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Timing and Scoring 6.11 Page 42

We had an incident on Fridays first run group in CSP were Ian Baker had installed a pre-warmed set of tires on his car. It caught my eye only because the tires were pre-wrapped in insulating blankets (he drove the car onto grid on Dirt Stockers). I went over and touched the tires and they were pretty hot so I asked how he got them so hot. Ian told me that they were in a car with the heater running for two hours.

I was going to protest but got talked out of it by the chief of impound with the reasoning that a thirty-seven cent letter is far less expensive than a hundred and sixty dollar protest in case it does not go my way. Ian didn’t place and was behind me in the standings.

I would like the rulebook to state that you can’t do what Ian did by changing the wording from “similar means” to “other means”.

What Ian did was definitely “pre-heating” his tires but was it “similar”?  I think it was without a doubt in my mind but the way the rules are written it leaves some room for human error.

Vince Russell

CSP 92

If you design an insulating skirt that includes the exhaust would that be excluded by your rewording?

Dan Cernese:

If you design an insulating skirt that includes the exhaust would that be excluded by your rewording?

In years past, folks with the full skirts were told that they may NOT run their cars while the car was skirted. The Eguina/Berry ESP Camaro had the skirt but they kept the engine off whenever it was around the car, for example.

As far as the pre-heating of tires, if I was on the PC and someone protested another driver for keeping the tires in a hotter-than-ambient environment until just before running, I would consider that to be "similar means" to individual tire heaters.

But that's just my personal opinion, not anything that could be remotely considered official.

Duplicate post deleted except that I can't delete it... so it's just being edited.

Zauskycop:

I saw a mini in grid with insulating sponges wrapped around the car at the base of the skirts to the ground, and then tire blankets put on.  And running.  Any heat from underneath the car was trapped and it looked pretty effective to me...

It was my understanding from past events that a runnign vehicle with a wrap around the tires constitutes active warming. However, if there's no wrap around it and just warmers over the tires and the car's running, that's ok. Just like tires in a car with the heater on is ok.

My 2 cents. I always make sure my friends have their cars off if they have a wrap anyway. But I can fit my 4 tires in my miata with the heater on and top up if I want. Why not? I could leave it running a whole heat if I wanted :) Might be a heatsoaked motor, but hey :) lol

David Hedderick 

Zauskycop:

I saw a mini in grid with insulating sponges wrapped around the car at the base of the skirts to the ground, and then tire blankets put on.  And running.  Any heat from underneath the car was trapped and it looked pretty effective to me...

The words "active heating" or "active warming" would be a good idea as well.

The problem as I see it is that the wording "similar" could mean different thing to different people. "Other" (in context) is quite a bit more clear.

The other problem is keeping the rule book as short and simple as possible.

Vince Russell 92 CSP

Zauskycop:

I saw a mini in grid with insulating sponges wrapped around the car at the base of the skirts to the ground, and then tire blankets put on.  And running.  Any heat from underneath the car was trapped and it looked pretty effective to me...

Hey ! i cut up a perfectly good mattress to make those sponges, and then slept with my tires all night, alltho i didn't run the car while it was wrapped, on friday some friends droped by and put the rears on just before i went out, i would guess that they were probably 60 degrees or so when i left grid , but by the time i got to the start probably not much heat left in them at all,, the car sure didn't handle like their was..

i should of just swaped tires with one of the two driver cars as soon as they got back to grid,, wonder if that would be legal,  running at 8:00 am in september on asphalt is a lot different than on concrete, the asphalt gets so much hotter in the sunlight than the crete, so when those cool nights come it sucks a lot more moisture out of the air, then you end up running on a damp surface, and if it is overcast it takes for ever to dry out, running first heat at HPT makes a two driver or allwheel drive car much more of an advantage than at forbes

ChrisFranson:

Zauskycop:

I saw a mini in grid with insulating sponges wrapped around the car at the base of the skirts to the ground, and then tire blankets put on.  And running.  Any heat from underneath the car was trapped and it looked pretty effective to me...

IIRC that wrapped cars, with engines running, have been protested in the past as having active tire warming. Those protests were upheld.

We ran 4th heat in DSP, and wrapped the car each day but I was fanatical about being sure the engine was off before doing so. I'm sure my co-driver is now very glad I was so paranoid.

Mike Shields:

ChrisFranson:

Zauskycop:

I saw a mini in grid with insulating sponges wrapped around the car at the base of the skirts to the ground, and then tire blankets put on.  And running.  Any heat from underneath the car was trapped and it looked pretty effective to me...

IIRC that wrapped cars, with engines running, have been protested in the past as having active tire warming. Those protests were upheld.

We ran 4th heat in DSP, and wrapped the car each day but I was fanatical about being sure the engine was off before doing so. I'm sure my co-driver is now very glad I was so paranoid.

We were fanatical about it and I wouldn't have run the car with the wrap around. However, we did ponder a quirk... what's fully wrapped? would a 1" gap somewhere mean the car's not fully wrapped?

 

I personally would have strongly considered filing a protest against a car wrapped with the engine running. As for Ian Baker's arrangement, it'd be pretty close to impossible to enforce a rule preventing that. What happens if someone was storing his or her car in one of the rented garages, which was warmer than a car that sat outside overnight? How do we distinguish between the two conditions?

Edit: the phrase "other means" is far too vague. It is my interpretation that my above listed example would fall under the term "other means." There's no way to ensure that every competitor's tires are the same temperature. Taking it even further (and this is way out there), I'd say that using the term "other means" would also conflict with the allowance to have a co-driver.

Mike Shields:

Were you on the PC at some time recently? It seems like you've been thinking about these sorts of things lately :)

I too thought that Ians idea was pretty ingenious and a way thinking outside of the box. I saw him working on his "blankets" on Wednesday evening and even helped him with part of the design. I did not see this as an active tire warming issue.

While I did not go to this much trouble in making a heat retention blanket, ( I used the traditional covers) I too stored my tires in the hotel room on Thursday evening and kept them in the warmth of my tow vehicle until about 15-20 minutes before we ran. I did not see this as a mechanical way of actually warming the tires. Yes, they were warmer than had they been on the car sitting in 45-48*F temps. Were they warm enough to have any positive affect on the conditions under which they were being run? I think not as by the time we made it from grid to the course the effects were absolutely negligible and the car was undriveable on the 1st set of runs given the ambient temp, the temp of the surface and the cold temp of the tires.

Vince, if you had a problem with a competitor you should have talked to him about it and if you thought it was a rules infraction then protested whether or not he was ahead of or behind you. Rules are rules whether or not they affect you directly or not.

FWIW:I saw cars later in the day who had total vehicle wraps which I remember as being illegal. Maybe because those cars were not running while wrapped was this not an issue.

The idea behind the active tire warmer rule was that it was a cost and availability issue for all competitors and the fact that the SCCA did not want generators that power the warmers operating in grid during competition.

Maybe the only solution to this is to ban all tire warmers, blankets, covers etc and move the Solo Nationals back 2 weeks to its original date so that we can all experience warmer conditions.

Mike
csp34 ( csp84 for Nationals )
 

The tire warming rules are pretty much limited to what you can do on the grid.  No active warming and that includes running the car with it wrapped.  The engine actively generates heat so that is illegal.   But what you can do before coming to grid is up for grabs.  It would be very difficult to regulate what someone did with their car or tires before coming to grid.  

 The one thing I see that might be a good idea is to include "tires" along with the car as to when it must report to grid.  That would prevent someone from using active heaters in their rented garage and running them over to be fitted just before a run when the car was still sitting on grid to comply with the sups. 

I've heard the "no control over what happens before the car comes to grid" argument from a few people including Ian (I think it was Ian) but I can't find that in the rulebook.

What's to say that I can't put my tires/rims in a warming box and get them up to 160 degrees before gridding? Would that fall under "ingenious" or "cheating"?

About my rulebook comment. I'm not saying it's not there, I just can't find it.

Vince

Steve Hoelscher:

The tire warming rules are pretty much limited to what you can do on the grid.  No active warming and that includes running the car with it wrapped.  The engine actively generates heat so that is illegal.   But what you can do before coming to grid is up for grabs.  It would be very difficult to regulate what someone did with their car or tires before coming to grid.  

 The one thing I see that might be a good idea is to include "tires" along with the car as to when it must report to grid.  That would prevent someone from using active heaters in their rented garage and running them over to be fitted just before a run when the car was still sitting on grid to comply with the sups. 

you had better make that tires on the car, not in the car , which is how i brought my two back ones with me to grid

Wow, good conversation.  I wondered what the point was of wrapping the whole car with the engine NOT running, as several of my competitors did this.  I know it's totally legal, just wondered the benefit.  I guess the engine would give off heat after it's shut off, but that seems pretty negligible.  I used tire blankets, car shut off.  But I did pull the right front and placed it in the sun before running.  That would seem to be inactive warming, I think. 

Now, I previously would have considered placing tires in a running car prior to running "actively" warming.  Placing tires in a non-running car would be inactive.  But arguments about garages, hotel rooms and policing these actions has me wondering....

Maybe I need to create and patent a foldable tire warmer, complete with cigarette adapter for juice.  I could sell a million in Topeka LOL. 

 This whole subject is pretty sticky, pardon the pun.