CMP Memorial Monster

[Knestis]

Do tell Kirk - what's this all about?

Facts as I know them...

** At least one ITS driver (may have been more) filed a protest against another driver

** Protestee decided to voluntarily forfeit finish position and SARRC points to date

** Protester withdrew the protest

K

[TomL]

Kirk has the basic facts right on the protest. There were three protestors. All four of the affected people post here, so I'd leave it to them to decide whether they want to say anything else.

[JeffYoung]

Thanks Tom. You and Kirk have the major stuff right. We (Steve Parrish, myself, Ron Earp) filed a mechanical protest against an ITS competitor. He handled it professinally, as did the stewards. Without any prompting from the stewards, we worked out an agreement with the competitor to withdraw the protest. In my view, the system worked.

[Knestis]

Thanks Tom. You and Kirk have the major stuff right. We (Steve Parrish, myself, Ron Earp) filed a mechanical protest against an ITS competitor. He handled it professinally, as did the stewards. Without any prompting from the stewards, we worked out an agreement with the competitor to withdraw the protest. In my view, the system worked.

I relayed facts. Jeff cheated and editorialized so I can too.

In my view, the system did NOT work but that's a value-laden argument.

KK

[Ron Earp]

I relayed facts. Jeff cheated and editorialized so I can too.

In my view, the system did NOT work but that's a value-laden argument.

KK

I think about all you can say is it turned a null result. The protest didn't occur, so you can't make a judgment about the system.

[Knestis]

It's not about whether a protest "happened" or not. It's about whether an instance of noncompliance was addressed. The latter clearly DID happen.

The use of a means to that end, alternative to the system, is a perfectly reasonable basis for judging the system.

To be clear, Ron - I'm absolutely NOT saying that all parties didn't realize outcomes that they thought were reasonable under the circumstances. In that regard, this was a win-win (win, win, win - for all involved). It just wasn't a win for the CLUB, its culture, or the community. Those are harder issues to resolve and, while I suppose it's not fair to ask you all to make YOUR situation more distasteful to that end, we sort of need people to force the system to mete out justice and document outcomes.

EDIT - or we change the system

K

[JeffYoung]

I appreciate the thought on this Kirk. It is important to me that we debrief this and have a gut check on what happened.

But I do disagree. I think the point was made, I think a good result was reached for all involved (the drivers, our class, and the stewards), at the least cost in time and money to all involved.

One thing I certainly learned from all this is that there is a very high cost -- emotionally, time commitment, and dollars -- in the protest process. It's not something to take lightly.

When I see people who I KNOW wouldn't put up a couple thousand dollars "for the good of the Club" (and I'm not talking about you Kirk, because I know that a lot of your ire is at the system and not us) criticize the outcome of a situation they were not a part of -- that actually just makes it less likely that I ever participate in something like that again.

Maybe the system is broken. But I would say here that, without any shenanigans (real or perceived), it produced a decent result.