Summary of the November Committee Meeting
Late Entries
It was suggested that event late entry penalties should be reintroduced as it was felt that the competitors should have some incentive to get entries in early and so help with the financial viability side of the event. This was agreed and future event regulations will include this.
Axle Rollers
Axle rollers are almost finished and should be available at scrutineering shortly.
Gazebos
New Gazebos have been purchased and are being waterproofed.
Venues
A list of dates and venues for 2014 was discussed and a couple of variations suggested. It was agreed that the Gabriels Wharf venue needs to be ‘sorted’ but that we do not have enough time to do it before the January date and that there could be a possible access problem if the weather gets nasty. Therefore it was suggested that a swap with Tullecombe Woods be made and the Gabriels Wharf site be used in May. The QE2 site near Petersfield has now been confirmed for the Walsingham Trial in March.
Driver Rankings
The drivers rankings were discussed and a number of drivers were moved up to the next level. A couple of drivers have come off as they have not competed for some time. No drivers were downgraded.
Safety
It was agreed that the use of a roll bar would be strongly recommended (spec to be 685mm from uncompressed seat cushion, 38mm steel tubing, 10g or 3mm wall thickness). It was also agreed that competitors should consider the use of some form of head protection(canoe/ climbing/ cycling helmets etc) as these forms of head protection have been approved by the MSA for use in events where head protection is not mandatory.
Following on from the rollover incident at the Alec King, Kevin Judd gave a brief run through of the documentation required to run an event and explained the provisos. At small club events we need to be careful as some officials have to wear many hats at the same time so thought needs to be given to who does what.
This then followed into the question of should we provide some form of summoning help to a hill in the event of an incident as many hills tend to be self marshalling and some competitors have a habit of rushing on to the next hill, possibly leaving somebody stranded. The answer is whistles, which have now been provided and can be found in the bag at each start gate.
There was some discussion over the suitability of drivers modifying hills. It was decided that hills can only be used after they have either been checked/modified by the event CoC or one of a group of drivers delegated to this task by the CoC.
It was suggested that as we have a seat on the MSA trials committee that we seek to influence any possible/probable decision re roll bars and our existing standards.
Marshals
It was suggested that we contact Pete Harding to see if he can supply any 750 marshals for the Walsingham Trial, they are mainly Midlands based but some may be willing to travel. It was also suggested that the Goodwood marshals are contacted as they like to help out at the Plum Pudding and the Walsingham will be equally local for them.
Scrutineering
It was suggested that the scrutineering cards (for each car) be held centrally and brought to events by the event organiser to save Ross Bruce having to add the cards to the list of things to be taken with him. It was pointed out that scrutineering duties does impose quite a load on Ross, whilst also having to get his own car together at the same time. Please bear this in mind when presenting cars for inspection. Hopefully as general car prep standards improve then scrutineering will become easier and considerably quicker.
Any other business
Kevin Judd mentioned that he was trying to put together a list of bouncers in the hope of helping drivers out when they are in need.
Craig Bazley mentioned an issue at a trial where a competitor had hit a gate from earlier in the hill whilst traversing to a later part of the hill and had subsequently been given the much higher score. Technically this has been deemed to be correct by the MSA, however the current rules have not taken into account that sections can and do cross over the routes due to space restrictions. It was agreed that CoC’s should try to avoid this if at all possible, however if paths need to be crossed the as much space as possible needs to be given. It was also agreed that for marking purposes within 750MC events any gate that has been passed by the entire length of the competing car becomes dead and does not count should a competitor inadvertently hit it.