[John Vanlandingham]

It has come to my attention that there are a number of people who don't quite understand the brilliant plan conjured up from some place or another (The membership, maybe?)(HA!) about the 5 event rule, and I'm one of them.

If you don't do 5 events or more, it seems to me as though all exsistence and trace of you during the season will be erased.

For all we know, judging from the works of half truths which drain forth from on high, you could have a couple of wins or three or four top 5 results and NOT have ANY record at all in any year end report or result list.

Shades of Winston Smith rewriting history in 1984!

Time to check the air in your tires, the ink in you toner cartriges and start clinking and clacking away to demand the PRB RECIND THIS IMBECILIC RULE IMMEDIATELY.

If I choose to only do 3 events in a year FOR WHATEVER REASONS I CHOOSE, I should still get whatever points and mention my placing merit.

And you should, too.

Can this be true??

John Vanlandingam
Seattle, WA. 98168

PS Yeterday and today alone 5 people I have spoken with expreesed surprise, amazement and disgust about this erasure of all mention.

 

[Subie Gal]

yep... KIND OF a bummer
when you are 1 point out of 2nd place in your class...
are COMPLETELY out of racing money....
and have only run 4 events - ISN'T IT...


Jamie
www.subiegalracing.com
www.subiegal.com

 

[Lancia037Rally]

5 event rule

Codrivers had the opportunity to change drivers and classes every rally. Now they must commit to a single driver or class if they want to be scored at season's end. Same goes for a driver who midseason buys or obtains a ride in another car in a different class. Screwy.

 

[Foghorn]

Mortgage your future, Jamie! Get with the SCCA program! :+ :+ :+

Kent Gardam

 

[KristenT]

Yeah, sell everything! That's what pro is, right, you are a pro driver and that's all you do? And you get paid for it? Grrr... I'm with you on this one, girlfriend!

Of course, I think co-drivers committing to drivers and vice versa is a good thing... unless of course the two of you don't click, in which case swapping out is a good thing.

But have a single co-driver for the season makes things a little less stressful... you don't have to get used to a new person in your car all the time, you know their style and they know yours, and the inside jokes are funnier that way.

 

[Widget Codriver]

How many letters do you have to write?

I wrote in opposition when the rule was first proposed.

After the rule was put into place, I wrote asking that the rule be rescinded.

I wrote my letter within the fifteen day window we were given to comment on proposed 2003 rule changes.

It's silly that 5 DNFs can beat 4 first place finishes.

*sigh*

 

[patr]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

not if you (with the 5 DNFs) need to look higher up in the standings. That is pretty bad.

 

[Dave Kean]

RE: 5 event rule

>Now they must commit to a single driver or
>class if they want to be scored at season's end. Same goes
>for a driver who midseason buys or obtains a ride in another
>car in a different class.

Where do you get this? As I read the rule if you want to win a class championship you have to take part in 5 events. I don't agree with this, and I certainly think it should be removed, but that?s the rules we have raced under all year.

They don't have to be in the same class, with the same car or with the same co-driver. That is stated nowhere in the rule, all it says is you have to start 5 events.

I interpret this rule as counting for the class "driver and codriver championships" only, so only a class winner with less than 5 events would suffer.

If you get points that would give you second place but you only went to 4 events. I don't see where it says you will not appear in any list of end-of-year class honors and everything you did will be removed from history by the ministry of truth. It just says you can't be the class winner.

Maybe my interpretaion is a little more lax than some...

 

[Primitive]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

>
>It's silly that 5 DNFs can beat 4 first place finishes.
>

I agree with Jon. The intent is to get a several dozen teams to commit to a full season, and the result is exactly the opposite. The Pro ranks will dwindle to a handful of cars, organizers will stop doing the extra work to put on a Pro event, manufacturers and sponsors with see the decline in events, entry, and participation, and the entire Pro series may implode.

Sounds like North American Touring Cars...


(and yes, I will only make 4 events this year with Prescott no longer a Pro event... ...LSPR seems too far away) Pe

 

[Adrian Wintle]

RE: 5 event rule

>Maybe my interpretaion is a little more lax than some...

Or perhaps a little more literal... ;-). I'm sure the intent was that you wouldn't qualify for a class championship unless you entered 5 events in that particular class (and on that particular side of the car), but the wording is somewhat ambiguous (surprise, surprise ). As I read it, if you enter 5 events, twice as a codriver and three times as a driver, in a different class each time, you should qualify for the overall championships (both), as well as each applicable class championship. As I said, I don't think that was the intent of the rule, but that's one interpretation of how it is written... .

Adrian

 

[Shenan]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

>Sounds like North American Touring Cars...

Paul, was that a random comment or is there something more to it? What happened with North American Touring Cars?

 

[grinner323]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

I am pretty sure you need to ask Mr. Spitzner about it.

 

[Shenan]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

I just don't know the history of what happened to the North American Touring Cars series. Is it a secret? Will I have to go the library to find out?

 

[Primitive]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

>I just don't know the history of what happened to the North
>American Touring Cars series. Is it a secret?

No secret. It was a series with tremendous potential--fun to race, great cars, huge crowds, etc. I actively sought to participate in that series, but found that the cost to make, race, and maintain a competitive car was skyrocketing. All but elimidated any privateer efforts. Not even Rod Millen could put together a full season.

Entries dropped first. Then events dropped. Sponsors grew hesitant. And the series imploded rather quickly. All this while the British Touring Car Championship was going ape-##### big.

So I was glad I didn't put a lot of effort into forming a team. But I got back into rallying instead... Pe

 

[Shenan]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

Is this the Touring Car series that Kurt was marketing director of before taking the Pro Rally job? Was it this or Super Touring or something like that - I can't remember.

 

[Dave Kean]

RE: 5 event rule

>>Maybe my interpretaion is a little more lax than some...
>
>Or perhaps a little more literal

Is there any other way of appling crappy rules that make no sense? There is a loophole in most badly thought out rules.

Dave

 

[John Vanlandingham]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

>Is this the Touring Car series that Kurt was marketing
>director of before taking the Pro Rally job? Was it this or
>Super Touring or something like that - I can't remember.
Yeah, this same genius and the same results.

A long long time ago when our berühmte und beliebte leiter "der Spitzner" (is that really his name? not a sick joke? really?) was hired as the Media and Promotions flunky and started spouting off about his brilliant "Drang nach PROffsten" and the idea of as he said then a PRO series of 8-10, there was a lot of dismay and disbelief expressed on the old California Rally Series board, and I heard then that he was the Media and Promotion Flunky for that series.

So I asked right then in a humourous way (I thought, though I underestimated the reading skills and overestimated the vocabulary of the readership. I thought OTHER people do like I do when I can't understand a word: I look it up. No such luck.)

IS HE HIGH? Maybe it's APOXIA (reference to high altitude in Denver, and apoxia is LACK OF OXYGEN, again linked to altitude, but double intendre with the secondary meaning of HIGH on DRUGS, head in the clouds etc).

I said then if it was one or the other, then everything will be allright, he'll come down, come to his senses.

I said: BUT IF HE IS SERIOUS Then we are all in a WORLD OF SHEEET (except on CRS board we didn't have der SS Übermoralitäts Bewachungs Grüppe censuring ordinary language so we could spell sheet like sheet, rather than writing code words like fecking children)

I also asked:
WHY ARE WE DISCUSSING THIS GUY'S PLANS, whose plans are they anyway?
His or from "noch hocher"? (ON HIGHER; OK?)

I also asked what his background was and if he was really was the guy behind "the towering success" of the NATCC?

Well it turned out the little boy was serious, although at this point some might suggest "seriously delusional".

We got as an answer a puffed up, hypped (gee should I have been surprised there?) to the max resumé, full of bragging and bluster about all the losing enterprises that he saved from bankruptcy, we presume, since he didn't specify, by force of his personality.

And yes he kept the NATCC alive the final year when it was already "a sinking ship" by bring in "500,000 dollars in sponsorship....blah blah".
I knew then we had a major prevaricator (or for you younger guys a liar), no two ways to read it.
Examine that one idea, classic Spitzner.
He says it was a sinking ship and nobody wanted to touch it.
If this is true, and it was a sinking ship in it's first year, so much more by it's last, then an honest person would have declined the job which would have inevitably involved telling people just what a great deal they would be getting when they forked over all that sponsorship money.
See what I'm saying? He was lying to us about what a big deal he accomplished or he lied to the suckers who he wrangled money out of for this "sinking ship" which was doomed.

His big point was a big boast that he's known as a turn around guy, little did we know at the time that he was saying that he would be "turning around and grabbing his ankles" and allowing the mystery men of the Manufacturers Council have their way with him. Not a pretty sight.

If I had recieved his so called resumé in conjunction with a job for a janitor in a race car shop, I would have placed it in the bottom of the kitty litter box.



John Vanlandingam
Seattle, WA. 98168

 

[jmullan]

RE: How many letters do you have to write?

So you're saying that we should fire Spitzner? Who should take his place?

 

[Kartwheel]

Hypothetically of course....

Who keeps him in his position and what, hypothetically of course, would have to happen for him to be removed? Who, if anyone, actually has oversight on him? Will "Pro"Rally have to completely impode before something is done?

Mind you, I'm not terribly worried as I dont have a "Pro" rally any closer than a 20hr drive since CT has left the "Pro" series. The nice thing is I can still race CT and it will be twice as long in mileage next year.

 

[Kartwheel]

Sure!

>So you're saying that we should fire Spitzner? Who should
>take his place?

Sure, why not fire him?

As for replacements, I'd like to see Mad Mike and John Vanlandingham as equal Co-Directors, that way you would be sure to get both sides of ANY possible situation.