On 3/23/2008 Stan Stockton wrote:
> It goes on and on. There is no other sport where the
> attitude is that you allow anything and everything that
> comes along to improve the performance.
Actually, in almost every "racing" sport there are open classes, and even in
the lower classes - if you can figure out how to "bend" the rules, you do so,
so they are constantly changing the rules.
I'd have to say that Ham Radio has a fairly open set of rules, and they are
fairly static at the same time.
In Most sports, they would be tweaking the rules to try and level the playing
field, constantly. 'There is an advantage to operating from the Caribbean"
They would tweak the rules to lower that. 'There is an advantage to playing
from the east coast of the USA' Again, they would tweak. 'there is a
disadvantage to playing from the US Northwest' - again a tweak. SO2R has an
advantage over SO1R or SO2V - the rules would be change for 2 classes, or to
level things (Let's face it - although almost impossible to enforce, they are
two different classes of operation, even if they are not two classes under the
rules)
Skimmer is just another of these things
The HUGE problem is - that in MOST sports each participant is at a central
location, and you can ask for, and GET (might be at YOUR cost if you are wrong)
a "technical inspection"
My favorite story with "bending the rules" had to do with Smoky Yunich
(spelling?) in stock car racing. There was a limit to "how big your gas tank
could be" - but there was NO rule on "How big around your fuel line could be"
Amazing how much extra gas you can fit in the car with a 4" diameter fuel line
vs say 1/2". Perfectly legal - until a tech inspection came up with WHAT he
was doing - they changed the rules for the next race (what 1-2 weeks away?)
Heck NASCAR (before COT) changed body shape rules a few times a season, if one
'brand' of car was determined to have too mach of an aero advantage over the
other.
--
73 de KG2V
For the Children - RKBA!
Darwin's Law of Carcinogens: Cancer cures smoking.
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