Bravo Flag video - Dana Morrison addresses the 2023 BCCR and the recent Road America protest.

[Bill Strong]

Bravo Flag video - Dana Morrison addresses the 2023 BCCR and the recent Road America protest.

 

 

[Bill Strong]

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/ChampCar-CEO-video-reply-to-the-recent-protest-at-Road-America.html?soid=1102643164160&aid=0c8dw5ji6hY

 

October 14, 2022

 

ChampCar Members,

 

Bravo Flag Video - Dana Morrison discusses a recent rule change and the protest process.

 

ChampCar CEO Dana Morrison with news of a small change to the BCCR that will be published soon and has an update about the recent protest at Road America.

 

The video is hosted on the ChampCar Endurance Series YouTube Channel.

https://youtu.be/DpWxNwmAf9M

 

Email: info@champcar.org

 

2023 BCCR: https://champcar.org/web/pdf/2023_BCCR_v1/2023BCCR_V1_0.pdf

ChampCar Rules Webpage: https://champcar.org/web/rules.php

 

Link to impound protest results: https://champcarenduranceseries.blogspot.com/2022/09/2022-road-america-fall-saturday-protest.html

 

Inside ChampCar Podcast with guest Dana Morrison.

The 2023 Schedule edition

https://anchor.fm/racingwire/episodes/Inside-ChampCar---2023-Schedule-Reveal-and-Pitt-Race-Recap-e1os4nm/a-a8l2faq

 

The 2023 TireRack.com ChampCar Endurance Series Race Schedule is now posted.

https://champcar.org/register/events.php

 

Note: The TireRack.com National Championship will be held at Road Atlanta. 

 

February 4, 2023

MICHELIN RACEWAY ROAD ATLANTA: Test+14-Hour, $1700

Braselton, GA

"The TireRack.com National Championship"

Early Pay Discount Ends: December 6, 2022

 

Sincerely,

 

Bill Strong

Director of Marketing

ChampCar Endurance Series

https://champcar.org

 

--------------------------------------

ChampCar Endurance Series is for people like you that have always wanted to go road racing without all the hassles, huge rulebook, or obscene expense. All you need is a valid driver's license, some safety gear, and a race car, which you can rent from arrive and drive teams or build your own car!

ChampCar is the simplest path to real wheel-to-wheel road racing!

[krusovice]

I listen to the whole video and I don’t feel like I know anything more than I did before except that you can protest at the beginning of a race. So was the road America car legal? Or not

[Still not Bob]

4 minutes ago, krusovice said:

I listen to the whole video and I don’t feel like I know anything more than I did before except that you can protest at the beginning of a race. So was the road America car legal? Or not

I sympathize with your thoughts posted here.  I had to listen to it twice, because it is very rich with information but it keeps going back and forth between the specific situation and hypothetical generic situations.  But after listening to it twice, I concluded that the car was clearly not legal.  There is more discussion of that in the other thread

[enginerd]

3 minutes ago, krusovice said:

I listen to the whole video and I don’t feel like I know anything more than I did before except that you can protest at the beginning of a race. So was the road America car legal? Or not

'Not accurately claimed' is how I would describe it. I added red text to show what Dana said in the video which elaborates on the rulebook text copied below.

 

4.5.6.2. Foreign market engines are permitted as substitutes for US/Canadian engines within the swap rule under the following conditions.

4.5.6.2.1. Foreign market swap engine must be significantly similar to a US/Canadian engine from a vehicle on the VPI list (Same displacement and construction) and be within 3% of the US/Canadian advertised horsepower. Significantly similar (in actual practice according to Dana) means "the same". The original intent of the rule was to allow teams who blew up their engines to replace them with low mileage and cheaper JDM equivalent engines rather than having to buy engines from a US salvage yard with unknown hundreds of thousands of miles. It is very common for identical engines to exist in the US and foreign markets and it is these engines that were intended when the foreign substitute rule was added.

4.5.6.2.2. Teams must use the US/Canadian advertised horsepower in the swap calculator

 

 

Based on the red text meaning of 4.5.6.2.1. the 'Road America car' would fail a protest on those grounds if it were prepped and entered exactly as before at an upcoming race. For those 'in the know' on the Honda alphabet soup, it will have to be claimed as a K24A2 swap, 197hp for 503 points instead of the 500 points as run and claimed at Road America.

[Andrew D Johnson]

26 minutes ago, krusovice said:

So was the road America car legal? Or not

 

19 minutes ago, Still not Bob said:

 But after listening to it twice, I concluded that the car was clearly not legal.  There is more discussion of that in the other thread

I believe the car was legal as raced at Road America per the rules at the time of the race.  

It sounds like ChampCar now has further defined "similar" and the foreign market exchange rule. If the exact protest happens to the same car at a future race (assuming no changes made), I believe the protest would be upheld. 

[takjak2]

The takeaway I got was that the rules as written do work. That Champcar is working with what they were given, which was not enough in that case. And importantly that there is no protection from protest or precedent either from emails or from previous protest. The car is question remains open to scrutiny.

 

Good clarifications, and the only change will be Champcar is going to better help enforcement via protesters by making swap sheets available.

[l337h4l]

Well done on the video it explains the outcome well.

Per the rules written and the claimed protest the out come was correctly judged.

Could be the old razzle dazzle, I have a Type R engine, Ignore the Oil pan and required oil pump and modifications that did not come with the Original Engine.

 

If the oil pan was protested, points should have been taken and the outcome could have been different. "Enforcing the rules as they are written" Oil pans are points.

 

That being said I have had this link in my back pocket for over a year.

I will refer to this link explaining that I believe this engine is De-rated by Honda in the UK but using the same internals and different ECU programming.

But its still rated and advertised as what it is.

https://www.k20a.org/threads/anyone-have-definite-knowledge-of-jdm-k24a-motors-mine-has-rbb-2-head-raa-intake.216738/

 

Edit: While this is somewhat a loophole going way out of the way to skirt around the power rating and digging into many configurations of an engine to find what bests suits a team to be competitive I commend PD's for the hard work digging into data

 

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by l337h4l

[JDChristianson]

So, am I and a couple friends I've chatted with the only ones that noticed the new vague gray area that it being added at the same time that CC is dealing with a mess from splitting the hairs of another gray area?     OEM Equivalent?   What is that, I heard it from Dana but I don't think the explanation is being documented.  As in included in the rule book.  So tech is again burdened with subjective judgement on just how equivalent is good enough. 

 

 

[Ronh911]

1 hour ago, enginerd said:

'Not accurately claimed' is how I would describe it. I added red text to show what Dana said in the video which elaborates on the rulebook text copied below.

 

4.5.6.2. Foreign market engines are permitted as substitutes for US/Canadian engines within the swap rule under the following conditions.

4.5.6.2.1. Foreign market swap engine must be significantly similar to a US/Canadian engine from a vehicle on the VPI list (Same displacement and construction) and be within 3% of the US/Canadian advertised horsepower. Significantly similar (in actual practice according to Dana) means "the same". The original intent of the rule was to allow teams who blew up their engines to replace them with low mileage and cheaper JDM equivalent engines rather than having to buy engines from a US salvage yard with unknown hundreds of thousands of miles. It is very common for identical engines to exist in the US and foreign markets and it is these engines that were intended when the foreign substitute rule was added.

4.5.6.2.2. Teams must use the US/Canadian advertised horsepower in the swap calculator

 

 

Based on the red text meaning of 4.5.6.2.1. the 'Road America car' would fail a protest on those grounds if it were prepped and entered exactly as before at an upcoming race. For those 'in the know' on the Honda alphabet soup, it will have to be claimed as a K24A2 swap, 197hp for 503 points instead of the 500 points as run and claimed at Road America.

 

Don't forget the oil pan you don't need to make the engine fit.  Wouldn't want you to be called out for cheating AGAIN!   And to think you had a HUGE issue with my duct tape and here you are claiming 1 engine and installing a different one.  Sounds to me like you learned a thing or two from Tuttle. 

[gavro]

You guys all seem to be missing the forest for the trees here. Here is my big take away:

 

THE PROTEST MUST STATE WITH SPECIFICITY EXACTLY WHAT IT IS YOU ARE PROTESTING.

 

With apologies to Luckykid, the protest filed at Road America needed to be better. You can't just write down "Swap JDM-EU Horse Power Difference" and then expect to be able to expand upon that during "oral arguments" or whatever. There's no court stenographer sitting around to document those conversations. You need to clearly state on the protest paperwork exactly what issues you want them to look into because that protest form is the only documentation they will have to justify any penalty they dole out. In this case, because the HP references they looked at were with 3%,  which was all they were asked to explore, they decided the car was compliant. There's been talk in the other thread about different HP rating standards and those are all valid points that should be clarified, but you can't seriously expect a race director to disqualify someone based on that at a race. What I hear from Dana is at the protest in question they weren't even looking into the "substantially similar" part of the rule because that wasn't part of the protest. Had the protest included language like "engine in car is not complaint with the JDM swap rule" they would have had more flexibility and justification to look into, for example, whether the claimed engine was single V-Tec but the engine in the car was dual V-Tec. Had the protest been written better it probably would have been upheld and they either would have adjusted the swap points based on the higher HP dual-vtec JDM engine or they would have charged them for a head swap.

 

FWIW, I write legal documents for a living, and if anyone ever wants help crafting a protest, find me. I'd be happy to help.

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by gavro
Removed unnecessarily colorful language.

[JDChristianson]

1 hour ago, Andrew D Johnson said:

 

I believe the car was legal as raced at Road America per the rules at the time of the race.  

It sounds like ChampCar now has further defined "similar" and the foreign market exchange rule. If the exact protest happens to the same car at a future race (assuming no changes made), I believe the protest would be upheld. 

Well it didn't sound like the wording of the rule is going to change.  So if it wouldn't stand a protest in the future maybe it would not have stood one that was worded perfectly this time either.   We will never know.   

 

Andrew, the teams you are involved with do a great job and can certainly win without being at the ragged bleeding edge of the rule interpretation.   

 

 

[Andrew D Johnson]

12 minutes ago, JDChristianson said:

Well it didn't sound like the wording of the rule is going to change.  So if it wouldn't stand a protest in the future maybe it would not have stood one that was worded perfectly this time either.   We will never know.   

 

Andrew, the teams you are involved with do a great job and can certainly win without being at the ragged bleeding edge of the rule interpretation.   

 

 

It doesn't sound like the wording of the rule will change. I know the Premium Dude's are not looking to find out about outcomes of future protests, it is clear to us what Dana and ChampCar want. Maybe a written rule change would help other teams in the future. 

There is a few years of history with this swap, and the swap started off under a prior administration. The foreign Market swap rule was also created after this swap was being raced. Over a period of a few years, this swap became more and more on the ragged bleeding edge of the rule interpretation. That said, it is clear to me what ChampCar wants going forward regarding foreign engine swaps so there should be no need for further rule interpretations regarding this swap. 
 

[Andrew D Johnson]

33 minutes ago, gavro said:

Had the protest included language like "engine in car is not complaint with the JDM swap rule" they would have had more flexibility and justification to look into, for example, whether the claimed engine was single V-Tec but the engine in the car was dual V-Tec. Had the protest been written better it probably would have been upheld and they either would have adjusted the swap points based on the higher HP dual-vtec JDM engine or they would have charged them for a head swap.

 

FWIW, I write legal documents for a living, and if anyone ever wants help crafting a protest, find me. I'd be happy to help.

 

Sure the protest may have been far from perfect, but Roy was also not sure on the details of the swap because swap sheets were not available to him. It sounds like going forward swap sheets will be available and that should help with transparency of swaps.  

I don't think any protest made against the Premium Dudes car at Road America would have been upheld, as I think it was legal. The main area of discussion would have to be around "similar construction" portion of the rule. At that point, it's more like a rules petition than a protest. 

[MichaelPal]

3 minutes ago, Andrew D Johnson said:

Sure the protest may have been far from perfect, but Roy was also not sure on the details of the swap because swap sheets were not available to him. It sounds like going forward swap sheets will be available and that should help with transparency of swaps.  

I don't think any protest made against the Premium Dudes car at Road America would have been upheld, as I think it was legal. The main area of discussion would have to be around "similar construction" portion of the rule. At that point, it's more like a rules petition than a protest. 

The fact that someone on the TAC thinks dual vs single VTEC and 4 port exhaust vs integrated exhaust falls under "similar construction" is worrying. Those are two significant contributors of performance. 

 

[Ronh911]

6 minutes ago, Andrew D Johnson said:

Sure the protest may have been far from perfect, but Roy was also not sure on the details of the swap because swap sheets were not available to him. It sounds like going forward swap sheets will be available and that should help with transparency of swaps.  

I don't think any protest made against the Premium Dudes car at Road America would have been upheld, as I think it was legal. The main area of discussion would have to be around "similar construction" portion of the rule. At that point, it's more like a rules petition than a protest. 

Andrew, I'm not sure how you can say this when you know for a fact that the aftermarket oil pan was NOT required to make the swap fit.

[gavro]

3 minutes ago, Andrew D Johnson said:

I don't think any protest made against the Premium Dudes car at Road America would have been upheld, as I think it was legal. The main area of discussion would have to be around "similar construction" portion of the rule. At that point, it's more like a rules petition than a protest. 

 

Seriously? Unless I’m mistaken, the US engine listed was single V-Tec and the JDM engine listed (and whatever actual engine was in the car) was dual V-Tec.
 

Is it really your opinion that the protest would still have been denied even if that issue had been properly raised and established as true?
 

Because if so that is an absurdly broad interpretation of “substantially similar” for someone on TAC to be taking. 

[LuckyKid]

1 hour ago, gavro said:

FWIW, I write legal documents for a living, and if anyone ever wants help crafting a protest, find me. I'd be happy to help.

 

Here is what the protest form looks like:
https://champcar.org/web/pdf/TechProtestForm.pdf

Which section did you want me to write my legal complaint?  Rolling with your analogy,  In a normal civil complaint there is a discovery process, depositions, oral arguments, and I should be given an opportunity to amend my complaint as well.   

 

I was told it was an odyssey motor in the car and protested that "Part" per the protest from.

 

Meanwhile, I was protested at Road Atlanta (Valve covers off, intake mani apart, cam gears off) WITH NO FORM!  

With all due respect......(bad things here).....!

[gavro]

2 minutes ago, LuckyKid said:

Here is what the protest form looks like:
https://champcar.org/web/pdf/TechProtestForm.pdf

Which section did you want me to write my legal complaint?  Rolling with your analogy,  In a normal civil complaint there is a discovery process, depositions, oral arguments, and I should be given an opportunity to amend my complaint as well.   

 

I was told it was an odyssey motor in the car and protested that "Part" per the protest from.

 

Meanwhile, I was protested at Road Atlanta (Valve covers off, intake mani apart, cam gears off) WITH NO FORM!  

With all due respect......(bad things here).....!

 

Agree the form is terrible but to answer your question directly - How about the multiple lines in the section titled "Other" - or any of the blank white space? 

 

My analogy is that this ISN'T a normal civil complaint and you can't just pay the $50, submit something ambiguous, and expect the race director and tech to tear the car apart looking for issues and let you point things out on the fly. We are self-policing and need to do better. 

 

That's BS what happened to you at Road Atlanta and you have every right to complain about and I support your doing so. I thought it was clarified after the Indy boxter spring-gate fiasco a few years back that if you wanted to protest someone you had to submit the form.

 

 

[Andrew D Johnson]

28 minutes ago, MichaelPal said:

The fact that someone on the TAC thinks dual vs single VTEC and 4 port exhaust vs integrated exhaust falls under "similar construction" is worrying. Those are two significant contributors of performance. 

 

4.5.6.2.1. Foreign market swap engine must be significantly similar to a US/Canadian engine from a vehicle on the VPI list (Same displacement and construction) and be within 3% of the US/Canadian advertised horsepower.

I would agree that both of those items contribute to performance. As far as I know, before this video came out (same displacement and construction) had always meant displacement and material of construction. This has now been clarified.  
 

28 minutes ago, Ronh911 said:

Andrew, I'm not sure how you can say this when you know for a fact that the aftermarket oil pan was NOT required to make the swap fit.

It is very much required. The stock oil pan does not clear the E30 cross member by like 5 inches. It is not even close. You can use the stock oil pan flange, and then make an after market pan around it, or buy a swap pan. Remember this is a FWD engine going into a RWD car. 
 

26 minutes ago, gavro said:

Seriously? Unless I’m mistaken, the US engine listed was single V-Tec and the JDM engine listed (and whatever actual engine was in the car) was dual V-Tec.
Is it really your opinion that the protest would still have been denied even if that issue had been properly raised and established as true?
Because if so that is an absurdly broad interpretation of “substantially similar” for someone on TAC to be taking. 

I do think it would have been denied, but that is just my own opinion and it could have played out very differently. Nothing in the BCCR says substantially similar. The BCCR says: 

4.5.6.2.1. Foreign market swap engine must be significantly similar to a US/Canadian engine from a vehicle on the VPI list (Same displacement and construction) and be within 3% of the US/Canadian advertised horsepower.

It has now been clarified that moving forward the engines need to be identical or close to it. I think it would be best to have the BCCR reflect that too. 

[gavro]

2 minutes ago, Andrew D Johnson said:

I do think it would have been denied, but that is just my own opinion and it could have played out very differently. Nothing in the BCCR says substantially similar. The BCCR says: 

4.5.6.2.1. Foreign market swap engine must be significantly similar to a US/Canadian engine from a vehicle on the VPI list (Same displacement and construction) and be within 3% of the US/Canadian advertised horsepower.

It has now been clarified that moving forward the engines need to be identical or close to it. I think it would be best to have the BCCR reflect that too. 

 

Thank you for clarifying and for pointing out that I was not using the exact language in the rules. Nonetheless, we will have to agree to disagree that a single V-tec engine and a dual V-tec engine are the "same construction". In my opinion, if the rule writers had intended "same construction" to mean "same material" they would have written "same material".

[Andrew D Johnson]

1 minute ago, gavro said:

Thank you for clarifying and for pointing out that I was not using the exact language in the rules. Nonetheless, we will have to agree to disagree that a single V-tec engine and a dual V-tec engine are the "same construction". In my opinion, if the rule writers had intended "same construction" to mean "same material" they would have written "same material".

 We won't have to disagree at all as Dana has explained that going forward the foreign and US engine need to be basically Identical. I think this should probably be added to the BCCR during its next revision as well. 

[LuckyKid]

1 hour ago, gavro said:

 

My analogy is that this ISN'T a normal civil complaint and you can't just pay the $50, submit something ambiguous, and expect the race director and tech to tear the car apart looking for issues and let you point things out on the fly. We are self-policing and need to do better. 

 

 

Understanding that Dana was not there and is hearing this information second hand.  What portion of my protest was not clearly presented or understood at the start of the protest?  What rule prevents verbal exchanges from taking place at the start of or during a protest? 

I only continue with this because I feel like Dana unintentionally misrepresented how the issues were identified and presented to tech at the time of protest.  There was no confusion as to what was being protested and why.  

 

If you were there and overheard this or tech conversations please share what you heard that was different.  Perhaps someone had video recording in their car which caught the conversation.

Edited October 14, 2022 by LuckyKid

[gavro]

17 minutes ago, LuckyKid said:

Understanding that Dana was not there and is hearing this information second hand.  What portion of my protest was not clearly presented or understood at the start of the protest?  What rule prevents verbal exchanges from taking place at the start of or during a protest? 

I only continue with this because I feel like Dana misrepresented how the issues were identified and presented to tech at the time of protest.  There was no confusion as to what was being protested and why.  

 

If you were there and overheard this or tech conversations please share what you heard that was different.  Perhaps someone had video recording in their car which caught the conversation.

 

I was nearby but wasn't able to hear what was being discussed. My point is simply this, if the protest form had said something like - "The US engine being claimed is single V-tec, the JDM engine being claimed, and the engine in the car, are dual V-tec - this does not comply with the "same construction" language in the JDM swap rule" - they would have had a much harder time denying the protest.

 

Maybe they still would have denied it for the reasons you state in the other thread - i.e. that they couldn't get the right person on the phone to overrule a prior tech ruling - but stating the issue more clearly on the documentation backs them into a corner that is harder to climb out of - or if you want to put the positive spin on it - makes it easier for them to uphold the protest. That's all I'm saying.

 

Of course you could be right, a better-worded protest form may not have mattered and we'd be in the same place, but it's fixed now, and kudos to you for making it happen.

 

At the end of the day that swap shouldn't have been approved in the first place - it is insane to me that "same construction" was interpreted as "same material", but that is a whole other issue.

[Team Infiniti]

@LuckyKid  Carefully listening to everyone and everything going on since the inception of this series, I was even there when your valve cover was off @Rd Atl. (Sans car)

 

You tried and succeeded in getting this issue addressed, perhaps not the way you intended but it worked.

 

Saying that, tech has the power to act without a protest, I didn’t see any malice in the inspection of your car, next time we’re at the same track I would love to hear your side of that day.