car far enough off the road that no-body can see it - in this case you need to identify yourselves and your state to the next few cars so that stage finish knows why they are missing a car. If the OK sign wasn't there, no competitor would see the car and stop anyway.

2) You pull off on a side road because of a mechanical problem - again, the car is not necessarily visible to other competitors or, if it is, is obviously not there because of an accident. Again this becomes a tracking issue rather than a safety issue.

I think that 7.11.A should say that the OK sign should be displayed on the car in a position visible to oncoming traffic. This would then make 7.11.H make sense for the situations where the car isn't visible.

Note, I have displayed triangles (one with an OK taped to it) when the car was in no way visible from the road. I've also needed to use all triangles in the car to prevent an errant rally car from hitting it, thus leaving no triangle to put on the roof per the rules... theoretically that is grounds for a fine and possible license suspension.

Adrian

 

[John Cassidy]

RE:

I agree with Don that the OK sign should be shown to all following cars until sweep comes by.

I stopped on the first stage at Maine Forest a couple of years ago as there was a car off and no signage visable. Perhaps they had shown the OK sign to cars ahead of me, but I did not get information there was a car off when I was at the start.

I slowed and asked if they were alright and they looked at me like I was crazy and told me to keep going.

I was glad I checked and mad that I had to just because the OK sign wasn't out.

Cheers! John

 

[RallyKeith]

This has been a good discusion so far if we are just talking about a once and done stage, but what about turn around stages and repeated stages? Sometimes a car goes off on the first pass of a repeated stage and is too far off to get with a sweep vehicle, but close enough that it can still be seen by competitors. What should be done then? I would propose something like Adrian does with taping the OK visable to the car, or maybe a sweep vehicle should Banner off the car just like spectators. But that gets tricky with a turn around stage since most times I don't think they run a sweep or a course opening for the "out" stage. Thoughts?

Keith Kennedy

 

[RichardM]

>This has been a good discusion so far if we are just talking
>about a once and done stage, but what about turn around
>stages and repeated stages? Sometimes a car goes off on the
>first pass of a repeated stage and is too far off to get
>with a sweep vehicle, but close enough that it can still be
>seen by competitors. What should be done then? I would
>propose something like Adrian does with taping the OK
>visable to the car, or maybe a sweep vehicle should Banner
>off the car just like spectators. But that gets tricky with
>a turn around stage since most times I don't think they run
>a sweep or a course opening for the "out" stage. Thoughts?
>
>Keith Kennedy

Course opening and sweep also run the "out" stages. They get to wait at the turnaround like every one else.
Richard

 

[Adrian Wintle]

RE:

>>But that gets tricky with
>>a turn around stage since most times I don't think they run
>>a sweep or a course opening for the "out" stage. Thoughts?
>>
>>Keith Kennedy
>
>Course opening and sweep also run the "out" stages. They get
>to wait at the turnaround like every one else.
>Richard

They will always run a sweep. An organizer MAY use the inbound sweep as the course opening car for the outbound run to save the time that the opening car would take to run the stage. This doesn't work so well if there are spectators near the outer end of the stage, but can work well if there are no spectators on the stage, or if they are concentrated near the turnaround. If they are near the outer end, you need an opening car to ensure that they haven't been doing silly things while waiting for the turnaround to occur.

Also, stage start should tell all competitors about any cars that are left in the stage from the last pass, and those cars should be triangled in the appropriate manner (2 on the road and one on the uppermost surface of the vehicle).

Adrian

 

[Glenn Wallace]

RE:

How do you decide if you're visible from the road or not, just saunter back up the hot stage?

Oh, and what if you crash near a stage that isn't the one you started, but the cars on this other stage can see you?

 

[Adrian Wintle]

RE:

>How do you decide if you're visible from the road or not,
>just saunter back up the hot stage?

Since you have to "saunter back up the hot stage" in order to put out a triangle, yes. If you can't be sure that you aren't visible, then you should assume that you are.

>Oh, and what if you crash near a stage that isn't the one
>you started, but the cars on this other stage can see you?

The rule (correctly) only addresses the stage you were competing on. If you are visible from another hot stage there might be an issue, however you as competitors do not have the facilities to deal with this eventuality - all three triangles and the OK sign should have been used on the stage you were on. If the other stage is not hot, then course opening should do whatever is necessary to prevent this becoming an issue by marking the car in some way and calling back to the start to have them tell all starters.

Adrian

 

[JohnLane]

>You're absolutely correct. And the whole stupid section
>should be re-written. Any time you're out of the event in
>the middle of a hot stage, you should be required to display
>the OK until sweep. What in Gods name else do you have to do
>anyway? Enjoy a nature walk in the woods? Walk down the hot
>stage to either start or finish to do what? Even IF there
>was a valid reason to go somewhere, there's 2 people in the
>car and 1 can go if they must and the other can stay and
>display the OK. Period. The end.

Agreed. If one is bored then use your imagination to come up with ways to break other teams concentration. }> Doh!!
John Lane
Viva Le Pro Le Ralliat

 

[Adrian Wintle]

RE:

>>You're absolutely correct. And the whole stupid section
>>should be re-written. Any time you're out of the event in
>>the middle of a hot stage, you should be required to display
>>the OK until sweep. What in Gods name else do you have to do
>>anyway? Enjoy a nature walk in the woods? Walk down the hot
>>stage to either start or finish to do what? Even IF there
>>was a valid reason to go somewhere, there's 2 people in the
>>car and 1 can go if they must and the other can stay and
>>display the OK. Period. The end.
>
>Agreed. If one is bored then use your imagination to come
>up with ways to break other teams concentration. }> Doh!!

I have this awful image of an OK sign being displayed by moonlight...

Adrian

 

[Widget Codriver]

Though we never got anything in writing, I recall that Dan Coughnour said at the Maine Forest Rally driver's meeting that if you're stuck, you must now show the OK sign to everybody, not just the first three cars.

Someone correct me if my memory is shaky... that was a long time ago now!

Also, JB showed a nice big "STOP" sign that workers had available if they needed to stop the stage for a non-medical emergency.

[hr]

[p align=right]John Dillon
John @ WidgetRacing.com
www.WidgetRacing.com

 

[Don Kennedy]

That is correct!

 

[matt b]

The Highway patrol here in Iowa has taken to decorating wrecked cars, especially in the winter, with yellow tape to indicate that it's been checked out.

Probably saves them hundreds of phone calls.

Taping off an "inert" vehicle for the duration seems like a pretty decent idea. Nothing to misinterpret or to really think about since avoiding tape is SOP.

 

[jimmy]

RE:

YES.

And, it is in WRITING for the Cadillac Forest Rally (it's in the supps).

press on,




>Though we never got anything in writing, I recall that Dan
>Coughnour said at the Maine Forest Rally driver's meeting
>that if you're stuck, you must now show the OK sign to
>everybody, not just the first three cars.
>

 

[Bruce]

RE:

Even if the "three cars" rule only applies when you're not visible from the road, it doesn't take into account that the control workers have some way - sequence numbers or radio - for detecting missing cars. With codrivers reading notes, sometimes it takes quite awhile to get information at the finish...and workers start to panic...so please don't dutifully take the OK down after three cars.

Bruce

 

[Mad Mike]

RE:

The point remains that the ONLY time there is mention made about taking the OK sign down after three cars is IF no one can see the car. Otherwise, one need not count cars going by because you should be showing the OK sign to everyone. I can see no compelling reason why every car left along a stage can't find a way to display the OK permanently enough to last until its rescue. Like our buddy Don did here:

http://www.polmedia.net/db_maine03a623.jpg

Halley ...
Owner/Driver ProRally #86 - world's first New Beetle Rally Car
RealAutoSport, LLC
http://www.realautosport.com