04-20-2009, 11:50 AM
I had a great trackday at VIR yesterday. HOWEVER, my friend's friend who was new to the sport and was taking the school did not. 3rd session out, he got punted by another school newbie and his '08 GSXR is potentially totaled, at the least a few thousand in damage and he gets to pay for repairs to the rental leathers too. Fortunately they were both ok.
It's certianly not a rare thing, Chad getting his mustang flipped by a competitor a few years ago comes to mind as another good close to home example (and a much more expensive one). It's probably happening at just about every race weekend, someone gets his machine damaged by a competitor.
As I was thinking about it on the way home.... ok, for race groups, fine, I get it. Too much going on, contact is all to common, I understand. But for school groups. I'm not so sure that in the situation when someone is clearly at fault, that they shouldn't have to face SOME of the monetary hardship. I mean, if they do something boneheaded or malicious, sure, they might get kicked out. But they also get to walk away from $50000 in damage to another person's car (just for example) and maybe some even more expensive injuries?
The few problems I came up with:
1) Most people's equipment when on track is not insured. So If I total a Ferrari with the nose of my E30, I'm not going to be ABLE to pay for it. And really, I didn't make the choice to bring a Ferrari out there, the other guy shares in the responsibility for that decision somewhat.
2) Since it's private property, not a roadway, and no crime has been committed, I'm not sure there'd ever be any legal obligation to pay for damages even if all the track officials and others on track were in agreement that so and so was at fault.
So even if the rule was changed to say, hey, you have to help the guy out SOME if you punt him, the offender could just refuse and at worst not run with that club again. Maybe the other guy could sue him... though I don't know how that sort of thing would go, and I certianly wouldn't want to go there.
Would it be unreasonable, for school groups, to have at least some required payment from the punter to the puntee? $500? $1000? Maybe more as a good faith sort of thing, but not too much to make it so the punter just bails? Enough though to be worth mentioning in the classroom so drivers can have a $$ value associated with driving unnecessarily close to others? Honestly I'm not saying it's a "good" idea.... just an idea. The current system just seems a little wrong for school groups where metal to metal should really be unacceptable. Maybe having SOME penalty would potentially reduce incidents while helping out those who were wronged just a little.
It's certianly not a rare thing, Chad getting his mustang flipped by a competitor a few years ago comes to mind as another good close to home example (and a much more expensive one). It's probably happening at just about every race weekend, someone gets his machine damaged by a competitor.
As I was thinking about it on the way home.... ok, for race groups, fine, I get it. Too much going on, contact is all to common, I understand. But for school groups. I'm not so sure that in the situation when someone is clearly at fault, that they shouldn't have to face SOME of the monetary hardship. I mean, if they do something boneheaded or malicious, sure, they might get kicked out. But they also get to walk away from $50000 in damage to another person's car (just for example) and maybe some even more expensive injuries?
The few problems I came up with:
1) Most people's equipment when on track is not insured. So If I total a Ferrari with the nose of my E30, I'm not going to be ABLE to pay for it. And really, I didn't make the choice to bring a Ferrari out there, the other guy shares in the responsibility for that decision somewhat.
2) Since it's private property, not a roadway, and no crime has been committed, I'm not sure there'd ever be any legal obligation to pay for damages even if all the track officials and others on track were in agreement that so and so was at fault.
So even if the rule was changed to say, hey, you have to help the guy out SOME if you punt him, the offender could just refuse and at worst not run with that club again. Maybe the other guy could sue him... though I don't know how that sort of thing would go, and I certianly wouldn't want to go there.
Would it be unreasonable, for school groups, to have at least some required payment from the punter to the puntee? $500? $1000? Maybe more as a good faith sort of thing, but not too much to make it so the punter just bails? Enough though to be worth mentioning in the classroom so drivers can have a $$ value associated with driving unnecessarily close to others? Honestly I'm not saying it's a "good" idea.... just an idea. The current system just seems a little wrong for school groups where metal to metal should really be unacceptable. Maybe having SOME penalty would potentially reduce incidents while helping out those who were wronged just a little.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a van is a good guy with a van