robin wrote:Surreptitious timing on non-timing days is a non starter. It's wrong morally and you also risk being excluded from future events, as well as the organiser getting into a whole pile of trouble too. I suspect KH would even have a problem with counting the number of laps completed on a track day ...
I have only driven Kames once - it was timed - I don't have any sort of competition license, so I presume it's possible to use Kames for such an event?
I love the idea of a wee autotest/sprint at Ingliston too, and it might be slightly more forgiving than Kames?
I suggest that all cars must be bought with MOT to cover the duration of the event - i.e. minimum 3 months. Teams would be well advised to also make sure they had 3 months tax on them, but that's up to you. If you have to buy tax, it's part of the budget.
Insurance costs should probably be free - otherwise we penalise the higher risk teams.
To make the timed part of the competition practical we should probably compensate for performance, somehow. Clearly an old MX-5 is going to do a lot better at an autotest than a Renault Kangoo van. Either that or limit the challenge to <=1.6L engines, 5 seaters. The whole team must fit in the car wearing a seatbelt.
To encourage a balanced choice of vehicle we absolutely should include MPG in the road run part - this also helps moderate the driving on the public road.
To make the road running part of it a bit more sporting we could do a challenge that would require accuracy rather than speed - e.g. give each team a designated start time, some instructions and a secret arrival time - arrival time is calculated as 90% of the appropriate speed limits over the distance (say 100 miles) - could be simply computed using, say, a satnav eta and then adjusting it a bit. Obviously the teams would be limited to a clock and a printed map. There are 1,000 possible variations on this theme that actively discourage speeding/risk taking.
I wouldn't be worried about people cheating - after all there are no prizes - however the easiest way to ensure fairness on the road run parts (accurate accounting of fuel, make sure people don't use satnavs, etc., etc.) is to swap one team member between teams for these events.
Of course we should award points for originality/eccentricity. I suggest we run some discussion threads with pictures of the various team sheds once available and then have a panel score the teams based on thread contents.
Cheers,
Robin
A "Scatter" wold fit the bill for the road event, with added points for MPG? If capacity is set at 2.0 that includes loads more cars and puts us out of the city car class, which tend to be dearer (small cars are dearer than big ones for bangers). If folk are worrying about insurance costs, well tough. It probably means they are young and will have loads more time to fettle and shop around vs us older ones with kids
I think the cars could be perhaps chosen on just budget, cars "free" but 1000UKP would turn up some very interesting vehicles. (OK maybe not 1000, that's probably too much).
How about that idea from Sweden (I think it was, a TG episode), where you can take home another teams car at the end of the competition. That should stop the richer ones trying to claim they did really manage to pick up a Group A Impreza for 300UKP off a mate???
I'm dying to enter, and have mates who'd join the team but dates would matter. A lot.
'99 - '03 Titanium S1 111S.
'03 - '10 Starlight Black S2 111S
'11 - '17 S2 135R
'17 - '19 S2 Exige S+
'23 - ?? Evora
