CAMS ,are they really needed,,,&why...

[spa-eau rouge]

CAMS , to what purpose do they serve and to what do we ow there existance to and why?????

[DKGandBH]

Aren't they the "Holder of the rules".

I know that you have to get their approval to scratch yourself if you want to organise a "race meeting".

David

[Bruce Moxon]

Doesn't have to be CAMS, but there has to be some organisation so that:

There is a consistent set of rules under which competition is held - can you imagine the chaos if every race meeting had a different set of rules?

There is a central body for arranging licencing and the general administration of the sport.

So that there is one place to go to find out how to run an event, be it a race meeting, a rally or a motorkhana.

And so on.

It doesn't have to be CAMS, but there has to be somewhere. To paraphrase Voltaire, "If CAMS did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it."

I'm not saying they do everything well, but we need someone.


Bruce Moxon

[NOIDEAR]

I would have thought that anyone with any level of interest/involvement in motorsport in Australia would know that unfortunately in todays age of litigation we need a governing body to not ensure those that entertain us have a level of protection. As previously stated if not them someone else? (or similar)

[Chronicle]

CAMS is the FIA sanctioned Association in Australia, but there is an alternative for sanctioning your race events, they are AASA. Much discussion has been held about this. Go to www.aasa.com.au and have look at some of the links at the bottom of the page, not fancy, but there is some good info there about them.

[Falcadore]

CAMS have a long and established set of rules of racing, devised after years of trial and error. And by and large they work.

The biggest problem with CAMS it seems to me is that its institutionised view that the grass roots end of the sport exists to prop up the top end of the sport, rather than most televised sports in this country where the top end of the sport contributes to the support of the whole structure.

While I'm not CAMS greatest fan in the the world, and there fee structure is completely unrealistic I feel, they also have an ironclad insurance policy, which if it does leak, I'm not aware of it.

However one concern I have is that AASA seem to run from the CAMS rulebook. If at some point CAMS feels its system is proprietry, then where will AASA get its regs from?

[worried]

Just because CAMS is an FIA sanctioned body means absolutely squat. There is no law in Australia that gives the FIA or CAMS (or any body for that matter) the right to control motor sport. It hasn't quite come to a legal test because CAMS realise that if they were to try and fight this issue in court, they would, in all probability, lose. NSW has the closest thing to a law specifying a controlling body and CAMS is spending big money on lobbyists, in NSW, to get this (their control) enshrined in law so that can then browbeat the other states saying 'If it is good enough for NSW, it is good enough for you as well'. Their first port of attack is to have the NSW Dept of Sport and Recreation appoint CAMS as an 'auditor' for (and wait for this) karting tracks in NSW. A body that fights every opportunity it can with Superkarts is being asked to 'audit' safety and other facets of kart racing!

As for AASA using the CAMS rules - they are saying the events are run according to the rules as published by CAMS - they aren't (and never have AFAIK) attempted to claim them as their own rules.

In a similar fashion, CAMS have taken rules from elsewhere - especially F1 - although during the Schenken Dynasty anything that isn't F1 has had scorned poured on by TS and not adopted (to the detriment of many areas of motor sport in this country).

[Falcadore]

Worried: there was another thread about where CAMS dervies iots authority from and the link was to the UN, via the FIA. I have no knowledge about it myself, merely what was published in the thread from documentation on the subject. From that there was a lot of 'they can't do that' but it was all opinion and no actual details.

As from the rulebook issues I raised, this was something pointed out to me, and I repeated this persons concern.

I've worked with and for both bodies and I do not see one being infinately better, compared to the other.

[Chronicle]

Did anyone see Tony Cochranes attack on CAMS Officials in todays Melbourne Herald-Sun. It appears TC has summoned Mr. Colin Osborne CAMS CEO) to the next AVESCO meeting.

TC alleged he is paying $600,000 to CAMS each year and is getting pretty poor service for his money.

It will be interesting to see where this goes to from here.