\rant\
Sorry to drag this out guys, but I'm having a hard time understanding this. Ok so say I don't chop any part of the car, factory crush zones are intact and everything is rainbows and tweety birds because the lawyers say that's good enough to race. Based on what has been written by others so far, I'd like to put the following to you....
I take my lawyer approved car and I swap the engine from a little 2 litre 4 banger to a 6 litre V8....the car is still the same dimensions, but now it's 400lbs heavier at the front and the design parameters never included such a lump in the engine bay and the crush zones are not adequate to cope with the addition weight and increased performance of the car. Lawyers still say it's good to race with, but although the crush zones are still the right shape, they are not adequate enough for the modified vehicle.
Similarly, there is a post in the 'Cars For Sale' section of this forum with a link pointing to a tiny little Subaru that would make an epic Lemons car that, left as is, would be deemed safe to race - yet if I take a modest chunk out of the arse of my Crown Vic, it's still safer than the Subaru by a long way, but the lawyers say it's not? Does that even make the slightest sense to anyone?
Somebody has said that Lemons has grown from a friends and family event to something much larger and must change to remain alive. I don't really agree with that, Lemons has grown so popular BECAUSE of the format, not in spite of it. Changing the formula will change Lemons and I don't think that the majority of LeMoners would welcome that. It seems to me that Lemons people cheer the loudest for the guy that take the most inconceivably inappropriate vehicle and makes it race. Take that out of the format and it would be all the poorer for it, both to watch and to participate in.
And another thing, while I'm on a rant I might as well go for broke..safety., yes, I'd like everybody that turns up to race to go home in roughly the same shape they arrived in, but it's Motorsport (not 'sort of'...it IS Motorsport) and there is inherent danger in that. If you can't accept that there is a chance you might get hurt then go suit up and drive bumper-cars, if your mom will give you the dollar for the ticket.
So what's my point? My point is that I have a fear that this new rule about chopping is going to lead to some ridiculous irony between what is deemed safe and what isn't and as Markdas has already said, we'd like something more than just saying 'Don't Chop Your Car' because that doesn't explain why the rule is being introduced and what the aim of the rule really is and we need to understand in order to accept. 'No Chopping' doesn't solve the problem of how to regulate the structural integrity of a vehicle in a collision without expanding the rule to cover things like increasing the performance of a body shell beyond the original design or racing in an inherently more dangerous vehicle (e.g. cars made pre crush-zone technology, salvaged vehicles that were insurance write-offs due to chassis impact damage, etc).
Maybe it's time the lawyers really earned their money by drafting a document that I could sign that would indemnify Lemons from both me suing them and preventing anyone else suing them on my behalf. Perhaps then we could get on with the serious business of having fun without worrying what some suit-wearing legal-muppet with a bad moustache thinks.
\end rant\
Pulp Friction #333 - Overall & Class 'A' winners of the 2012 North Dallas Hooptie
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The Lap of Shame -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5U2S-cRd3U