Contact Impound

[Greg Amy]

This weekend at NHMS I was acting Steward of the Course (SoC). We (NER? NEDiv?) implemented a new program that was appropriated from other orgs, called “contact impound” (CI). CI was implemented as a way to detect, resolve, and track contact; I’m inferring it is a direct response to the lessons we learned from the SEDiv Driver Review process. From the Supplementary Regulations:

On-Track Contact: all competitors involved in contact during a session must report to “Contact Impound” to submit a report.

The basic premise of CI is that any time there’s contact, drivers are to report to the CI area (at NHMS it's next to Tech shed) and fill out a simple form, indicating what happened and how it could have been avoided. No penalties are assessed and the drivers are then free to go. We were flexible about it, in that if someone had another session coming up we released them with the form and asked them to return it to us ASAP.

Response to contact impound was almost universally positive. All drivers thought it was a good idea, and I had minimal resistance to the idea, whether from offender or the offendee (or mutually-agreed “racing incident”). The only non-positive response I got was a driver that was hit and subsequently retired from the race. I released him to bring his car to his paddock but he was upset enough that he wasn’t so keen on the idea of being there when the other car finished the race. His response was – paraphrased – “this could lead to fistfights in Impound”. I can see his point. However, as mad as he was, he came back and they stood side-by-side in Impound, filled out the forms, and worked out their differences. I don’t recall if there was a handshake in the end, but everyone got their grievances aired.

On the other hand, the system worked quite well with the ITB/SM group. Three cars were racing together and two of them had contact and spun off. In discussing it with the spinners they thought the third car had crowded them off the road and caused the incident. After discussing it with all three and getting them together to review video, they subsequently agreed that the third car was not a direct cause, that one of the spinners caused it. In this case, it allowed us to clarify the situation so that they can avoid it in the future.

All in all we documented around a dozen incidents, none serious. All seem to have been “resolved” amicably among the drivers. I’m not clear what we’ll be doing with these forms long-term, but it should be a useful tool for detecting and resolving issues well before they get out of hand.

So should you find yourself in a “compromised” position while racing in NER/NEDiv, look forward to a short discussion with a SoC… - GA

[mossaidis]

Sweet - glad to hear it worked out.

[chuck baader]

Excellent! I really like the idea.

[Drew M]

Does this include bump drafting?

[Greg Amy]

Does this include bump drafting?

If you manage to bump-draft without contact, then the answer is "no".

- GA

[lawtonglenn]

...I’m not clear what we’ll be doing with these forms long-term, but it should be a useful tool for detecting and resolving issues well before they get out of hand.
...

It seems to me that the primary objective of the new CI system is to build a documented history
of problems involving drivers who are "Hacks". By accumulating incident reports for EVERY incident
with the new CI system, we don't have to rely on the more onerous Filed Protest process to yield a
documented history of problems that can be attributed to a Hack.

As we all know, there are many reasons why Hacks don't get protested on every occasion.
The victim considers it a long and onerous process. The victim just wants to pack up and
get home. The victim doesn't want to be "that guy" that throws paper at small incidences. etc etc etc.

So, as a result, Hacks continue to Hack, over and over, with no documented paper trail. However,
with the CI system, even without numerous formal protests, a stack of CI reports will
provide written documentation that can support the use of formal action, even with only
one formal protest.

I think this is great, and encourage the accumulation of the reports in a database that can
be sorted and displayed by driver, for the use of Stewards when rendering decisions and awarding penalties

.

[ner88]

The primary objective is that contact is not acceptable and not a part of our sport, no matter how minor and all drivers involved must be held accountable.
Bump drafting is contact!

[Ron Earp]

Excellent! I really like the idea.

Everyone likes the idea, until the idea becomes about them....

The primary objective is that contact is not acceptable and not a part of our sport, no matter how minor and all drivers involved must be held accountable.
Bump drafting is contact!

Right said Fred. I'd prefer to not be bump drafted. Who the hell knows what the driver in front if you is going to do, or, what he was getting ready to do the milliseconds before you decided to bump draft him?

[Ed Funk]

Or maybe it was Jerry.

[ner88]

Or maybe it was Jerry.

[lawtonglenn]

Everyone likes the idea, until the idea becomes about them....

Actually I was the first to have to submit a CI report Saturday, first rungroup
of the first race of the first NER event.

I had started from the back, having missed qualifying, and was working my way
through the field, having some difficulty getting by Russ Jones in his 944, who has
a tremendous straightline power advantage. I was setting up for another try at him
on the front straight, but he missed a shift going into 11, slowing precipitously and
unexpectedly. I bumped him. I didn't mean to, He didn't mean to slow down so much, we
talked afterward, no problems... Kathy came to talk with us, to remind us of the new CI
rule, Russ tried unsuccessfully to talk her out of it. We filled out the CI forms, no problems.

Yes, Jerry, contact is unacceptable, but it sometimes is unavoidable.

.

[gran racing]

The bump drafting is going to make this quite interesting especially in the various spec Miata classes. There have been some regions that tried to eliminate it without much success. Especially with the CI not being a SCCA wide thing yet, and different regions having much different perspectives or at least tollerances on bump drafting, I'm not sure this would play out.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Two cars go to the CI for bump drafting. 2 drivers fill out the forms. Two drivers walk away fine. No issues.

Hopefully the form has a spot for 'blame' or 'no blame' - between drivers. If you had a stack of bump drafting paperwork in your 'file', that had no blame attached, this should not weigh in as a negative by a SOM reviewing your info during a real Action.

I love the idea overall. Great stuff.

[Greg Amy]

There's a question there for drivers to assign blame. Something like "Who was responsible" and the answers were something like "I was/the other guy was/it was a racing incident".

Jerry, can we get a PDF of that form to post?

- Greg

[team-gpracing]

This is great news and I'm glad that it was widely accepted.

[ShelbyRacer]

Response to contact impound was almost universally positive. All drivers thought it was a good idea, and I had minimal resistance to the idea, whether from offender or the offendee (or mutually-agreed “racing incident”). The only non-positive response I got was a driver that was hit and subsequently retired from the race. I released him to bring his car to his paddock but he was upset enough that he wasn’t so keen on the idea of being there when the other car finished the race. His response was – paraphrased – “this could lead to fistfights in Impound”. I can see his point. However, as mad as he was, he came back and they stood side-by-side in Impound, filled out the forms, and worked out their differences. I don’t recall if there was a handshake in the end, but everyone got their grievances aired.

Personally, I think that this reduces the likelihood of physical confrontations. The few "fights" I've heard of tend to be out of sight of the officials, usually after "friends" and crew get involved and exacerbate things. Having a set process in place provides a mechanism for appropriate discussion, as well as having several mediators on-hand.

This reminds me of the process we use here in middle school for conflict resolution. I can say that of all the issues that I see make it to the office and go through this, very few ever go beyond it, and most are "resolved" before the parties walk away. The fights usually happen when we don't catch the conflict early enough to do this.

I hope this catches on and is adopted by other regions/divisions as well.

[Ed Funk]

That's about right! SCCA driver=middle school.

[Greg Amy]

Attached is the contact form we used this weekend. Thanks Jerry! - GA

[240zdave]

Who in the Southeast Division needs to see this to get it implemented?

[lawtonglenn]

so if we could change one line on the report

FROM

This contact was mostly
my fault/ the other driver’s fault

TO

This contact was mostly
my fault/ the other driver’s fault/ no fault racing incident

that would be great

Glenn