SCCA approves 15 yr olds

Richard Broadhead

Richard Broadhead

Flag & Com
A decision from the weekend SCCA board meeting:

Minimum Driver Age
The Board approved a proposal to lower the minimum age requirement for participation in Club Racing to 15 years old on a conditional basis. Drivers must have previous racing experience (ie. karts, midgets, etc.) and must be pre-approved by their Divisional Licensing Representative. These drivers will be under strict scrutiny of event officials. Full details are requirements will be available in the December Fastrack News.

Hmmm.... mixed feelings on that.
 
Here is my Nickels Worth (maybe there a newspaper column there for me).

We need new blood in ICSCC. I doubt anyone would argue that.

A way to do that is recruit young. Problem is too young is stupid. 15 falls into that catagory to me.

BUT, maybe 16 or 17 does fit the bill. But have them run in Novice until they are 18.

I am done now and promise not to drawl on.
 
Many of the junior series like Formula BMW are filled with 16 to 19 years old kids. Quite a few of them are mature and drive really well, but 15 is too young in my opinion.
It is very difficult to handle the injury or death of a fellow racer, but we're all older and that seems to make it more acceptable somehow. But seeing a teenager injured, or worse, would be tough for me personally to deal with. I thought 16 was pushing it in SCCA, but all of us are reaching out for fresh blood, no pun intended, and that is a new market for sure. I don't agree with this, and I don't think we should follow suit.
 
westipton said:
.... seeing a teenager injured, or worse, would be tough for me personally to deal with..
Click to expand...

Agree with that completely Wes. Earlier in the year, we had a fund raiser on Apexspeed to help out the family of a 13 year old girl who was seriously burned in her 1st ever midget race (due to NO track side emergancy response being on site). That was heart wrenching. We don't need it.

Maybe 16 IF you have prior experience in Karts or circle track. But 18 is better.
 
This just keeps resurfacing year after year and people are really passionate about it. At the current time, this is really kind of out of our control if I understand the problem correctly.

The State of Washington won't allow a minor to sign away his rights, so any kind of waiver is absolutely useless. They are deemed not to have the experience or foresight to make good decisions for themselves as a point of law. This has been verified in the courts repeatedly.

That same minor's guardians ALSO do not have the right to sign away their children's rights as repeatedly upheld by the courts.

Allowing a minor (yes, anyone under 18) to drive in Conference essentially means in the eyes of the law we are allowing a person with zero legal responsibility and unlimited legal rights be covered under our insurance. We would be accepting all responibility by the mere act of allowing them on the track.
 
My experence

In Texas many teens have a driver’s license at 15 (hardship) and also carry guns (shot guns) in the vehicle as they hunt, not a good combination but it is allowed. Since the rules in NASA were that you had to have a driver’s license to participate made my choice somewhat difficult for my daughter. As the driver’s education program was/is pretty bad in Texas and there was no way that I was allowing my daughter out on the streets without some driving experience. So I let her get her license at 16 but not drive on the roads until she got into the most advanced HPDE level at NASA. The driving experience that she gained going through the HPDE sessions at NASA was a great learning experience, she learned what happens when you go off the road at high speeds, and she understands what to do in turns and how to correct the car when there is under/over steer. She has seen firsthand what happens when you make a mistake out on the track with other drivers on the same track. I made here stay at the HPDE level 4 until she was 18 (this year) before advancing to get her Time Trials license. I did not feel right letting her out on the track with alone in a full race situation as she did not have enough experience to think about situations that could put her or others in jeopardy. I had her checked out every weekend by instructors to make sure that she did not pick up any bad habits driving alone, made her watch her in car videos (which I assume she just did to please me). So I’m happy the way that her driving skills have turned out, and I think that this is due to the track time that she has had over the past 2 years.

So I wish that she could have started some level of HPDE before she was 16 and had her driver’s license, so I would be in favor of that but not to give them a rookie license at 15 (rookies in NASA run with all the other), as this is not a good age to give someone that much responsibility as there are others out on the track that you have to think about. So I would not be in favor of this rule change if it applied to race licenses as well as HPDE.
 
the formula tr series was open to 14 year olds in the 1600 and 16 year olds in the 2liter cars 15 if you ran in 1600 as a 14 year old and the level of racing for kids that age was incredible many of the past champions have moved on to bigger and better things. unfortunately the series is no longer and the venues for young aspiring drivers is limited. So if they can show a level of maturety and keep their nose clean on the track why not?
 
I recall a ridiculous number of incidents in those series, especially in the first few corners.

When I was that age, it's not that I remember feeling invincible so much as the thought of getting hurt or killed (or causing property damage, etc) through my own actions never even entered my mind.
 
I ran 2 and 3 car teams in that series for 4 years. 16 races a year for 4 years we might of had 2 or 3 turn 1 incidents. you must be thinking of star mazda series where you have to be 16.
 
When was it? Portland Champ Car supporting races in 2007(?) Two races-DNF (for all practicalities, for the whole field)?
 
Ken, what was the series that had the BIG HUGE 20 FEET IN THE AIR MASSIVE DEBRIS snafu on the back straight?
Remember, The Powers To Be would not give the order to stop the cars on course so Turn 6 called to Turn 8 to get out there and stop them? (ya Holly rocked)
There were young ones in that group.
 
I'm nearly positive it was Formula TR that was a special race group at a Conference week-end in Portland where I saw 4 cars take each other out in the chicane on lap 1. (Definitely not Star Mazda.) Might've been 2004 or 2005, but I don't recall.
 
You are right, Steve. There were two different 'special race' events at PIR, actually. 2005-2006, I think.

Once upon an event, we extracted one from the Chicane pea gravel (so that was still there, then) and he continued, we followed in Safety (the course had gone BFA, I believe), as he went around T6, which was displaying a waving yellow flag for the another car that had spun and was parked at the exit of T6, on course about 160 degrees out of phase. So the young genious that we are following goes around the turn (not even very fast), sees the car, wiggles the steering a bit trying to decide which way to go around the spun car and drives straight into the it. SMACK! Now we needed two wreckers to recover the vehicles, after we got them untangled . As thats going on, I get one of the 'hot shoes' in Safety with me, and I ask how he's doing/feeling/no pain...so on. He says he's okay, but is more concerned with how much it's going to cost to get the car back on the track the next time.

Just go push the "Daddy, fix it" reset button. Some of these kids already had coaches. Not for driving, but for image, and PR. So there was that 'pampered' situation that may have contributed to the overall attitude.

Yeah, they've gotta learn it someplace, I suppose. Karting, I think, would be a better environment. Those Formula TR cars were obviously a bit "over their heads" (Sorry, Bonnie)
 
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Base Comm gave it over the landline, but, I was also snooping on the FM I believe, and it hadn't gotten relayed to the pacecar...and we weren't getting any stoppage from like apex of turn 5 to like apex of 7. I knew Dom was in 8, and I knew he'd get er stopped. Wasn't that also the group that did a weird red or black or something...

I remember another one of their races when they were there just with a regular Cascade race, again I was at T6, in the rain. They would spin and hit, spin and hit, I had something like 4 incidents at once, and the drivers would get out of the cars and run away....

I used to feel bad for the seasoned racers in that series...George Latus (Latus HD and ex Formula Ford(or other OW)) raced that series, he had a lot of fun with it as I recall. But, at Portland they were just a crash fest.
 
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I remember when my dad (Scott Hanken) was working at turn nine when we where under a full course caution when to of the later cars came flying around turn 8 and made contact just past the turn nine station and launched one of the tr's in the air about 12 feet before it came straight down on its top and slide all the down to the 400marker. 15 is just to young in my opinion. This coming from someone who is just 23. The focus level is just not quite there yet.
 
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