Proposal. Time attack license. Do away with some barriers to entry.

[zhao]

Proposal. Time attack license. Do away with some barriers to entry.

Currently I see time attack requires a license, which in our region, requires a formal school to be taken, and then a day of on track evaluation, followed by a license issued and being allowed to be timed at a future event. So one day of class, one day of on track evaluation, and then next event, which is too late to run a full season, ur allowed to time attack.

My understanding is: ASN requires a license for time attack, and ends it at that, leaving how the license is issued up to the regional body; hence it's WCMA's decision on how they issue licenses. Yet across Canada we have some huge inconsistencies with licensing, and we've ended up with a region that has a ton of extra hoops to jump though comparatively, some of which I have a hard time understanding why we even bother when others do not.

- Ontario time attack licenses (Class C license) requires a licensing fee, and someone to observe and sign off at track. no school required
- ASN rally licenses require a fee, a medical form, and first aid. no school, no sign off/evaluation.
- Time attack has been run in Alberta before without a school or licensing under a track's insurance policy. The safety statistics are surprising.
- Everyone gets a license regardless of how well they do in a school. I bet you could go back a decade and not find one person that failed to get a solo1 license. It's not how you do or what you do that matters, or even if you paid attention, it's that you spent 2 days of time and paid a fee that matters.
- Its fine for non official times to be done by anyone except an organizer at lapping events, so with technology improving daily, we already could see someone like myself or a group of drivers set up a timing station on the side of the track or broadcast online, and time every single person with a semi official time, and that's fine, but as soon as an organizer does that, its taboo? Illogical. I know insurance goes up for timed events, but insurance costs and requiring extra hoops are separate topics.

What I would like to see is:

-Scrap the school requirement (it's flat out not needed under ASN; ontario doesn't require it, not even rally requires it. Everything taught in the school to do with safety can be taught during a mandatory driver meeting, call the drivers meeting an informal school if u like. flags, course layout, rules of the event, basic line explanation, using markers, etc doesn't take long to run through if you stick to the facts). I have no problem and support encouraging people to attend a non required school session, if they choose to, but please don't make it required to get an official time when other regions don't and everyone passes anyway.
- Keep the on track evaluation by an instructor, just for educational purposes and because race control can't see the whole track to evaluate someone. I don't see this as a barrier to entry.
- They should get their license as soon as they are signed off on. This means they should start getting times as soon as the instructor signs off on them. Not at the next event. Its painful to see a guy you know has run dozens of lapping and time attack events, who's absolutely flying and showing upper level car control and driver skill, who isn't allowed times because of.... I have no idea. Why make them wait?


I've been doing motorsports for about a decade now, with some years with over 25 events per year locally, blah blah blah, and i've seen how a lot of different groups run their events. The safest events with the least incidents i've seen have not been the non timed lapping days, nor has it been the WCMA licensed time attack, nor has it even been the solo 2 autocross events. Oddly enough, it was the time attack run without licensing or school requirement that had the best statistics and safest record. They ran it for 8 years or so, with not one car written off, and only minor damage done to a handful of vehicles; and I attended almost every single event since the beginning of that series. At autocross, WCMA licensed time attack, and even lapping days numerous cars have had enough damage done to them that they'd be deemed total losses by insurance, if they had insurance. That should be enough to re-evaluate how things are done here as maybe what is viewed as the safest method isn't, and maybe what is viewed as not a safe option, is actually safer and mitigates risk more.

Bottom line is I'd like to see motorsport grow and making it easier for people to get into it casually rather then building unnecessary walls and making it so only dedicated people can play is the way to do that. Not everyone is as dedicated to this sport as some of us are (otherwise there'd be no need for lapping/time attack/autocross/karting and everyone would be road racing semi/pro teams) but they'd still be welcome additions, and they just might get addicted.

And at the very least I'd like to see some dialog on this.