Interpretation of regulations in disputes

[jonttt]

In principle that is a relatively simple one ie to my mind the onus is always on the individual or team in this case to understand and clarify BEFORE participating. If the rules changed AFTER that would be a different matter.
There is nothing intrinsically unfair in favouring sponsors other than the sporting aspect eg sponsors could get preferential parking, maintenance areas or even 10 points head start ( where do you draw the line). The important aspect is there is a mechanism of approval that is accepted for any changes and those who are considering joining have the opportunity to understand before deciding to do so.
In summary if you don't like the rules that are there before you decide to play, don't play. Little point / sympathy in crying about it later.
I face that a lot in contract law.....read the bloody contract before you sign it as its hard to cry foul later (unless there is something manifestly unfair or deliberately misleading/hidden/not disclosed)

 

[jonttt]

Brilliant - thank you Jonttt - will do - when are you going to pop over to visit us? (your not far away)!

We shoukd arrange a day over at your place with the NW crew, you already know Alex. Would be great to meet you.
Ps I did used to live very close in Lostock off Regent Road but that was over 20 years ago before i got the Porsche bug.
PPS do you let Taycans park there lol

 

[bazhart]

Corner of Lostock junction lane for me 35 years ago - you and Alex will always be welcome here (but by appointment please and How many do you regard as "a crew"?). As well as several Porsches I also have an electric car (but not a Porsche) which is great for bombing around locally - but no good for motorway journeys when to achieve the 190 mile range claimed you would have to drive at 30 mph the whole way and without the heater on! LOL would love a Taycan.

 

[jonttt]

There is normally around 10 of us that meet on the first Saturday of the month in wilmslow. We do arrange some more ad hoc stuff mid week as most of us (except Alex) try our best not to actually work for a living. I'll mention it to the others and see if we can set something up with you in December.

 

[bazhart]

Sorry to say we are just too busy right now to set-up a full "Club" visit for 10 or more people - and right now would prefer to receive no more than 3 or at most 4 for a more personal one - next year could be different if you want to wait until January.

 

[jonttt]

Sounds good, I’ll mention it at one of our meets in the new year to see how many would be interested ;-)

 

[squelch]

A bit late to this one, but thought I'd chuck in my tuppence.

I'd agree with everything jonttt has said. It is worded very badly and I think the key part seems to be "To determine the final Championship points total a driver will count his/her total number of points scored from the maximum number of qualifying races, less 2 races. Non scores may be included as lowest scores”

I would interpret "maximum number of qualifying races" to be the maximum possible (i.e if every race took place, so 14 races) NOT the maximum number of races that actually did take place (potentially fewer is some rounds only had 1 race for whatever reason).

I don't know the background, but my guess is that if this is an amateur type of race series where teams may not be able to attend every round, perhaps this is to "level" the playing field by only selecting competitors' best results from a maximum of 12 races (in which case this would be a better way of wording it). Otherwise (again, if possibly not every competitor attends every round) there is potential for someone to win the whole championship by simply attending every round and getting points on the board.

And the idea of taking two races' scores from everyone's total achieved regardless of number of rounds / races (as in jonttt's example "5 rounds completed with one race at each = 5 qualifying races, maximum number of races that can count is 5-2 = 3") would mean a championship would be decided based on the results of just three races, which could risk people losing interest in it in my opinion. At least if it's a maximum of 12 races' results which are used to determine the champ then people are incentivised to get racing (obviously if teams don't make the effort to attend and just treat it as hobby racing then they're not going to be in contention).

Essentially, I think as jontt has mentioned the rules are there to be queried / questioned / clarified before entering or agreeing to them. Unfortunately though as with many contracts (I used to work in contract law), ambiguities are often only identified when a situation such as this arises - although something as important as the method of determining the championship positions should be much clearer than written here.

A couple of other things to remember when disputing contracts is that you may not get justice, you may just get the law (the two are not necessarily the same). And given that this is presumably a private organisation's own rules, the element of the spirit of the law vs the letter of the law comes into play and regarding the ambiguity, they will likely just say "that's not what we meant" (although often in litigation over ambiguity the adjudicator will side with the party who did not write the contract, since the party writing the contract shouldn't have allowed any ambiguity in the first place).

Just my tuppence worth. All the best!

 

[MaxA]

that looks like an actual or potential conflict of interest which should at the very least be declared; ideally the conflicted person should play no part in the discussion or decision-making