Cheating at CNAC 2003 1

This is a something I have intended on writing for a LONG time. Like… 5 years. I’ve probably held off until now because… it’s a long story. Furthermore, it’s something I am still pissed off about.

In the Fall of 2002, Ryan and I sold our budget and dilapidated AE86 coupe, and spent a little extra money to pick up a 1986 Honda Civic 1500S from Ken Seto of the VCMC. The car was immaculate, and well looked after. It was a NICE car. Ken had had great luck with it in the VCMC and even state side in CSP, and we were thinking ahead to the summer of 2003 when our home club would be hosting the Canadian National Autoslalom Championship. We wanted a car that could challenge for the win.

At our first few events in 2002, it was clear immediately that the car was incredibly fast. If memory holds, either Ryan or I pulled FTD every single local club event we attended right from the beginning. Fast. And still, there was a lot that we weren’t happy with on the car. It didn’t turn like we wanted it to, the carbs needing adjusting for our elevation and climate. There were definitely frustrating times getting it right, but…. by the time CNAC came around, we had the car sorted out, and were pretty happy with it.

CNAC 2003 was our first taste of real driving competition. Up to that point, I had been doing local auto-x for three years, and Ryan maybe six. I say real competition, because, the local events were always really friendly. Sure, we all wanted to win, but we were all nice and friendly about it. That changed with a national championship on the line.

Not that everyone threw such things out the window…

Darryl Jones, and Chris Chu were two fellow CSP drivers who we figured would be our biggest challenges. Darryl was from Red Deer, and we’d seen him from time to time in past years at local events in his FB RX7. Chris brought his ITB equipped NA6 Miata from Vancouver where he was the dominant fendered car. A number of other competitors ran in our class, all of whom I have forgotten… except for one.

Ryan and I were pretty jittery before the event… this was basically the climax of everything we had done until that point. We were worried about finishing dead last… sure we were fast in our city, but what if everyone else in our city was dog slow? We really didn’t have a good idea of where we stood.

That’s why, on the practice day that preceded the two day competition, we decided to never cross the finish line and trip the timing lights. We didn’t want to know our times. We didn’t want to know if we were fast… or slow. It seems silly now… but… I think we just wanted to save the excitement for a time that mattered, and we didn’t want to pysch ourselves out and cripple ourselves mentally if we really were slow.

So… run after run on practice day, we drove the course as per normal but swerved around the timing lights and the end. Car felt good. I remember everyone getting really excited about Chris Chu running 32.xx seconds, and I remember Darryl and a couple of cars in other classes were right around that mark too. And then… one run… I just decided I needed to know, and I tripped the lights. 31.xx

Yeah… sweet right?

Not really.

All of a sudden there was this great up-roar. People crowding around the car… what had we changed? Why was it so fast? See… a lot of people had traveled from Vancouver, where Ken Seto had previously ran the car, and by their memories, it shouldn’t have been that fast… at least not faster than their hero Chris Chu in his Miata. Most guys were happy for us, but some guys came in hard with questions… what had we done to the motor? the tranny? had we changed the suspension?

Truth is… the only thing we had changed parts wise, was the drivers seat (from a Sparco Speed, to a Kirkey brand bucket that was narrow enough to fit in between the seat rails and therefore sit low enough for a tall guy like me in a sunroof equipped car) and we’d relocated the battery to the passenger side floor. By our calculation, we were exactly at our limit class limit of 15 preparation points. At that point, we understood that this was not one of our local events. We added things up again, made sure we were legal for the real deal the following day, and slept deep sleeps that night.

Day one… Chris made it close. Darryl was right behind him, but Ryan and I were one and two in our class, and the fastest car with fenders. There’s not much to say… the car did what it should, we ran good runs, and we were fast. But… as soon as we finished our runs, we were greeted by the event steward and some OTB bloke. We were being protested.

The reason??? No cargo tray. Our interior was supposed to be intact, and as from the factory. We had left the cargo tray in my closet at home. We knew that the rules actually stated that cargo trays should be removed for safety reasons unless it were bolted in place from the factory. The Honda one just rested on top of a clip behind the back seat and thus, by our figuring should be removed.

We argued this point for a long time. Finally someone presented some evidence to support us. They went through the rest of our car. Ryan and I stood and watched. OTB dude must have been there an hour looking for something. We thought we were clean… but there were a number of points that were making us question things… after all… we hadn’t built the car, we’d just bought it. Ken called and talked to us and told us not to worry. We shared derogatory remarks about OTB dude.

I was about ready to fight, vandalize… something… what did OTB dude care? He was probably 7th out of 10 people in our class. No one else was on our case.

But… then… he found something. Back in the interior… a trim piece was missing. The 10gram radio delete cover was missing. Back in 1986, Honda had actually made the radio optional, and our car was equipped as though it wasn’t there… however… should the radio not be installed, a flat plastic cover should cover the hole where that radio would have been.

Our cover was missing.

Our only argument was… seriously??

People shook their heads…

In a great act of mercy we weren’t punted from the competition, instead our times for the day were transferred to C Modified where we were legal without our 10 gram plastic cover. C Modified… if I sum up CMOD without getting into details… it’s basically a class with only one rule: engine displacement less than 2000cc. Now we were up against Lotus Super Sevens and such.

Interesting thing was…

Ryan was still 1st… I was third.

Right then and there… as soon as they had made their decision, we went to work on the car to prepare it better for CMOD. When the final day came around… our car was…

…hoodless, hatch-less, bumper-less, window-less… NAKED.

It didn’t work for us though… the car felt totally different. The tires didn’t seem to work anymore… Ryan lost his lead, and we finished 2nd and 3rd.

Chris had also been protested by the same OTB dude, and joined us in CMOD with an illegal cooling system mod, which Darryl, Ryan, I and many other CSP competitors had already known about, and agreed not to protest him on it. It was a mod to keep him from overheating on the road course, and not a concern at the auto-x where run times are so short getting up to operating temperature is the real concern (at least in our climate).

OTB dude finished fourth in CSP, one away from a trophy.

Now, rules are rules… it’s true… but the frustrating thing is that at some point, all of us have to rely on the others being honest. I mean really… what’s stopping me from coming out with a stroker crank, or a close ratio transmission, or one of custom control arms… because all these things can be disguised to appear just like legal parts.

That’s why cheating is such a HUGE part of motorsports… Renault in F1… Toyota in WRC… And somehow now… after 2003, it’s not something I’m really shy about…

OTB dude… meh…

Don’t worry… it’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.

Furthermore… we’ve since realized… it’s just Canada. Yes… I mean to discredit our national championship. There are still classes that have a field of only three cars. Canadian National Champions go south to Topeka and finish OTB…

Ease up and have fun. If you need to conspire to 10 gram advantages to get ahead… your gonna be DFL in a real field anyways…