Calm down folks, don't panic, stay cool.
The Mojave Mile rules that you've been
flaming commenting on, are marked "preliminary" for a reason. If you check the website, you'll see that they've been pulled for rework. I'm willing to admit that maybe the book was a bit too "preliminary" to have been released.
Oh - forgot to introduce myself, my name is Keith, and I'm the "K" in MKM Racing, promoters of the Mojave Mile. I'm largely responsible for the rulebook.
We really do appreciate the commentary. As you know, we don't come from the LSR community. Lacking that background, maybe we missed the mark a bit on the first pass. McRat had an excellent observation, that we appeared to be catering to late model street cars and bikes. He is correct. That is a large part of our target market. However, we certainly aren't out to exclude anyone, or any group as a whole. I'm here to tell you that we're willing to be accomodating. In fact, we're possibly willing to let LSR folks run at our event in a special LSR division which would pretty much use SCTA rules. Would that appeal to you? There are some issues that would have to be worked out. And there are some areas that probably won't be changeable. But I bet we can arrive at an acceptable compromise.
Let me lay out some of our issues for you. The main one is that the layout of this airport isn't a convenient triangle like Maxton, and "our" runway isn't an unused part of it. We don't have the luxury of being able to do whatever we want, off on our side of the field. Both the race runway itself, and the return taxiway, cross other open and possibly active runways. Strict traffic control will be essential, and it is probable that we will have to occasionally stop racing to let a plane land on a cross runway. Worse, the runway that we are racing on is still theoretically available for an emergency landing at any time. We are required to be able to quickly and completely clear the runway with almost no notice. That's why there can't be a bunch of racers lined up on the runway itself. Maybe one or two, that's all. The staging lanes will either be on the taxiway or clear back in the pit area, probably a combination of both. A lot of the issues that you've been complaining about stem from this one major item. It also has a lot to do with why we aren't yet able to cater to spectators. There's just not really any good place to put them.
Now for some specific items: There was comment about push starts not being allowed. I want to be clear here, this is a standing start event. No one is going to get to do a rolling start with a push truck. Having said that, the only problem we have with a simple push start just to get the engine running, is having a good place to do it that won't clog things up. It can't happen on the runway itself. Even if the vehicle just needs a remote starter and not a push, any vehicle that can't restart itself could become a liability if the above-mentioned air emergency happens. We're still not entirely decided as to exactly how the pre-staging lanes are going to work. It's possible that start crews and simple push-starts can somehow be accomodated in future events. But I'll be honest with you, it's probably not going to happen at the first one.
As for bikes and leathers and such - that section of the rules has already been reworked due to popular demand. You won't have to have the CE armor, or any armor. You won't have to have a one piece suit either. A normal two piece zip-together racing suit will be OK. Some of the other esoteric bike stuff has been changed too, like needing only a 15 degree deflection rather than 20.
As for having to drive the vehicle back to the pits - that's been changed too. You can use a tow-back if you wish. It's a bit of a pain because the tow truck will have to go "backwards" up the same taxiway to get to the far end. But enough people asked for it, and we're at least willing to try it.
Now, back to accomodation for LSR racers. We still think that this isn't the right place for some vehicle types such as full streamliners. We're a little skeptical about sidecars too. And we're not sure we want anyone using "fuel". These issues can be discussed in the future. But here's what I've been thinking. We (MKM) would provide two special LSR racing divisions, one each for cars and bikes. Any LSR vehicle that already has a current SCTA logbook and chassis sticker would be eligible to enter, possibly with the requirement for having recently passed an SCTA/BNI/USFRA tech inspection. Might possibly accomodate ECTA too. The key is that, within those divisions, SCTA car prep and safety equipment rules will apply, not the MKM rules in the rest of the rule book. Sound like a possibility? Is this workable?
I have only two areas where the SCTA rules give me pause. One is tire speed limits. We would like to use our list of limits rather than the SCTA list. They're mostly not that dissimilar, but it would mean that (as an example) V rated car tires would be limited to 155. The other area is brakes and stopping. Because of the start line and timing locations we have to use, we have about 4000 feet of stopping distance, with about 600 feet of dirt after that. Cars with the usual (poor) LSR brakes can use chutes. But is a fast LSR bike with no front brake going to eat dirt before it gets stopped? You would know better than we would. But right as of now I'm leaning toward requiring front and rear brakes on all vehicles.
I should point out that we have not formally approached the SCTA about this plan yet. We hope that they will be willing to go along.
Your comments on any of this are most welcome. You can reply here or reach me at KeithU@mojavemile.com. Thanks for your time.