Why the future of scrutineering is a divisive topic

There were few positives to emerge from the turmoil brought by the coronavirus pandemic. But one benefit from the misery was that it provided the opportunity to look at long-established practices with a fresh pair of eyes – perhaps the most obvious example in wider society being the flexibility offered to many by being able to work from home.

And COVID-19 certainly offered the chance to press the reset button on some of the antiquated procedures in club racing. Gone were the forests of paper used in race control buildings up and down the country, as the handling of results and judicial decisions went digital. Gone was the need for competitors to physically sign-on at events – this could instead be completed online in advance. And gone were the long queues at the scrutineering bay early in the morning at race meetings for pre-event inspections, replaced by drivers completing a self-declaration and spot-checks being carried out.

It was an era of change – and change out of necessity. Quite simply, to allow motorsport to restart in a world where social distancing and minimised face-to-face contact in enclosed spaces were supposedly the law, protocols had to be tweaked – some of which was long overdue. But, as the advent of vaccines meant coronavirus restrictions could be relaxed later last year, it raised some interesting questions about what should be done moving forward, particularly when it came to scrutineering. After all, there were inevitably positives and negatives to the system of self-declaration.

“The opportunity for competitors to interact with the scrutineer was missed and something that there’s a strong push to maintain,” Ian Smith, technical director of British governing body Motorsport UK, notes as one example.

“There was also the perception that the standard of preparation of vehicles had dropped during the period where scrutineering was self-declared. So, there was a survey put to the scrutineering community at the end of last year to tell us about their experience of working on the restart of motorsport under COVID restrictions and asking, ‘Do you believe we should go back to scrutineering as it was before or do you believe there was enough learning through this process that warrants further investigation to continue the development of the scrutineering process?’”

The consensus was that a permanent change should be considered and therefore a trial looking at the future of scrutineering has been put in place for this year. While the standard approach is that clubs go back to the pre-pandemic system of scrutineering every single car before it heads out on track, organisers were able to sign up to be part of a Motorsport UK pilot scheme. Under this, 25% of entrants at a meeting would be subjected to a longer, more extensive check before an event – with the intention of therefore being seen once every four fixtures – while the rest just complete the self-declaration.

“The team set up a working group, which has got an interesting cross-section of stakeholders in it,” explains Smith, who joined Motorsport UK just as the trial was beginning. “There’s obviously some experienced scrutineers, there’s also some scrutineers who in their responses to the survey said, ‘Do you know what, no, I think we should go back to how we did it before’, and it was felt important that people who represented that view were part of this as well.

Atmosphere at scrutineering bay

Photo by: Mick Walker

“So we’ve got a handful of scrutineers with a blend of views, we’ve got representatives from each of the clubs that volunteered to take part in the trial, then also we have a handful of clerks of the course so we get a balanced view as to how things are working.”

Seven clubs opted to participate in the trial and, in the first three months of the season, a total of 26 circuit racing events were conducted under this system of more intensively scrutineering 25% of participants. Among those involved is the Classic Sports Car Club, and director David Smitheram believes there are some clear benefits of the revised format.

“The biggest upside is it’s so much better for everyone – both scrutineers and competitors – as they don’t have to start their morning with a push to the scrutineering bay, so in that respect it’s great and we really hope it continues,” he says.

“In terms of the way we’re running it, some clubs are doing a random 25% of all grids but we’re doing two series per day. We’re doing two later on the timetable and they don’t have to get there at the crack of dawn. Then, every car, when it goes into the assembly area, has basic checks – brake lights, visual checks of tyres.

“We’re trying to get that balance between safety and recognising it’s a customer-based sport. Safety is important but we have to recognise time is precious. Without those 7am starts for many, it means people are able to spend Friday night at home with their families – we’ve really noticed the difference in the paddock on Fridays, it’s not as busy as it once was.”

"The objective mustn’t be an exercise in finding ‘What can I fail someone on?’" David Smitheram

But, despite the advantages of the new system, Smitheram says there are still elements that need a little refining. Chiefly, he wants to ensure that the more detailed checks – lasting 15 minutes, compared to the standard six – address the right areas.

“What we don’t want to do is tell scrutineers, ‘You’ve got 15 minutes, go to town’,” he says. “The objective mustn’t be an exercise in finding ‘What can I fail someone on?’. What we don’t want is it being a formulaic checklist and competitors know they only need to check these eight things.”

Atmosphere at scrutineering bay

Photo by: Mick Walker

Smitheram highlights the fire extinguisher as a good example of this. While much of the focus is on making sure it’s in date and to the correct specification, he believes it is vital that inspections ensure it is also fixed securely. New rules stipulate heavier extinguishers are used and therefore the damage they could cause, if dislodged in impact, is greater.

A broad range of clubs are part of the trial – it also includes the 750 Motor Club, MotorSport Vision Racing, Castle Combe Racing Club and Scottish Motor Racing Club – but other organisers have declined for a variety of reasons. For example, the British Racing and Sports Car Club has practical concerns.

“You need to keep a record of which cars are being scrutineered,” explains chairman Peter Daly. “We looked at the practicalities of the trial and stepped back from taking part because our race meetings have many different [guest] championships that come and go.”

Given the volume of drivers involved, closely monitoring which had been scrutineered and which had not was not deemed workable at this stage.

Elsewhere, the Historic Sports Car Club’s concerns are more fundamental.

“My argument has always been that there can be no compromise on safety,” says CEO Andy Dee-Crowne. “I would argue the historic cars are, by their nature, more dangerous than some of their modern counterparts. There’s inherently more chance of a component failure and we have a duty of care to our drivers before they go and race a car around the circuit. We find discharged fire extinguishers, the wrong or out of date helmets and seatbelts not properly fitted. We will come across clear cracks in chassis that maybe haven’t been seen by the owner. It’s a fresh pair of eyes that gives a view on the safety of the car.

“Nobody wants to be in the queue of drivers in the rain at Silverstone waiting their turn to get into scrutineering. I appreciate that, but where is the halfway house? We felt it’s [the trial] not something we wanted to run with at the moment and will see what the outcome of it is.”

Atmosphere at scrutineering bay

Photo by: Mick Walker

Dee-Crowne also highlights the eligibility side of scrutineering as being important, particularly when “hundredths of a second make all the difference” in some of the close HSCC championships. Without the checks, he fears series could face “all sorts of appeals and protests”.

As you would expect, it is clear there is a range of views surrounding the future direction of scrutineering.

Despite that, Smith notes some of the positives to have already emerged from the trial, including increased collaboration between clubs. Another is that the most common problems spotted by scrutineers are now being recorded, therefore informing advice to competitors.

“It’s about saying, if people are genuinely struggling with extinguisher installation or very specific issues, let’s actually come up with some information we can distribute via the communication channels,” explains Smith.

The idea of introducing vehicle passports is nothing new, but it has proven controversial in some quarters

The work evaluating the future of scrutineering is not being carried out in isolation. Sitting alongside it are plans to develop a centralised system to keep records of a car’s scrutineering history – particularly important for a driver not aligned to a specific series, who could, inadvertently, consistently fall outside of the 25% being examined.

“A project that’s running in parallel is to establish a simple as possible centralised system for record-keeping for race cars,” says Smith. “This may previously have been considered to be vehicle passports for race cars, which – as the first stage – is possibly too much of an initial step. Some of the really cool things that have happened as a result of doing the pilot is some of our scrutineers have been working on ideas to solve this problem.

“I was at Silverstone earlier this year for an MSVR event. Nigel Thorne was the chief scrutineer for that and he had built on his network-attached hard drive at home, using some freeware, a hosted database that he and his scrutineering team could refer to to establish a really simple record by championship, by race number. It might say we saw this car at Silverstone and the seatbelts were about to go out of date so, at the next event, that’s the targeted thing to say, have you changed the belts? Previously, that kind of thing would’ve been a conversation lost in the ether as soon as everyone parted ways.”

Atmosphere at scrutineering bay

Photo by: Mick Walker

The idea of introducing vehicle passports is nothing new, but it has proven controversial in some quarters.

“There are many people who don’t want to burden our competitors with more bureaucracy or costs,” says Daly. And that is something Motorsport UK is aware of and therefore believes a digitalised system to monitor scrutineering is a better first step.

While record-keeping is one element to consider, the future of scrutineering involves other topics, too – not least the inclusion of electric vehicles. EVs and hybrids are expected to creep further onto the national scene – and, while this impacts on venues, marshals, recovery teams and organisers, it also affects scrutineers.

“We’re working very closely with a number of our technical commissioners who are involved in the industry and those guys are helping us to make sure the EV regulations and guidance to stakeholders, particularly scrutineers, is up to date,” says Smith.

But, while the successful integration of EVs into national motorsport is an ongoing challenge, in the meantime the scrutineering pilot continues. It is due to run throughout 2022, with some initial conclusions beginning to take shape from August. That allows time for further tweaks to be tested, before new regulations could potentially be introduced next season.

“What we’re not looking to do is mandate a very rigid, non-negotiable set of policies that you have no choice but to implement,” explains Smith. “But, also, we’re not looking to sanction a free-for-all either. Some of the things we would happily consider giving the clubs licence to decide how they want to do it would be – for example, whether you scrutineer in the paddock or in the scrutineering bay.

“I think the general perception is for the competitor, their experience is improved if they don’t have to queue up at the scrutineering bay at 6am. On the flip side, if they’re not in their awning or by their car in the paddock when the scrutineers arrive, then that’s a problem, too.”

That is a perfect demonstration of just how much there is to consider when determining the future of scrutineering. And Smith insists it is not just the experience of drivers but also the volunteer scrutineers that must be considered when implementing ideas. What started as an enforced change to adapt to the challenging circumstances of the pandemic could now develop into new rules that potentially have a lasting benefit for many.