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Thread: Got caught Cheating...

  1. #1
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    Default Got caught Cheating...

    Just curious...

    What should be the penalty if someone in IT is caught blatantly cheating, i.e.: illegal cam(s), lightened flywheel, etc...???

    Are existing rules adequate for dealing with this or should the penalty be harsher inorder to better discourage this type of activity?

    Seems to me that the punishment isn't quite harsh enough to deter this behavior from happening... either that or there simply isn't enough policing going on...

    ------------------
    Darin E. Jordan
    SCCA #273080, OR/NW Regions
    Renton, WA
    ITS '97 240SX

  2. #2
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    Daren-

    IMO we don't have a good enough policing effort. I think more needs to be done collectively by the racers...

    As far as penalties, I hate the polotics of SCCA that have different levels of punishment for different people. I have seen some people get a simple DSQ and I have seen other people loose an entire season worth of points (not fair, unless you can prove when the illigal parts were installed) and recieve up to 9 or 10 points on a licence. That second penalty was simply for grinding a weld on their exaughst.

    I think their needs to be some sort of consistant penalty. I am glad that in ITB we don't seem to have many if any cheeters in the NE. and/or if anyone is cheeting I don't think it has gained them anything.

    Raymond

  3. #3
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    DQ from the event.
    The humilation of being a "cheater".
    mandatory bumper sticker for the next 3 events would be cool.
    Ineligible for year end point awards for that season.

    The problem is agreeing on a defination for "blatant cheating".

    I'll start:

    Close ratio boxes?
    Ported rotaries?
    More than 50# too light?

    Things that the entrant can not reasonably claim ignorance of.


  4. #4
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    I got one. Remove from record any lap records set with said cheated up car. Why?? Because it is totally unfair to those who held those records using a legal car and their ability to achieve that goal and it also makes it darn near impossible for someone else to break that record.
    Ray

  5. #5
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    Excellent question. And...boy this could get thorny.

    First...Raymond- I think I know the case you refer to. I heard it differenty. The protestee told me that he admited that the part had been on his car in that configuration for most of, or the entire season. Secondly, I understand (again, from him) that the grinding in question was the result of a weld made to a stock exhaust manifold to repair a crack. I understand the weld was on the outside and inside and was ground down. Finally, I thought he had a penalty of 7 points.

    The rule is that the part must be stock and unmodified. Welding and grinding are modifying. So that part is easy, he was guilty. And this is an excellent example of where harsh penalties can go awry.....he was merely being cheap or lazy or both, and not taking the time and or money to procure himself a new (Used?) manifold. Or so he says. Performance gains were non existant.(The same protest resulted in a teardown to check all the head stuff, displacement, etc, and he passed that part of it)

    So....what do you do with a situtation like that? Obvious rule infraction, not so obvious benefit? I was told he got the lightest penalty possible, but I never checked the validity of that.

    That said, harsh penalties ARE needed. And there will be casualties, such as the above case. (Keep in mind he knew he was playing with fire when he started welding, but it does suck to see someone slapped around who did something innocent, but dumb)(which he admits)

    Now if it is obvious that there was malisciousness involved, then the book and the chair should be thrown.

    Stuff like the wrong cam, the wrong displacement, the wrong throttle body (how many VW throttle bodies out there are correct I wonder?), the wrong compression, ported rotaties (YES, of course!) and other items that are black and white, and required effort to perform, are the items that should carry the harshest of penalties.

    Still, it puts an incredible burden on the official. I know of guys who have innocenly purchased cars, been told that the cars were legal, then a year later, on a rebuild, found that there were illegalities, These guys have not been front runners, and have denied nobody any trophies, but they were pretty horrified to find the problems. What if they had been protested by a competitor for some petty political reason? They would become an unfortunate fallout. So we and the officials need to be careful that the justice fits the crime, and, to some degree, we need to leave the penalty aspect up to the officials. (I know...huge problem there...suggestions of favoritism, etc)

    I think that one way around the problem of frying semi-innocent people is a second chance approach. Lets say Bob got protested for having illegal cams and compression among other things, and indeed, thats the case. Guilty. But Bob says he bought it from a guy who swore that it was legal. Part of the penalty should be a mandatory check at a random future date to be sure the car is still clean. Now, if Bob fails that inspection, or any repeat infraction of the same magnitude, in the future, the penalty has to be exclusion for a minimum of 13 months.

    On the other hand, things like a missing bezel from some on track contact, or some subjective bodywork repair that doesn't meet the letter of the law should be dealt with on a most minimal level. Fix before next season or similar.

    In the final analysis, we need to make the penalty far outweigh the benefits.

    (And, an entire thread could go to discussing the issues with the ease, or lack of same, of protesting...wait..we already did that!)

    I can't wait to hear Dicks and Kirks and GregAs thoughts on this...

    ------------------
    Jake Gulick
    CarriageHouse Motorsports
    ITA 57 RX-7
    New England Region
    [email protected]

  6. #6
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    +
    I can't wait to hear Dicks and Kirks and GregAs thoughts on this...
    Gee Jake, what am I, chopped liver or somethhing???"

    Raymond,

    You said something about it being unfair to lose a whole season's points because you didn't know when the parts were installed. My take on that, too f-ing bad! That's the severity level you need to discourage cheating.

    Stories like the one Kirk mentioned are disturbing. I'll have to check the GCR, but why wasn't this protest carried through with? I remember something similar a couple of years ago at Summit Point. Car was fast, won the race and set a class track record. Protest was filed. Driver of the protested car 'cut a deal' to finish last in the race and lose his track record, in exchange for not being torn down. Why are these kinds of things allowed??????

    I agree that there seem to be multiple standards. A couple of years ago, people were allowed to keep Runoffs' trophies even though their cars were found to be in violation of the rules. The justification was that the rule wasn't clear or explicit enough. It was a bunch of horseshit!


    Blatant cheating penalties need to be harsh. There was an SSB competitor that was sent home from the Runoffs last year because he was found to have 'counterfit' springs. IMHO, he should have had his license pulled for a year. It's my opinion, that if someone is willing to go to those lengths to cheat, they'll do it again!

    I think mandatory post-race tech inspections for X number of races, following being found non-compliant w/ the rules, should be required.

    If you want to stop (or at least curb) cheating, you have to do two things.

    1) significantly increase the likelihood of being caught, and
    2) make the penalties severe enough to be a deterent

    In some sense, it's like major corporations. A lot of times, it's cheaper for them to pay the fines, than to spend the money to come into compliance.

    ------------------
    MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI (sold) | MARRS #25 HProd Rabbit
    SCCA 279608

  7. #7
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    They'll be sorry that they picked on Kirk. He'll show them 'cuz he's gonna just start cheating like a big mo'fo, starting with using steel thinner than the stock roof when he covers his sunroof hole. He's also gonna refer to himself in the third person from now on, like any good loonie. Bwah-hah-HAH!

    Seriously - this stuff is going to continue until a critical mass of entrants takes it into their own hands, steps up, and starts policing itself. The system requires it and it ain't gonna change.

    K

    [This message has been edited by Dr. Chaos (edited September 17, 2004).]

    [This message has been edited by It's Dr. Chaos!(edited September 17, 2004).]

    [This message has been edited by Dammit you guys - I SAID that It's DR. CHAOS!! Quit changing it back to Knestis!!! AACK!(edited September 17, 2004).]

    [This message has been edited by Knestis (edited September 17, 2004).]

  8. #8
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    Wow
    Well first we all know what we want, but we need to know we can’t get it. We are looking for severity of the penalty based on intent. If a guy makes a stupid mistake or buys something that is illegal we want to slap his wrist and tell him to fix it. If a guy pushes a gray area and has a reason he feels it is legal but looses, we don’t want him killed but we want his punished. If however a guy, say buys a cam that he knows is illegal but will be hard to catch, we want him stripped buck naked and whipped to an inch of his life. The only way this can possibly happen is to give the stewards discretion and then have stewards that we have complete faith in.

    Raymond says:
    As far as penalties, I hate the polotics of SCCA that have different levels of punishment for different people.

    You cannot have judicial discretion without have people feel this way.

    A couple of years ago I stumbled into a post-season stewards meeting where they were discussing a teardown at the Narrc runoffs that year. A formula ford compeitor had been torn down after other drivers got together and posted a bond. This guy went from midpack to podium over the winter. Early in the teardown a part was found noncompliant so the steward running the show stopped the teardown. They never found out if the motor was a blatant as the guys competitors thought. He was Dq’ed and got points. The question under discussion was weather the penalty should have been more severe. Because the teardown was not finished no one know how blatant the cheating was. The steward who stopped the teardown stated that the car was illegal so no further teardown was needed. He stated that illegal was illegal and it did not matter how bad it was. The scary part is that the room was split on if he was wrong.

    If you want discretion in punishment than you need the best possible officials and you need to trust them. I do not see that happening anytime soon.

    By the way I love quickshoe’s scarlet A idea
    ”mandatory bumper sticker for the next 3 events would be cool.”

    Dick Patullo


  9. #9
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    I agree with Ray's comments about track records, but my question is just how many of you are willing to put up a bond to check an IT engine if the result could coust you $1500. Suppose you pick the cam, or the porting job, and it turns out to be something not on the list?

    I don't think there is an effective way to solve this problem, I am sure that there are individuals within IT that use parts from oversees that technically are illegal, but could you tell if it's wrong, I can't, and I am sure the part numbers are listed somewhere but not everybody has access to them. Then what?


  10. #10
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    Don't everybody drop your coffee, but I'm on Bill's side.

    I don't think it's terribly practical to institute regular teardowns or tech inspections, but we can still discourage cheating by making the penalties harsh. There have to be some way of taking into account mitigating factors. Things like car champaigned than a year (verified by log book entries), rentals, and similar things. Yes, they can be loop holes, but they have a short life. In the case of rentals you penalize the car owner or entrant if the entrant is the renter and has been renting the car for more than a year.

    I agree with the person who mentioned cams, compression, displacement, throttle bodies, illegal gearbox ratios, and similar items as being up for draconian penalties. Any cheating that has been covered up or attempts made to cover it up should be draconian as well. It indicates clearly the car owner knew it was illegal and was doing it anyway.

    Penalties for gross violations? One year suspension, loss of points, large fine, tied to an ant hill.... Cheaters suck.

    I also agree about not being harsh when it's a matter of interpreting the rule book. That muddies things. I'd be happier if the COA would consider mitigating circumstances regarding harsh penalties. If someone makes a well founded case for their interpretation, even though it's wrong, the penalties should be much lower.

    All this requires judgement on the part of various people. Does this invalidate the process? I hope not.

    Again, I agree with Bill. The only way to stop this is really harsh penalties.


    ------------------
    George Roffe
    Houston, TX
    84 944 ITS car under construction
    92 ITS Sentra SE-R occasionally borrowed
    http://www.nissport.com

  11. #11
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    Run in the SCCA where "my dog ate my homework" will finally be recognized as a legitimate excuse!

    Originally posted by Geo:
    I also agree about not being harsh when it's a matter of interpreting the rule book. That muddies things. I'd be happier if the COA would consider mitigating circumstances regarding harsh penalties. If someone makes a well founded case for their interpretation, even though it's wrong, the penalties should be much lower.

  12. #12
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    - Purchased cars that were told they were legal then later found to be illegal.

    This is a tough one, primarily for a person new to the sport. What is the first thing we tell people when they express interest in acquiring a racecar? Buy one that someone else has built! Interesting when you think about illegalities here isn’t it? If for example I bought a car and the person bored out the throttle body, different cam, or whatever, the likelihood of knowing this is pretty slim. Now granted the person buy the car should try to get other experienced people’s opinion on the car if possible. As the person gains experience and move up the pack, they should take a closer look at their car. Is it really fair to humiliate or severely punish this person?

    On the other hand, I know of situations where people have bought cars from other people and used the “I didn’t put any illegal parts on the car and the person who I bought it from said it is legal” excuse.

    - Situations where a person is found to have done something illegal on their car that does NOT improve its performance.

    For the majority of racers who are trying to be legal, there may be instances when they have something illegal about their car but simply did not realize it. Things that are silly and will not have any impact on its performance. If brought to that person’s attention, they should fix it. But the first time it is mentioned to them they shouldn’t have to wear the A on their chest.

    - Humiliation…
    I do think humiliation can go a long ways to punish and deter cheating. I look back to when I was in high school and they published people’s names that got caught for speeding and drunk driving in the news paper (not the little town paper, but one that a significant amount of people subscribe to in CT). I also remember the students always saying how embarrassing it would be to have your name there. I believe this is still being done now.

    Like I said in the other thread, publish the list of cheaters in FasTrack’s “Hall of Shame”. Include the car, driver and owner’s name, region, what they got caught for, ect. Then maybe have a list of people that previously appeared in the list categorized by degree they cheated. Could be categorized by the amount of points they received on their license. When doing this, do not include people that were guilty of “minor” infractions.


    ------------------
    Dave Gran
    NER #13 ITA
    '87 Honda Prelude

  13. #13
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    Speaking of purchased cars...
    There's a SEDIV ITB car that is being advertised right now in the new SPORTSCAR magazine that was caught cheating!
    Guy was suspended, and decided he could NOT race if he wasn't allowed to cheat, so he's now selling it.
    Now, that's scary to a newbie that doesn't know any better...


    [This message has been edited by nascarvw (edited September 17, 2004).]

  14. #14
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    If a knowledgeable engine/car builder (someone who knows exactly what they are doing)is caught blatantly (no gray area - a clearly illegal part or mod that gives a significant performance advantage) and intentionally cheating, IMO the proper sanction is "the death penalty." As far as I am concerned, I don't want to see that person in Club Racing again.

  15. #15
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    Bill, the story on the ITS BMW at CMP was (at least sort of) as follows:

    1. Car runs VIR in May and turns a lap about 2.5 to 3 seconds faster than ITS track record.

    2. Car goes to CMP test day on Friday.

    3. RX7 driver or drivers (not sure which) show up to register with an E36 cylinder head and cams, and state that he/they intend to protest all E36 BMWs.

    4. The cylinder head cams are literally set on the registration table "waiting" for the BMW to register. I'm not kidding, I was there, registering my old TR8, and it was right next to me, staring at me, speaking to me...the horror!.

    5. Here's where the story goes two ways and I'm not sure which one is correct. Story one is the BMW agreed to a tear down BUT the crew got to set the bond by estimating the cost,and the $$ figure they came up with was $4,000, and no one could put up that kind of money. They guy still went home due to a broken control arm or something. Story two is the guy just went home with a broken part after the running the test day and didn't actually register for the event.

    Anyway, that's the rest of the story. Or sort of.

    I have to admit I always just felt that the 325 was a superior car and that no one would blatantly cheat like that, but the above websites make you wonder.

  16. #16
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    I think that a first offense should get you DQ'd from the event and a probabtion.

    The second offense, the illegal part gets confiscated, plus a suspension.

    The third offense, the illegal part gets confiscated and the driver and owner get suspended for 3 years.

    ------------------
    Ony Anglade
    ITA Miata
    Sugar Hill, GA

  17. #17
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    Assuming this info is correct:

    [b]<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">...and state(d) that he/they intend(ed) to protest all E36 BMWs.</font>
    Well, that's just silly (and stupid) bravado. What did they hope for, that the guys were going to break down and confess at registration, Perry Mason-style? Or, that they'd choose to go home, doing nothing but putting off the issue until next event, over and over again?

    <font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">...the BMW agreed to a tear down...</font>
    If under protest, there is no "agreement" from the protestee. You don't get to veto the protest.

    <font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\"> ...the $$ figure...was $4,000, and no one could put up that kind of money...</font>
    Yet, someone had the money to buy a brand-new BMW cylinder head?

    Therein lies the crux of the basis of our legality system. Except for a few key events, the only way to verify the legality of a competitor is via protest, and the protester must post a bond to cover the costs. In this day and age, the costs of such repairs are astronomical, making such protests financially risky, with the financial rewards less than zero.

    Given the high risk/low reward of protesting, the result is low risk/high reward for cheating. It's an endless cycle that can ONLY be broken by a major revamp of the rules regarding verification of legality.

    I've said it before: self-policing flat doesn't work, and there's no motivation from the Club to do it any other way.

  18. #18
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    [quote] Yet, someone had the money to buy a brand-new BMW cylinder head?
    Given the high risk/low reward of protesting, the result is low risk/high reward for cheating. It's an endless cycle that can ONLY be broken by a major revamp of the rules regarding verification of legality.[quote]

    Well said.

    I doubt anyone bought a new one, 325 heads are on Ebay all the time and there is a garage in town locally that has cracked ones for free with stock cams. That is all it'd take. So, I don't think they had to put any money into it to get parts to bring to the race.


    ------------------
    Ron
    http://www.gt40s.com
    Lotus Turbo Esprit
    BMW E36 M3
    RF GT40 Replica
    Jensen-Healey: IT prep progressing!

  19. #19
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    Got a question to add to this debate that I didn't see mentioned elsewhere (though I may have missed it). What about a cheated-up car that is still a loser? Either the driver is so bad or the car is so unprepared that it still loses even though it's illegal as heck.

    I bought an ITC VW like this a couple of years ago. Some of the cheats were just dumbness (fuel cell supports were attached to the cage); some of them were laziness (axle mounts illegally lowered because the cell was mounted too low); some of them contributed to the car's slowness (the aforementioned axle mounts actually made the suspension much worse); some were blatant (an A1, 1600 VW running in ITC with a close ratio 9A transmission from an A2 VW); some made no performance difference but were still illegal (a hole cut in the inner fender to make access to the tranny easier). These are the highlights; there was much more. Some were highly visible (extra attachment points in the cage).

    As far as I know, the car never got close to impound, and the competitors apparently never cared because the owner didn't beat very many people. Still, allowimng something like this to happen certainly sets a bad precedent. Should it be stopped, and how?

    ------------------
    ...Don

  20. #20
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    How about putting some kind of 'scarlet letter' on the car? You know, something similar to rookie strips. Make them put a big "C" right above their class designation!

    ------------------
    MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI (sold) | MARRS #25 HProd Rabbit
    SCCA 279608

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