Mosler ruled out of British GT

[AstonGeoff]

Originally Posted by TheNewBob

I understand the letter of the law has to be followed, but couldn't an amendment to the rules have been drafted and a small weight penalty given to the Moslers to keep the interests of the championship alive?

The Mosler had already received a rather large weight penalty to slow it down earlier in the season I believe!

This whole situation would have been avoided if SRO had amended the rules (or written them properly in the first place). Sure the Jones's saw a loophole and used it to get rid of their main opposition, but, there is no one to blame but SRO for this!

[Cynic]

Originally Posted by AstonGeoff

In todays Autosport Ratel states...

"our idea was never to have the Mosler in the championship able to win races."

Ooops, not the sort of thing you actually want to put into print now is it!

Okay, so if he didn't want it to win (which is a bit of an odd thing to say anyway IMO), why didn't they put it into the invitational class instead of the main one?? This is looking more and more like a monster cock-up on SRO's part. If I was Shorty I'd definitely be on the phone to the nearest lawyer right now.

[TheNewBob]

Originally Posted by AstonGeoff

The Mosler had already received a rather large weight penalty to slow it down earlier in the season I believe!

This whole situation would have been avoided if SRO had amended the rules (or written them properly in the first place). Sure the Jones's saw a loophole and used it to get rid of their main opposition, but, there is no one to blame but SRO for this!

Ah, I wasn't aware of the weight penalty they already had. Still, if they've already got some ballast then a little more won't hurt too much!

I get the feeling the Jones brothers, however they are percieved, are trying to stand up for what is right, and after reading the DSC articles, if they'd got their way then this would have been solved a lot earlier. It may be a controversial car but their Ascari is properly homologated for FIA GT3, afterall.

[geeteeone]

Originally Posted by TheNewBob

Just to clear something up first, I believe the Xero car actually is a C5-R, there were a couple of GT2 versions built around 8-9 years back. One was run by Atomic Kitten Racing back in 2001 I think, in what is now known as the GT2 class.

The Xero Corvette is, as far as I'm aware, the actual car that Atomic Kitten Racing ran back in 2001, albeit with a significant amount of development. It was originally built by Pratt & Miller to run in the ALMS with Trinkler Motorsport, but was then sold and came to Europe. Earlier in its life it was always referred to as a Corvette C5, not a C5-R, that was reserved for the GT1 cars.

[KA]

Originally Posted by geeteeone

The Xero Corvette is, as far as I'm aware, the actual car that Atomic Kitten Racing ran back in 2001, albeit with a significant amount of development. It was originally built by Pratt & Miller to run in the ALMS with Trinkler Motorsport, but was then sold and came to Europe. Earlier in its life it was always referred to as a Corvette C5, not a C5-R, that was reserved for the GT1 cars.

That's always the impression I've been under- raced in a couple of ALMS races by Trinkler, then came to Europe for Atomic Kitten originally for the ISC fiasco at Donington, then used by them in a couple of British GT rounds and an ELMS race before being sold to Xero for British GT in 2002/3

[KA]

Originally Posted by arnage arnie

It was in the invitational class and looked & sounded like the GT3 spec cars running in the FIA GT3 championship. It ran intermittently in free practice and was never seen again! Strange.....

Don't know what spec it is (one of the pair that ran in the old BGT GT Cup class perhaps?), but I think it's more usually raced in either GT Cup or Britcar. Apparently it was withdrawn at Silverstone after qualifying becuase of fuel pressure problems

[Tim the Grey]

This is Howard Spooner's GT Cup Morgan...


Wasn't that qiuick, but he NEARLY tagged a 430 at the start of race 2!


TBH it sounded a woolly in that race, like a fuel issue?

[AstonGeoff]

Originally Posted by TheNewBob

Ah, I wasn't aware of the weight penalty they already had. Still, if they've already got some ballast then a little more won't hurt too much!

I get the feeling the Jones brothers, however they are percieved, are trying to stand up for what is right, and after reading the DSC articles, if they'd got their way then this would have been solved a lot earlier. It may be a controversial car but their Ascari is properly homologated for FIA GT3, afterall.

More weight wouldn't hurt much, other than the cars ability to stop and go! Thus creating more stress for the engine, gearbox and brakes, which are already being overworked with the weight penalty. I'm sure there are much better means of slowing cars down than adding weight.

hhhmmmmm, would the Jones Bros have been standing up for what is right if the Mosler had not been winning races and challenging them for the championship? Somehow I doubt it.... Perhaps that's why Ratel hoped they wouldn't challenging for wins, because he knew that the Mosler shouldn't have been allowed in, he was just trying to get the numbers up!

[Piglet]

Originally Posted by AstonGeoff

hhhmmmmm, would the Jones Bros have been standing up for what is right if the Mosler had not been winning races and challenging them for the championship? Somehow I doubt it.... Perhaps that's why Ratel hoped they wouldn't challenging for wins, because he knew that the Mosler shouldn't have been allowed in, he was just trying to get the numbers up!

Then he should have written the regulations to allow for the car or amended the regulations by way of bulletin subsequently. It's not rocket science surely?

You can't run a high level, high profile championship that costs vast amounts of money to run in (what budget would a front running team be spending?) and then make the rules up as you go along.

Teams will always stretch the limit of regulations, it's what I expect of a good team manager and it's what they are paid for. Other competitors will always challenge the actions of others. It's happened in BGT for years, the Parr Viper and the Lister teams spent years *****ing about the conduct of each other and anyone else that they could and why wouldn't/shouldn't they?

It's a big money sport, wins = exposure for sponsors and that = happy sponsors = more willing to continue to invest. Why on earth would you sit back and let someone take wins from you that you thought was ineligable for the Championship without protesting it? That's why we have a judicial system within Motorsport that allows for teams to make this type of protest.

I feel desparately sorry for Martin Short and all at Roll Centre, Martin really is one of the good guys. It's not the Jones Brothers that have put him in this position though, from the information published, it's poorly drafted regulations that have caused this.

[davyboy]

Yep piglet, absolutely spot on.

[Simon S]

As said, well put...

the buck stops with SRO, it's not like they have done this before is it?

[AstonGeoff]

I agree that the rules have been badly written, I always have said that, but what I am saying is that would anyone have worried if the Mosler hadn't been competitive? The answer to that is almost certianly no, they wouldn't have worried their pretty little heads or spent time and money on it.

As I said earlier in this thread and I think we all agree, the true villains of this debacle are Ratel and the SRO. And whilst they are the only villains there are so very many losers, from Shorty to Dan Brown and his sponsors, to Warren Mosler who I would imagine invested a fair chunk of money in the GT3 Mosler, and on to us the fans and finally the BGT.

Lets hope that the BGT can return to it's former glory soon, with or without the Mosler and Ginetta Zytek, but preferably with both (and not in the pointless (pardon the pun) invitation class)!

[The Badger]

So , next question . Whats the Brit GT going to do , with respect to grid sizes ?

I reckon let GT2 machinery back in .

[MJ_N_09]

BGT had almost double the grid size at least 1 or 2 years ago. Seriously, what happened, and where did they all go?

[ger80]

RATELionalization

[Gunman]

Originally Posted by AstonGeoff

In todays Autosport Ratel states...

"our idea was never to have the Mosler in the championship able to win races."

Ooops, not the sort of thing you actually want to put into print now is it!

I couldn't find that on the autosport website, do you have a link? or was it in the print edition? I'd love to share that with some of they guys at Mosler.

[ger80]

Originally Posted by Gunman

I couldn't find that on the autosport website, do you have a link? or was it in the print edition? I'd love to share that with some of they guys at Mosler.

Its in the print edition - can scan it on Monday if you want

[Steven Humphrey]

Originally Posted by MJ_N_09

BGT had almost double the grid size at least 1 or 2 years ago. Seriously, what happened, and where did they all go?

Just got last years Silverstone program out to have a look. There were 26 entries! 19 GT3s & 7 GT4s.

RPM had 2 Vipers-this year 1 Ford GT. Chad had 2 F430s, this year 1. There were 4 Gallardos, 2 for Tech9 & 2 for Modena. Modena are now in LMS running an F430, don't know about Tech9. CR Scuderia ran 3 F430s last year-this year they are in FIAGT only. That's 9 cars lost there! There were 6 Ginettas in GT4 last year, plus a Nissan 350 -this year just 3 Ginettas. Very sad.

[strider]

Originally Posted by Piglet

I feel desperately sorry for Martin Short and all at Roll Centre, Martin really is one of the good guys. It's not the Jones Brothers that have put him in this position though, from the information published, it's poorly drafted regulations that have caused this.

I agree. Just to be clear:

It's not the MSA's fault. They received a protest, which they had to deal with based on the facts. As far as I can see their decision was correct.

OK, the Jones brothers lodged the protest, but several teams were grumbling about the Mosler, so if it hadn't been them it would have been someone else.

The permit for the Championship is held by the BRSCC, so the responsibility for drafting the Regulations correctly in theory rests with them.

However SRO do interfere (if that's the right word) considerably and they are the ones who make the decisions about eligibility. It seems that in this case the Belgians managed to get wording right, but between them the BRSCC and SRO did not. The MSA Court was fairly merciless in making this clear and rightly so.

Martin Short is the biggest loser in all of this, but it really makes the Championship look weak and stupid as well.

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by ger80

Its in the print edition - can scan it on Monday if you want

That would be quite nice, I am thinking.





L.P.

[Gunman]

Originally Posted by HORNDAWG

That would be quite nice, I am thinking.





L.P.

I agree

[EastonNeston]

Having read through this and the MSA court findings, it seems obvious the SRO have created the situation by their incompetence in drafting the regulations correctly. The quote from Ratel in last weeks Autosport is interesting and could give Rollcentre and Mosler grounds to commence legal action.

SRO charge very high fees to enter their championship but provide very little. I fail to see why any professional team would want to enter British GT when there are other more viable alternatives for racing in the UK and internationally. THe attraction of SRO's FIA GT serious is doubtful too, I've always comsidered the LMS series to be the highest level of sportscar racing in europe. 5 or 6 events at classic circuits had to be more attractive than a short race on an italian kart track!

[AstonGeoff]

Originally Posted by Gunman

I couldn't find that on the autosport website, do you have a link? or was it in the print edition? I'd love to share that with some of they guys at Mosler.

The guys at Mosler already have it!

[davyboy]

Given the current state of the British GT championship... and this embarassing debacle, I wonder is it time to start again with a clean sheet of paper. So many GT championships have spawned off in the last few years, each with their own vices and virtues, does it not make sense to somehow consolidate them into one single series - worthy of the title of a national championship ? Fragmentation is clearly not in anyone's interest I would have thought.

[Graham Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Piglet

Then he should have written the regulations to allow for the car or amended the regulations by way of bulletin subsequently. It's not rocket science surely?

You can't run a high level, high profile championship that costs vast amounts of money to run in (what budget would a front running team be spending?) and then make the rules up as you go along.

Teams will always stretch the limit of regulations, it's what I expect of a good team manager and it's what they are paid for. Other competitors will always challenge the actions of others. It's happened in BGT for years, the Parr Viper and the Lister teams spent years *****ing about the conduct of each other and anyone else that they could and why wouldn't/shouldn't they?

It's a big money sport, wins = exposure for sponsors and that = happy sponsors = more willing to continue to invest. Why on earth would you sit back and let someone take wins from you that you thought was ineligable for the Championship without protesting it? That's why we have a judicial system within Motorsport that allows for teams to make this type of protest.

I feel desparately sorry for Martin Short and all at Roll Centre, Martin really is one of the good guys. It's not the Jones Brothers that have put him in this position though, from the information published, it's poorly drafted regulations that have caused this.

Spot on