How are you guys in other areas handling driver weigh in? Before the race, after the race, both?
If someone is underweight after the race, how picky are you about the driver being light? What if you are pretty sure the driver was good at the start but now an hour later they are a pound light, do you DQ them or let them win?
Do you have a system in place to keep the drivers from picking up weight after the race? Here is sometimes gets rather hectic with crew, family and observers all gathering around.
I do not think the two or three pounds someone sweats off during an event should affect their placing in a heat. Or even 5 pounds if they weighed 180 pounds with balast at the dropping of the green flag.
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Racing is real competition and everything else is just a game.
Do you weigh drivers directly before the races? In the NW we usually only weigh the winners (ocasionally everyone to keep the field honest) after the race. There is a couple hour window before the race that driver weight could change in if we were to weigh in durring check in.
In Ne. drivers are weighed before a rally with their helmet not weighed after. I've never heard complaints. Sounds like a non issue to me. Ask board member Steve Anderson, he's from Ne. & head of Powerdrive.
In our series we have scales at the finish line and must pull to a stop next them and instantly weigh ourselves after the race and it works pretty good. They are very strict on the exact weight which makes sense. If its a hot day go a little over on weight so you know you will be good. Rules are rules and no one should be given a 3 pound leeway.
-- Edited by jakeb2011 on Thursday 25th of February 2010 09:04:18 PM
In Ne. drivers are weighed before a rally with their helmet not weighed after. I've never heard complaints. Sounds like a non issue to me. Ask board member Steve Anderson, he's from Ne. & head of Powerdrive.
It would be interesting how many of the drivers actually hit the 180 lb weight limit at the end of a race. Either by intentionally leaving ballast out of the cars or by unintentional sweat loss of water.
I guess one of the questions here is does the 180 lb driver rule apply to the driver only at the beginning of the race or throughout the entire race. It would also be very easy for the driver to have 5 lbs in his pockets durring weigh in and then remove it prior to the race (just as we have seen drivers pick up weight that was not in their car after the race and before weigh in). The purpose of the post race weigh in is to ensure no one has shed ballast weight prior to the race.
Driver weight just has not been an issue in Iowa or Nebraska and in Iowa teams have been checked before and a heat event on scales brought onto the track after the heat. No cheating on weight here, just very plainly a non-issue.
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Racing is real competition and everything else is just a game.
Aaron I like our method of checking after the race and drivers have to be within 1 pound of the 180 at the end of the race. I know that some of my kids have been 'DQed' this way on hot days when they sweat off weight but I tell them that they need to weigh extra at the beginning and if not they will end up in last place with a DQ.
While this is kind of a non issue for me (couldn't get down to 180lb if I tried) It is an issue for my son and daughter..... my answer is to add an extra 5-7 lbs of ballast just to be safe....
The rules say 180lb therefor 180 should be what you have to weigh at the end of a race.
We have never had a problem with being underweight due to the "extra" ballast, and if you are a decent driver you can maintain your speed and not burn "energy" accelerating..... the only place weight is a problem is excellerating or going up hill... otherwise Newtons laws of motion are still in effect as far as I can tell (an object in motion tends to stay in motion)
And even I (at 260lbs) have finished with more laps than 180lb with ballast drivers.... I am not that good of a driver, I just try to be smooth and at an even speed.
