cams and roll bars and drifting :(

[Cal]

I'm fairly certain you would be fine in a Sparco seat bolted to the floor with a Brown Davis. Cheapest easiest solution.

Cal.

[bpt4w]

lol i already have that , did a test with me sitting on the floorboards no seat and helmet on and i still didn't pass by the screwts standards.

[PeterB]

I was rejected by scrutineers at Wakefield Park on Sunday (state round supersprint) as I could not comply with the ruling (I am 6').

I had entered my road registered NA with Brown Davis roll-bar, standard seat, and factory hardtop fitted. It has been engineered in the ACT and is road legal. Having a factory hardtop fitted makes no difference to the ruling.

I and several friends tried the car and none of us can meet the CAMS requirement in a road legal car that can have the roof fitted.

The only option for me is to have a special bar made and fit only for CAMS events (may be tricky to get CAMS compliance on the bar), use a thin fibreglass seat bolted straight to the floor (not road legal and impractical to drive) or trade the MX5 in on a sedan which is easily made compliant.

Mike was very helpful (thanks Mike) but the scrutineers hands were tied.

The various clubs are discussing with CAMS, but for now I cannot make my road legal car compliant for CAMS events.

Luckily I have \"Diet Fanta\" - (half the car it used to be) in preparation and will use that for future events, but it is an issue for any sports car owner who wants to keep a car road legal, but still run CAMS events.

[bigdog]

Guys, having taken on the might of CAMS on two occasions in the past and won I would suggest that what is required is a petition from eeach state club with as many signatures as possible asking CAMS to reword their manual to specifically exclude road registered sports cars from the roll bar 2\" height clearance ruling, perhaps substituting words to the effect -
\"For all speed events except circuit racing, in the case of road registered sports cars the ROPS must be constructed to maximum height available whilst still enabling the orignal soft or hard top to clear the structure, with each driver to sign a disclaimer prior to competition acknowledging the increased risk of injury this may present.\"
This should be submitted to the CEO and each of the state motor racing panels with a request for an immediate change to the rule, and the alternative of a state wide supersprint championship run under AASA permits should also be widely discussed and considered. I am unaware of any accident occasioning harm to any MX5 driver engaged in lower level motor sport as a result of their ROPS - and if this is the case that should be pointed out to CAMS in the strongest terms possible.
You can beat these bastards, but you have to tough and organised to do it.
Here endeth the lesson....

[bpt4w]

yeah i did hear about cams looking at something to do with making road legal cars , able to run in certain events , but as usual the cams curtain came down on one set of rules but didn't get the other set (right hand don't know what left hand is doing thing) .

i think various clubs are already in discussion with cams already , its is resonable for cams to cover its ass for racing accidents ect , but just slapping on more rules over more classes isn't the way. Yes i do agree with the exeption clause that you sign away your rights if you get hurt , since if you want to go fast you take the risk on yourself and should pay the cost if anything happens , whether it be car damage or self damage, crowd damage is a track thing ,thats why they put \"motor racing is dangerous \" ect ect on the tickets so if you get hurt its not there fault .

i really think it has to do a lot with the insurance companies and legal aspects rather than safety these days.

[Li7hium]

I was at the Supersprints at Wakefield yesterday when the rules concerned affected two participants.

The first, driving a road registered red NA from Canberra, was unable to participate, despite having a roll bar, because of the 2\" rule. He simply was too tall. It seemed like such a shame for him.

The second, driving a road registered BRG NB, was able to take advantage of some apparent recent decision of CAMS that the 2\" was from top of head to roll bar and not top of helmet to roll bar.

Finally I caught up with AIrwin83 who passed on another nasty rumour of further proposed CAMS changes so that the helmet has to also be 2\" from the vertical portions of the roll bar. Given the dimensions of our cars and wanting to keep the softop or use a hardtop on our road registered MX5s, it seems likely that it will be impossible to install a roll bar which will meet all of these criteria and remain road registrable.

The death of the road registered CAMS approved MX5?

Matt

[CT]

The exception clause means nothing in a legal sense which is why CAMS make us build cars to their specs etc etc to mitigate the risk. The scrutineers are the insurance for the insurance - if you get my drift? (poor pun)

Now, the only simple solution I see at the moment if it can accommodate you, is to use a bolt in seat for competition. I certainly did this for the year I won my class in the supersprints and it gives an easy 3-4 inch drop from the stock seat. Especially if you bolt it to the floor without runners - side mounts work best, and get a seat with removable padding. The ADRs around seats are actually very liberal and any FIA spec seat is OK in NSW regstration wise last time I checked. So, if plod does crack a nana - he's stuffed. And let's face it, if you are on the way to a sprint with R-tyres on, race seat and harness fitted, you'd be deadset unlucky to come across an RTA inspection station for hoons - unless you go via Sans Souci perhaps....

NA owners can fit a flat bottom steering wheel and angle the seat back - that might get some extra height as well. Or, save up for my race car - on sale later this year.

[Okibi]

ORRRR ..

Brown Davis make a larger CAMs approved roll bar (2 1/2\" over the roof line to be safe) and another company designs a hard top that fits over this higher roll bar.

[bigdog]

Chris' solution will work for under 6 foot brigade, but I doubt it will work for those over that - I sat in Nick & Matilda's car at Mania the other day and no way would I pass with a helmet on. I now have a race seat that I fit into and will fit this the car shortly and see how it measures up as far as roll bar height goes, but I have real doubts that it will be enough to pass scrutineering for a CAMS event (not that I intend too anyway...).

My concern is that once again CAMS are ruining motorsport for the grass roots competitor in the name of 'safety' when there is no problem evident - where are the statisitics that prove we should ban MX5s from competition unless they are pupose built race cars?? I suspect they are stored with a variety of chicken's teeth, rocking horse excrement and airborn people!

[Brian]

As this ruling is specifically for State level and above speed events I suggest that the MX5, Lotus Elises and Clubmans move from the State Superspint championships to multiclub events. These vehicles make up a significant proportion of the fields at these events.

There are a number of other series or even start another series.

Alternatively the MX5 club could expand its track days to include an event at EC or Oran Park on a Monday.

I like BIgdog's suggestion but taking our business elsewhere also talks volumes.

Cheers

Brian

[Brian]

Another thing is that Historics are excluded from the rules and yet Historic cars are inheritly more unstable than a modern convertible and are more likely to roll over.

In recent times a couple of historics drivers in open cars have been killed but they aren't legislated against.

Cheers

Brian

[greenMachine]

Brian, you make some good points.

However, we can try and hide from the real world for only so long. That is, these cars DO fall over, mainly because we push them hard, and accidents will happen - Murphys Law

Regardless, the steady tightening of safety requirements is not going to be reversed any time this side of the next ice age, the only question seems to be when it is going to squeeze us out. Sidestepping CAMS will certainly work for the short term, but is that a year, or ...? (I know that Wakefield management were very sensitive to this issue after a Sprite rolled there last year).

I can see a case for exempting unmodded, road registered cars on proper street tyres (not R-spec) from the requirement. But once you mod the car, you are playing in a whole new pond, and there are rules there - for your (our) protection, and the protection of our sport.

I think our energy should go into looking at how we can comply with the spirit and the purpose of the rules, because sooner or later these rules (or more draconian ones) will catch up with us.

I know the rules as framed do not give a lot of encouragement but, for starters, could we engineer a bolt-on extension to our BDs? Or how about a new design mounted on the bulkhead behind the seats, perhaps in such a way as to allow it to be raised and lowered (yes, the stays would be a challenge, but how hard would it be to make them better than the way our BDs are stayed now?).

I know the rules do not permit such things right now, but if we are talking road registered production cars - not formula !, or even clubmen (ie Lotus), we need to find a way of keeping our cars in motorsport, not just for today, or even next year, but whilever the tyres hold pressure, and the oil keeps pumping.

Where there is a will, ...

(steps off soapbox)

[bigdog]

I think our energy should go into looking at how we can comply with the spirit and the purpose of the rules, because sooner or later these rules (or more draconian ones) will catch up with us.

Yes but why should they greenMachine? I can build an ultralight airplane in my garage, and fly it with very little restriction and absolutely no safety whatsoever. Around 20 people a year are killed flying ultralight aircraft. Does the Government, Coroner, Police or anybody call for them to be banned?? No! Why, because there is no national body representing these people and they could never police the ruling anyway.

Motorsport on the other hand is a soft target. We have a national representative body Who are easily criticised by all the above authorities whenever anyone is injured or killed, despite the fact that statistics prove our sport is safer than most, including rugby league. At the bottom line here is an attitude that says risk is abhorent and unacceptable. Taken to its logical end CAMS will only be happy when our cars are speed limited and preceded by a chap at walking pace waving a red flag to warn others of our approach, because that my friends is a world without risk.

We live in a real world where we take significant risks every day. My daily commute along the M4 (three accidents tonight in 20 kms involving 12 odd cars, 2 yesterday, and at least one every other day) sees me exposed to far greater risk of death or injury than I could ever be exposed too on the race track, yet CAMS refuse to see and understand this, and continue to insist that we can't take responsibility for our own choices. Take a look overseas and you will note a vastly different attitude to this in most western nations, especially the UK. For some reason CAMS thinks we are special and different...

So, with that I will climb off my soap box and ask the nice men in white coats to take me back to my lovely padded room so I can't inadvertantly injure myself

[bpt4w]

k were all getting a bit hot under the collar now i think (what cams discussion dosen't) and i think a lot of good idea's have been raised. Yes CAMS is a bunch of idiots with a safety manual and a legal team and no these rules shouldn't be slathered on all class racing (maybe starting at state v state lvl racing but no lower) . There are good idea's for removable extention bars (which i think could work if done right) and a few idea's for the shorties to fit in there car better.

In the end i think that cams will change the rules just to stop the death of certain classes which are heavily populated with mx5's and to make sure the money goes to them and not rouge operators (all un sanctioned non cams event lol ) . There is no other model specific car club as strong as the mx5 clubs of australia and since they are heavily linked to motorsport in all levels i seriously doubt that CAMS will persist with this idiocy for long.

to give you an idea of the presure that CAMS is under heres a thought , we are the most legislative country in the world , with more cases per capita in the world for suing (spelling ?)people , USA is a distant second compared to us , so the insurance companies tend to lean on the really conservative side and since they are the ones that save CAMS ass in a sling , they will listen to them first and us second and it won't even out till a legal ruling can be made or a agreement made with the insurance brokers , so don't think to bad of CAMS they are just covering there privates incase someone takes a kick at them.

[rain902]

hmm yeah it does doesn't it , wonder if thats cams legal would make it a lot easier on us tallies.

sure is, and it sure would