Quote:
Originally posted by socalpunX:
To be honest, when I see this description I understand what you are shooting for.

But...

Any time you put human beings behind a wheel of a motor vehicle, you are going to bring out the competitive side of your participants regardless of the prize. Case in point; the winner of the Baja 1000 takes home about $4,000. It's not about the prize. When you factor in speed and bring out the stopwatches, you are in effect encouraging people to bring out that competitive nature.

All it takes is one cowboy to drive over his head of push himeself and his truck beyond his limits and you will have chaos on your hands. And no simple liability waiver will protect you. You as the organizer and promoter of the event in effect are acting as a sanctioning body. And in sanctioning the event you are responsible for a certain extent of the safety of your participants.

There isn't a timed event in the country , for any vehicle in the dirt that doesn't require some sort of cage, harnesses and a fuel cell. Other things to consider:

  • insurance
  • tech inspection to insure the safety of each vehicle/ What is going to be required?
  • course marking
  • cross traffic/non-involved parties entering the course
  • flag men/broken vehicles- recovery
  • pre-running. will the course be marked ahead of time? Will participants be allowed recon?

To be honest, beyond my own personal experience of attending varous events, I have no idea of everything that is involved in a race/rally. I do understand though is that there is a very good reason that off-road and race vehicles have progressed in leaps and bounds in the area of safety. Yet, despite the technology, people still crash, roll injure and even die.
You take a big step when you transition from a trail club run or an informal gathering or a poker run to a rally type event where you are encouraging people to compete either against each other or a stopwatch.
I hear all your concerns and understand them. I as the person getting these people together are ultimately responsible for what goes on--I am well aware of the consequences--we had a roll over on an trail run I was "host" for last fall and though I was not directly involved--I was neither driver nor spotter for the individual who rolled, I had brought everyone together, suggested the run, etc.--I felt awful about it. Had anyone been seriously hurt I would have felt that I was to blame in some small part...
All that being said, I still feel as if it is a worthwile event to undertake...At this point I personally know every single person who is planning on attending. I have to determine my own comfort level with this and make sure it does not go beyond this...Right now its just a bunch of friends going out and driving a pre-determined course---And with that I am comfortable...