[Kevin M]

Everybody's making good points, from the perspective they've chosen. I believe Dean is taking the stance of protecting inexperienced track drivers from chasing lap times before that's something worth doing, and mentioning the safety and liability issues invlolved.

However, Scott, MAtt, and a handful of others on the board, including Dean, can certainly benefit from the presence of lap timers or daqs. Additionally, those drivers are not putting themselves at any more risk financially or physically than they already are. Like Dean said- the drivers who would be permitted to be part of the lap timer group buy are going faster than race cars in most grassroots-level series anyway. The quantified data from one of these timing systems will allow such drivers to continue to improve their skills without having to guess at whether or not they are actually getting better, either with consistency or with accuracy on a given lap.

I expressed interest to Matt about being included in the buy-in on a transmitter because being able to time my laps may help me to become consistent, which I need to do before bothering trying to use lap data to actually find the best line or whatnot. I still can't run a given lap even close to the same way in every corner, but once I get down to only making one or two major mistakes per lap the data will begin to be more useful to me.

Anyways, the club has evolved to where one of its primary interests is individual driver improvement beyond just improved skill and judgement behind the wheel that autocross can bring. As some members are getting quite skilled out on the track, I don't think it's irresponsible of them to use tools such as lap timers to continue to improve, even though it does draw us out further from the legal and financial protections we may or may not have by not using them. While it isn't really incumbent on the club or its members to protect others from themselves, novice drivers who shouldn't participate (yet) in timing and data acquisition would be informed of why, but left to make their own decisions. Scott's last few lines best illustrate the need and justification for some members of SECCS to use these tools.

As Dean pointed out, timing can potentially bring about the competition factors which I've also warned against in other threads on other topics. But at an HPDE, I don't think comparing lap times is any more potentially hazardous than a slow driver in a fast car attempting to follow a faster driver. For example, if another STi owner with a few events under his belt and a car similar to Matt, Mike or Eric shows up with a lap timer, and he's 8 seconds slower than they are but fairly consistent, they can easily show him the exact places where he can brake later, carry more speed through, etc. He wouldn't necessarily make the proper adjustments without being able to compare specific notes like that. I don't think the ability to discuss the differences in his lap and theirs off-track is nearly as hazardous as simply attempting follow them and duplicate their lines if he doesn't have the skill yet.

Ehh...
Cliff notes: Lap timers don't crash cars. People crash cars.