IFMAR International Jury Decision

Following on from the controversy surrounding the use of tyre additive at the 1:8 Onroad World Championship, which has resulted in the cancellation of the first two rounds of practice, IFMAR have issued the following statement –

‘Homestead, USA, 12th of April 2011

Earlier this year a message was send to the blocs regarding tire treatment in 1/8th Scale IC Track. Tire treatment must not be allowed. Like in the IFMAR rules for 1/10th and 1/5th.. This was also discussed in Pattaya last year, but forgotten to be implemented in the rules..

Yesterday April 11th this was discussed once more between the blocs during a meeting. Everybody is still in agreement that tire treatment is a bad development for the sport and must not be allowed. Unfortunately there are a few additives on the market, almost impossible to detect with equipment on the track. The only way to get confirmation about treatment with those additives is by sending them to a lab.

Yesterday we received a protest from one USA driver against the spraying of the tires, which was not accepted.

Today we received another protest from Italy showing that a few brands of tires is suffering of glue getting affected, causing the rings of the tire to split. The Italian protest was also offering help in setting up a controlled tire area. Because of the possible implications of this protest the race was stopped. After discussions within the IFMAR International Jury and with the drivers the following has been agreed with a majority vote.
• Tire treatment is forbidden.
• Today Tuesday 12th, we will not run qualifying rounds. Tuesday afternoon we will run 1-6 and 13 till 7 starting from 14.45 hours as practice
• A controlled tire area will be set up for Qualifying starting at Wednesday. A total of 4 rounds of Qualifying will be run on the remaining Wednesday/Thursday if weather permits.
• The controlled tire Area will be located near the Technical inspection Area.
• Drivers are advised to bring their tires at least 1 hour before their heat to the officials. Tires must be “new”, out of the box, not trued. Minimum diameter 66mm front and 74mm rear. This will be checked and noted.
• They can be trued in the controlled Area to the right size and have to given back to the officials who will check them again and put them in a plastic back with their registration number and heat number.
• They will be stored in boxes with the heat number.
• You can put a maximum of 10 tires in a bag.
• Tires not used stay in the bag and will be available for the next round.
• This box will be available in the controlled pit area when the heat is due to run.
• The checking and controlling in the controlled tire area will be done by IFMAR officials, or appointed IFMAR officials.

Note,
It is very sad to see that tire treatment is available, even here on the track by drivers who know on forehand that it could not be used. They have gambled and hoped that it would be allowed due to the none availability of detecting equipment. It is even sadder that this small group of drivers is responsible for the delays that now have occurred.

In the past a small group of drivers was also the reason we had to make a decision on the use of controlled fuel, because drivers were cheating.
Now this group might be responsible for the introduction of a controlled tire in the future.

An IFMAR World Championship has 150 till 180 drivers. The majority of them being an amateur, who has to pay 4000 till 5000 USD to run in such an event. Without them there is no World Championship. This small group of so called professional drivers should realize this.

Sander de Graaf
IFMAR IC Section Chairman.’