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Re: Drivers Ed and Timing

To: Autocross Digest <autox@autox.team.net>,
Subject: Re: Drivers Ed and Timing
From: Cliff Lawson <CTLawson@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 23:37:39 -0400
I wrote:

>>As a BMW CCA instructor, I can assure you that the use of a timing device
>>at a BMW school will terminate your participation. I may be sucking an
>>egg--you will be driving home. No refund on the entry fee.

To which Paul Czarnecki asked:

>what do you do about in car video cameras?

I think it's a great tool. Can't see why we would care. We would ask that
there be no sound so we can't hear the instructor wimpering. Not that using
a video system would not be used as a timing device--it just isn't so
obvious, and as my friend Josh Hadler opined, it cannot be used
contemporaneously (how often do you get to use that word?) with the laps. 

I do need to make a correction. Woody Hair informed me that several BMW CCA
clubs on the East Coast *do* permit timing "for consistency." I was
speaking for all clubs, making an assumption--always dangerous--that all
followed the same rules as the Colorado organization. I stand corrected.
Check the rules for the club in which you wish to participate.

I believe the reason many of the BMW CCA organizations are so strict about
timing has to do with insurance. If we can show that we enforce the *no
timing* rule, it would make it easier for a participant who bends something
to prove this is not a race, a racing school, or practice for a race.
That's IMHO, of course.

I still don't think that timing is a good thing for the first several
schools in which one participates. Learn the basics and speed will follow.

Cliff

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