Hi Guys

I would like to open a discussion about the appropriateness of our right of way rules etc in the context of last weekends racing, particularly where we ran races with Blokarts head-on at high speeds on the apron area.

Many of you are former sailors who have learned the right of way rules at a much slower pace – and have these ingrained like most of us know the road rules.  For those without that background, these are new rules and concepts.  We discussed and explained some of these at the briefings.

I went through a tack upwind and found 2 karts side by side coming straight at me, about 60-80 Meters away.  With my speed of about 25kph and theirs of 40+ that is a closing speed of about 25 m/second.  Not a lot of time to recall the rules, I turned right to avoid as the lead kart turned left – bugger! I completed a 360 and narrowly avoided a collision – both the other kart and I narrowly avoided further collisions with other karts.  Assuming guilt, I apologised, the other driver was very good about it, thought he had right of way, he asked Don… I think the answer was I had right of way and should have carried on (straight at 2 karts who would both avoid me… I hope)

The pace we race it is dangerous to run head on at each other.  At BK Heaven it is simpler; there are only a few paths one can take.  But on large open spaces like last weekend, there will be an accident, if someone is injured or worse, the right of way rules will be of little comfort.

We need to avoid this situation and keep the give way rules simple.