...I was referring to the concept of circumventing "The Spirit Of The Rules" in order to gain points...
OK, I understand what you are saying.
I guess the problem is that it's hard to legislate the "intention" of a competitor or the "spirit" of a rule. Funny thing is, people disagree on what the spirit is/was and state their intentions as different from what you think their intention was.
A safe haven for those who have the bad luck to be asked to decide what someone elses intention was or if the spirit of a rule (without the spirit being agreed on) is to uphold the rule as written and not try to add additional interpretations to it.
I can't say I would have decided it better than they did. I may have decided it
differently but who is to say that a different intrepretation would have been a
better interpretation. Surely some would have been pleased but then surely others would have been unhappy.
When one person intreprets a rule and deviates from the letter of the rule to a "spirit" of the rule in which he defines that spirit then he is flirting with danger. His "spirit" interpretation may have all, or nothing in common with anothers and who is to say which is more valid? When someone deviates from the written rule and intreprets it to their understanding of the spirit (which differes from your idea on the spirit) then how can that be defended? If everybody agreed on the spirit then it's easy, but not everybody agrees on the spirit of the rule, as evidenced by the fact that this whole thing even happened in the first place.
There is one thing that everybody agreed on, and that is the wording in the rule book. When the board followed it in making their decision they acted on our stated wishes. We now look back and say "that's not what we meant" but it is what we said. The rule book will be changed to properly reflect the wishes of the majority and this is a good thing. But, I don't believe it is fair to fault the board for making a decision based on the written and agreed upon framework for conducting our events. You may have decided it differently, as I may have, but their decision can be rationally defended based on all the facts presented at the board meeting (which differ from the ones presented here).
Also, keep in mind that the decision was on the filed protest. The protest specifically addressed the fire system on the car and the engine class. I don't know anybody who does agree that things could have been handled differently in the initial tech on the car.
As a quick test, does the "spirit" of the Gas/Fuel rule prevent a gas powered car from running as a fuel car to run on a softer record? How is this different? Does the V4F engine class allow you to add additional main bearings to your pre-35 ford flathead to add strength, thus allowing more boost/nitro and therefore more speed and more points? How is this different?
Just more ramblings to think about.
Regards,
John
