Der Gasser- Letter to Editor

[Mike Andrews]

Darren wrote:

Mike Andrews wrote:

4) I'm with you on that one.

It's easy to always ask for "more" safety but the question is really how much is enough? And that is a tough question to answer.

When we were kids we played Matchbox cars on the back package shelf in our parents cars, no seat belts, and that was normal. Now if you see a parent doing that "Oh my God you must be the worst parent ever!"

In Germany on Hockenheimring for open track day we took helmets. The Germans pointed and laughed at us!

"Safety" is a perception thing, its not a real thing you can poke with a stick. You can't mandate safety you can only mandate safety procedures and safety equipment. The reality is that we (many of us) actually race in self-inspected cars. Not driving around for fun, we race like that. Also any other group besides PCA we can self inspect at usually any level. Are there cars falling apart and crashing at these events? NO.

The whole safety inspection idea is a farce because as soon as the inspection is over the owner can do things to invalidate the inspection. Are the inspectors guaranteeing the safety of things that happen after they inspect the car? Hell no.

So great mandate your $85 inspections all you want, its a waste of money and does very little in increase safety.

Darren,



Yeah, I rode up there as well.



You state that in many other organizations you can self tech your car and that only at PCA events are you required to do that extra step. Well, perhaps we are right and they are wrong. And yes, there are cars falling about at those events. And there are cars falling apart at our events as well. But having a tech before the event allows another set of eyes on a car and that does catch issues. That is a fact and that's why we do this.



Could you self tech your car? I don't know that, but by setting a policy (in the reply above you were all for a policy) allows us better control of the condition of the cars out on track. Part of the responsibility of the track program is to put on as safe an event as possible (within reason).



You may think it’s a farce, but there are people that believe otherwise. You are correct, inspectors aren’t guarantying anything other than at the time they looked at the car they saw no obvious issues. Just the same as you looking over your car and saying it was ready. Again, they are there ot put another set of eyes on the car and look for potential issues. We understand that parts fail and that there is nothing we can do about that. We also understand that people can take there car away from the tech session and do whatever they want with it from then to the time of the event. We can’t control that end of the equation.



Perhaps your issue is not with the inspection process but with the $85 you keep mentioning. Perhaps you should address that issue with whoever is doing your tech inspection.



We are not trying to pick on anyone and we would love to make this as cheap and painless as possible…. But in the past there have been many situation of cars brought to the track that weren’t (in our eyes) safe. Our responsibly is to all the other people out on the track.