07-11-2019, 09:09 AM
The competition history of the Austin Seven goes back to almost the start of production. Sevens can be seen circuit racing, hillclimbing and sprinting. Owners, contributors to this forum, also take part in nav rallies, driving tests and autosolos, and in considerable numbers in trials. Speed events require competition licences at a number of levels, other activities need drivers to belong to an organising club, VSCC,MCC, PWA7C and local clubs.
MUK, the renamed MSA who have overall responsibility for motor sport, have suddenly announced a radical change in the requirements not just for entrants but also for navvies and bouncers. There was an announcement earlier this week that from January 2020 a licence, initially free of charge, would be required to drive in any sporting event and also required for passengers in competing cars, that is navvies and bouncers. This has been done with no consultation whatsoever with clubs.
Whatever this might look like from Colnbrook, or the paddock at Goodwood, patently no thought has been given to the potential impact on Inter-Register Trials or VSCC nav rallies. The threatened licence would mean that the tradition of casual bouncers recruited in the pub, or possibly across the kitchen table, would be illegal. The navigator being a club member would not be enough. I don't think it is an exaggeration to suggest that this is a serious threat to grass roots level motor sport, showing a total disregard to what many of us do with our Sevens.
This has been announced in November 2019, to take effect from January 2020. Seven owners who don't read this forum and don't have computers will therefore first find out about it from their club's printed newsletter in December. There they will also read that MUK seem to have intended only on line application for licences, so no hope for six volt side valve luddites who scorn computers then. Numbers of people reading this will be planning their entry to the Clee Hills in January, or the night time delights of the Measham in early February. Has anyone at Colnbrook any idea of how to make sure that licences will have been applied for and granted by then? Has anyone at Colnbrook given thought to how to impose their regulations, MUK employees peering over the shoulders of MAC stewards at signing on in Ludlow or VSCC vols at Leominster? Maybe MUK inspectors prowling the car parks looking for the unlicensed? Will MAC and VSCC have had so much feedback from their membership that they choose to ignore it and stick with the existing system?
I don't want to strike a dramatic pose here, but this seems to seriously threaten the levels of motor sport which many of us take part in. The growing tide of utter opposition to the new licence imposition is evident on web sites and the forum of a number of clubs. Certain car parks in Cumbria will be full of talk about it this weekend, and by next weekend at Prescott VSCC committee will be utterly fed up with it, but hopefully already establishing what action to take. Can PWA7C members please do the same. How can the Inter-Reg voice be mobilised to counter a pretty major threat?
Now down to the workshop to sort out Ruby brake lights.
MUK, the renamed MSA who have overall responsibility for motor sport, have suddenly announced a radical change in the requirements not just for entrants but also for navvies and bouncers. There was an announcement earlier this week that from January 2020 a licence, initially free of charge, would be required to drive in any sporting event and also required for passengers in competing cars, that is navvies and bouncers. This has been done with no consultation whatsoever with clubs.
Whatever this might look like from Colnbrook, or the paddock at Goodwood, patently no thought has been given to the potential impact on Inter-Register Trials or VSCC nav rallies. The threatened licence would mean that the tradition of casual bouncers recruited in the pub, or possibly across the kitchen table, would be illegal. The navigator being a club member would not be enough. I don't think it is an exaggeration to suggest that this is a serious threat to grass roots level motor sport, showing a total disregard to what many of us do with our Sevens.
This has been announced in November 2019, to take effect from January 2020. Seven owners who don't read this forum and don't have computers will therefore first find out about it from their club's printed newsletter in December. There they will also read that MUK seem to have intended only on line application for licences, so no hope for six volt side valve luddites who scorn computers then. Numbers of people reading this will be planning their entry to the Clee Hills in January, or the night time delights of the Measham in early February. Has anyone at Colnbrook any idea of how to make sure that licences will have been applied for and granted by then? Has anyone at Colnbrook given thought to how to impose their regulations, MUK employees peering over the shoulders of MAC stewards at signing on in Ludlow or VSCC vols at Leominster? Maybe MUK inspectors prowling the car parks looking for the unlicensed? Will MAC and VSCC have had so much feedback from their membership that they choose to ignore it and stick with the existing system?
I don't want to strike a dramatic pose here, but this seems to seriously threaten the levels of motor sport which many of us take part in. The growing tide of utter opposition to the new licence imposition is evident on web sites and the forum of a number of clubs. Certain car parks in Cumbria will be full of talk about it this weekend, and by next weekend at Prescott VSCC committee will be utterly fed up with it, but hopefully already establishing what action to take. Can PWA7C members please do the same. How can the Inter-Reg voice be mobilised to counter a pretty major threat?
Now down to the workshop to sort out Ruby brake lights.