Supercars cooling disqualification

[kittle]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

Appeal Dismissed



I feel sorry for car #97.. it’s pilot is gunna be angry again….

What about car 88 as well??

As Dutto said, they should have followed up with written approval. But they didn't...

[GreenMachine]

Quelle surprise!

Very basic mistake to take someone's word without confirming it appropriately.

I guess when you want something to be so, you hear in that context regardless of what the other party says/means. Confusion/conflict then ensues, until someone says 'show me the rules, show me the exemption' ...

[Langers]

Originally Posted by Terry S

I refer to Saturday's disqualification of the two 888 Camaros for having additional cooling aids.

This very wrong in my opinion. The drivers are employees of 888.

Under Workplace and Safety Laws, 888 have a duty of care to provide a safe working environment to their employees.

If the cars' cockpit temperature was too high, then 888 had duty to cool it.

Any Supercars rules cannot override this. Supercars seem to believe they are not subject to the law of the land.

For what it's worth, I side heavily with T8 on this issue as I strongly suspect they did have reason to believe Burgess (a long time mediocre motorsports manager) had given his consent to the setup.

That said:
(1) I can almost guarantee drivers wouldn't be employees. There would be a driving / media / sponsor support services contract between SVG Pty Ltd and T8REA

(2) T8 chose to run a less effective cooling system, being the Chill Out system WITHOUT the helmet cooling fan supply. Their choice, no-one forced them to do that.

(3) Due to the very nature of the activity, the interpretation of OH&S rules around motorsport isn't quite as black and white as you've outlined, particularly for those on the front line (mostly drivers, somewhat also pitcrew). As an example, you often see teams in 24hr races going 36+hrs straight without sleep. In a normal environment with risk of collision, fire, burns, cuts, heavy lifting etc this wouldn't be permitted (think a factory / foundry / machineshop), but in motorsport it is.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by Langers

For what it's worth, I side heavily with T8 on this issue as I strongly suspect they did have reason to believe Burgess (a long time mediocre motorsports manager) had given his consent to the setup.

So it comes down to bad management at T8.... in this day and age Whincup or Dutton, having allegedly received the verbal ok from Burgess, should have sent him an email confirming conversation at such and such time and place in which Mr Burgess confirmed our system to be legal to race. That could have been in Burgess's inbox before he left the T8 garage. Then Burgess would simply reply with a 'yes thats so' or a 'no you have misinterpreted / misunderstood what I said. I said the system is fine, the location is not or whatever.'

Had they confirming correspondence of their conversation and alleged approval T8 might have had a case.

(Then the matter of whether Burgess has the authority to make that judgement becomes the focus. The Appeal panel suggested he did not.)

I daresay it would never have become an issue if RD was involved. The i's would have been dotted and the t's crossed