"What they all tend to have in common is you don't need a license."
Except that, of course, you do. The difference is that if your driving isn't up to standard the operators tell you that you cannot drive in races until it is, and you have to show that you can meet the standard of the operator at every club you visit.
Whereas the MSA give you a bit of paper to 'prove' to any club that you have met a certain common standard because drivers were fed up with having to 'prove' it at every new club they visited.
The MSA get blamed for a lot of things outside their control. For example, medicals used to be reasonably priced, there are still doctors who will do it for �25, but the more usual price is now between �90 (75 plus Vat) and �150. If the MSA could trust drivers to visit a doctor regularly, then there wouldn't be any need and you can bet that the first time an Indie circuit finds themselves under attack from compensation-seeking lawyers for allowing some 'obviously' ill person from dying on their track then they too will start wanting proof that drivers don't have chronic problems like high blood pressure or will require a legal medical waiver.
But is the price that the doctors charge actually the MSA's fault?
When you suffer injury or damage because the driver who T-bones you was colour blind and couldn't tell the difference between a red flag and a green flag (like the car drivers who can only tell the traffic lights apart because of the position of the light, not its colour) will you accept that as just a racing incident?
The ARKs group don't exist in a vacuum, I was talking to a founder member recently who was well aware of the problems but the difficulty is in finding a "universal" solution.
If you only want to race at one club, then the personal approval of the operator works, but if you want to race at a series then you will either have to be known at each track, be able to prove you are a responsible driver (race reports from several events?) or have some form of licence.
While I understand the attraction of IKR and 'cheap' racing, I wish people would also suggest how one could travel from say Clay Pigeon to Rowrah and 'prove' one is able to race without having to do ( and pay for?) a practice session under the eye of the operator and how that operator might cope with 100 unknown drivers turning up on a Saturday expecting to race on the Sunday.
(How many drivers might an IKR Max Series involve?)
|
|