Look,
All I am doing is trying to provide a service to the clubs that is in accordance with our hobbies rules. When an issue comes up I am obligated to assist no matter if I agree with it or not.
I do feel as if I am partly to blame here.
On a lighter note, for the second time in my life, I have found that I have made an impact(for better or worse) on a huge number of people's lives. The first being my code contributions to an application called Morpheus. A music file-sharing application that literally millions of people used to use daily, and now this. LOL
For years(10+) I have not addressed the issue of FM frequencies in the entry process correctly. And I have been aware of that but had never fixed it. So to be completely honest this entire issue is probably of my doing(or lack thereof).
When a person enters on FM frequencies (primary and alternate), Those frequencies are supposed to be unavailable for any other entrants in that class, for that event, as they become the registered frequencies for the original entrant. You are supposed to find alternate frequencies to enter on. No one else in that class may enter under an FM frequency that has already been taken by another entrant(Primary and alternate frequencies being separated to individual categories).
That's what alternate frequencies are for. Due to a long outstanding bug, rcRacingEvents did not enforce this.
In other words, If someone enters gas cat using pri 75, and alt 77, no one else entering gas cat should be able to enter on those same pri and alt frequencies. You can enter as pri 77 and alt 75 if you find that someone has already entered with your frequencies.
That's how it is supposed to work.
When two contestants enter on the same FM frequencies(when they shouldn't be able to in the first place) and when they are actually using 2.4 radios I cannot help but believe that they are actively and mindfully choosing to exploit the FM bug in rcRacingEvents to create a desired outcome. And now that directors and clubs have started to bring this to my attention, I understand that it is this bug that is the issue, and I must as a service to the hobby finally address it and correct it.
The fact that rcRacingEvents has never corrected that bug has given a lot of racers in my opinion, the belief that entering in this fashion is "normal" or "ok" when in fact it is not.
I am in the process of correcting this bug and doing that alone should rectify the majority of the issue. Although I will get a ton of heat for it, it is the proper thing to do.
I did look into the NAMBA (I'll look into IMPBA later) rulebook today and found this relevant sentence in section 16, page 2, (B-1) which I believe addresses the elephant in the room:
"Drawing for races will generally be done by random selection of compatible frequencies and with no regard to specific entries, contestants, and/or boats. "
I believe that sentence means you enter, and take your chances who you race against, it says nothing about a pitman being exclusive to you, In fact, it says the opposite. with no regard for contestants.
Keyword being "Contestants" ie. other racers. The fact that another racer may be your pitman is irrelevant. I myself have a dedicated pitman. And we have both made a conscious decision to not run the same classes.
It's this FM "bug" in rcRacingEvents that has been used to circumvent the spirit of the statement in the rule book above for too long. It has been tolerated to the point that it is now commonly accepted. This is the crux of the problem.
I will admit I have been guilty of this in the past, as a number of fellow racers are as well. But at some point when the abuse becomes systemic (I hate that word) we all must agree that it's time to correct it.
Bill
