Changing a long-established practice is never easy. However positive the new proposal sounds, there will inevitably be some who believe that the traditional method is best. That’s why, for a change to be successful, it needs to be tested, considered and discussed with the key stakeholders, rather than being rushed into. And that careful process is exactly what Motorsport UK is undertaking when it comes to revolutionising its approach to scrutineering.
Autosport outlined last year how the governing body was trialling a new system where, instead of the pre-pandemic situation of every single car at a meeting being given a six-minute check before qualifying, 25% of entries (either chosen randomly from all competitors or all cars from certain categories are selected) are given a more extensive 15-minute examination. Around 100 events were run in such a manner last year and there was some very positive feedback. The trial is now continuing into this season, ahead of Motorsport UK finalising proposals for 2024.
But, alongside the method of scrutineering being assessed, a new scrutineering vehicle database is also going to be piloted in the second half of this year. The database is designed to provide a record of faults found on a particular car, and means that, for machines raced across multiple clubs, instructions from scrutineers are not lost when the driver subsequently competes elsewhere.
“The consistency of keeping on top of the standard of vehicle preparation and making sure issues that are identified are resolved can become quite disjointed if there isn’t the same scrutineering group each weekend with super short-term memory to remember every fire extinguisher that needed a service the last week to make sure it’s been done,” says Motorsport UK technical director Ian Smith. “So this centralised scrutineering vehicle database is going to give all of the scrutineers an opportunity to access a digital record for each car.
“We would absolutely encourage scrutineers to apply some pragmatism and a little bit of leeway where it’s appropriate and this gives them a way of doing that with some reassurance. If a scrutineer says to a competitor, ‘You must sort that by next time’, they’ll be held accountable because there’s a record the next scrutineer can check.”
For the initial launch, the focus is very much on simplicity. When consulting with the race committee on the plans, there was a clear message about the need to avoid any additional burden on competitors, clubs or scrutineers. Therefore, initially, the database will just record the make and model of a car and give an event history of any faults found.
“The point is, it doesn’t matter who the driver is, it’s a very simplified record that is associated with a unique identifier for that vehicle,” explains Smith. “Keeping it simple makes perfect sense, but there’s the opportunity to expand it as far as we feel, collectively, we want to go.”
Source: Autosport