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I don’t know Todd, and I’m not a CR, just a lowly 4 yr PCA member. I have been following this thread only interjecting in the beginning because it hit a nerve. Never did I ever think we’d still be here 4 months later discussing a one year suspension for Todd.
I am both frustrated and disappointed to say the least about the outcome, but especially the final response from PCA. I think Todd’s attempt to effectuate change at the top of (the) PCA by standing on principle is honorable.We may all agree to disagree vehemently about his strategy or methods but if the eventual result is more clarity for all drivers and racers in terms of what is medically required for licensure, then I hope that his sacrifice will not be in vain but rather will lead to safer and more enjoyable track days. I know he has said this more eloquently in his posts, so no need for me to bloviate.
In the meantime, PCA’s punishment of a long time volunteer with a successful track/racing/ instructing record seems particularly petty and vindictive give that he was caught up in a multibillion dollar corporation’s recall of unsafe CPAP machines, leaving him with “not enough data”. I don’t know in what world an experienced racer who owns an asset like a Porsche would want to risk their car, their insurance rating and/or their life with intentional non-compliance for a documented condition like sleep apnea. Especially a lawyer. Given all the anecdotes about tired, hungover, dehydrated, heat exhausted drivers and red mist, etc., vs. Todd’s successful track record of wins, I don’t think it takes a sleep expert let alone a doctor to realize Todd’s most likely been maximizing his treatment protocol all along. He said so. HIS doctor said so. And now the 40 pound weight loss says this is a guy who REALLY wants to get back on track and hang with his PCA friends in the paddock and put this mess in the rear view mirror. Perhaps I’m naive, but I believe there is a level of common sense that should have been applied to the big picture from the get go. We are not, and never were talking about a new member or a first time CR license application. We are talking about a very experienced driver with enough demonstrated self and situational awareness that he achieved CR status. Oh and he won a bunch of the races too. That counts for nothing?
I am in no way suggesting that PCA should have changed the rules for Todd, but he is clearly an asset to the CR program as well as his CVR region and should have been treated respectfully and possibly given some latitude by the medical committee for a problem that he did not create. Anyone with the deep knowledge of OSA that the medical committee seems to possess, especially siting facts like DOT trucking standards and the possibility that a racer with OSA might “ fall asleep” while racing, should have known that thousands of CPAP users were inconvenienced by this recall and couldn’t get their data or a replacement machine in a timely fashion. Perhaps they could have shelved his application until he had the “correct amount” of data since he still had another year on his current license. It seems to me their responses to a reasonable set of follow up questions regarding what was medically necessary landed somewhere between flippant and ignorant and ignited this firestorm.
I find the amount of Todd’s time they have wasted to be both disrespectful and disgraceful. The damage they have done to PCA’s image is difficult to measure but based on this thread, there seem to be more members now questioning how they will spend their racing/club dollars in the future. As many have said, clearly PCA doesn’t care about racers. But not caring equally about each subset of members leads to people voting with their wallets and leaving a good organization filled with many dedicated, knowledgeable and passionate members. It’s bad PR coming from leadership over membership.
The saddest part is that Todd seems to have genuinely wanted to effectuate positive change for ALL racers so that we would all better understand what will be required of us in the future. I don’t want to send my banking information through a secure portal to a mortgage company for a worthless pre approval letter. We all know how many times those databases have been breached, So why would I want to send my HIPPA protected healthcare information that my personal physician has already certified to an AOL address for some random volunteer doctor to review or rubber stamp for a club? Is the committee really made up of expert cardiologists, endocrinologists, psychiatrists, orthopedists, Opthomologists, etc. who can each make a better determination about my health,and my ability to drive, site unseen, than my doctor/s? Or are they just wasting everyone’s time as well in the name of worthless approvals?
If this thread has taught me one thing, it’s that I will not be pursuing anything PCA that requires this level of intrusion into my personal information until PCA takes some urgent steps to review and secure their medical form, apply fair testing standards across all specialties rather than seeming to randomly single out one diagnosis over another as being more serious based on opinions, and/or abolish the “ ad hoc” medical committee and leave the medical clearing to our personal physicians as other clubs do. Their lack of transparency over the past 4 months has only incentivized people to say they will now lie on their medical forms as proven in this thread. I can’t imagine PCA made anyone feel better about submitting their true medical information with the tone of their last letter to Todd.
I don’t know if the leadership at PCA is so arrogant to think that an experienced and successful racer/instructor like Todd can be easily replaced. Instructors like Todd need to be cultivated over years of training and driving. They volunteer countless hours on and off track assisting new members, encouraging them to branch out, and thereby help cultivate the next generation of instructors. I am sure club racers make their peers better drivers. Isn’t that what we all aspire to do? Run with people that are better than us so we can learn from their experience and level up? People with his expertise are invaluable assets to PCA regional clubs and what makes PCA more desirable than pay to play experiences. Sadly PCA leadership does not engender the same feeling. Frankly, it makes me question what we are paying for.
But paid or volunteer, those who have successfully singled Todd out as an example to all who dare question their reasoning, decisions and whistleblower policy have now successfully punished all CR drivers who would enjoy his competitive presence on track and have seriously damaged a valuable asset for the CVR region members who he could potentially walk away from. Who would blame him after the last response from PCA? All I know is that PCA has potentially squandered an extremely valuable resource for another year if not forever, in benching Todd.
I had an 84 y/o instructor who had been demoted by the powers that be in my region due to his age. Needless to say he was sour about it. However, for the 2 hour car control clinic I did with him, he was relentless about hand position and retraining my muscle memory to always be at 9 and 3. I couldn’t rest my arms for a second without him picking my hand up and putting it back where it belonged between exercises. A few days later HIS many years of teaching and driving experience saved my life when I was run off the highway - because I was steering with my hands at 9 and 3 and gently letting my thumbs do the work. No white knuckled over correction, no one elbow on the arm rest, unprepared. Just 9 and 3 like he’d so patiently drilled into my head. I recovered complete control of the car and drove away unscathed AND more confident in my skills.
I will be forever grateful that this instructor did not walk away when PCA dismissed his many years of volunteerism and invaluable experience. I hope PCA can see the value of someone like Todd to members like me. And I hope fellow RLers can grant Todd some grace for the choices he has made in pursing his principles. Yes this is his fight but if he effectuates changes in policies that we can all benefit from, he deserves our thanks and admiration.
Why would you deprive yourself? Even those who agree with Luigi will tell you that the PCA is an amazing club with great people and a huge variety of amazing events. The only way this would affect your PCA experience is if you want to club race, and have OSA, and refuse to provide CPAP data. It is not in any way reflective of the general PCA experience and it's difficult to think of anything that is more niche and "one-off" than this issue.
Luigi was never wronged or singled out. PCA has required CPAP data for those with OSA for many years. Other racers have complied with the rule and had no issue with it (at least one posted as much in this thread). I don't think anybody else, who actually has OSA, has objected to the rule in this thread. That compliance is not surprising because it is trivially easy to provide the CPAP data and doesn't reveal any meaningful private information. It's also not surprising because those with non-trivial OSA know the impact of not using CPAP first-hand (versus the "armchair doctors" in this thread who think OSA is the equivalent of not getting enough sleep, which is objectively wrong).
Luigi was not singled out. He wanted an exception to a longstanding rule. PCA actually offered Luigi an exception to the rule, as long as he did not disclose it publicly. He refused that offer because he wanted it to be public. So Luigi would not take "yes" for an answer. In response to his refusal, PCA said they would not give him an exception publicly. In other words, his question was asked, considered carefully, and answered in a timely fashion a very long time ago. The only reason it has dragged on is because he refused to accept either "yes" or "no" as an answer.
The reasons why the PCA would not give him a public exception should be glaringly obvious. First, giving him a give him an exception publicly would likely **** off all of those did submit data. Second, any organization that willfully violates its own rules creates immense legal liability when previously it had none. I can't believe I have to spell this out -- Boeing's liability isn't because a door plug fell off the plane (sometimes unexpected things happen) -- they are being sued, and will almost certainly lose, because they did not follow their own rules that would have prevented the door plug from ever falling off. Willfully violating your own rules is a lightning rod for liability -- why would PCA ever agree to having an exception to their own rules broadly broadcast to the public (especially considering that the reach of this thread is far beyond just PCA and RL at this point)????
When you refuse to accept either a "yes" or a "no" answer from an organization, the organization is not the problem.
You act like every club and doctor agrees with PCA on this.
You think PCA is alone on having discussions on this stuff? The only thing they are alone on is in what road they took after having said discussion. Everyone went right and they took off running left. The fact is no other clubs would have banned him from racing. And doctors all over the continent disagree with PCA that this is a factor because they routinely sign off on people as medically fit for racing. Todd's own doctor said it wasn't a factor. Whatever PCA thinks its doing its not helping the club, it's not growing the sport, and it's certainly not protecting themselves from liability.
You act like every club and doctor agrees with PCA on this.
You think PCA is alone on having discussions on this stuff? The only thing they are alone on is in what road they took after having said discussion. Everyone went right and they took off running left. The fact is no other clubs would have banned him from racing. And doctors all over the continent disagree with PCA that this is a factor because they routinely sign off on people as medically fit for racing. Todd's own doctor said it wasn't a factor. Whatever PCA thinks its doing its not helping the club, it's not growing the sport, and it's certainly not protecting themselves from liability.
I agree with all of this. The PCA did not to have to have a rule, and other clubs do not have that rule. That's why I've continuously said the point is potentially winnable, if approached correctly. It needs to be said that the rule isn't that intrusive -- giving CPAP data is trivially easy and doesn't expose meaningful personal information. I've done it with another organization, somebody else posted that they have submitted CPAP data to PCA CR, and nobody else has complained. It isn't a big deal, so I really don't know how much actual benefit there is focusing on this one niche issue. That said, I've been supportive of the general idea of simplification that is aligned with other racing clubs, and aligned with the goals of most posters in this thread.
On the liability front, however, you are missing a hugely important point. You're right -- if PCA didn't have a longstanding rule, they wouldn't have any meaningful liability in the event of an OSA-related incident. That's 100% true. The problem is that the PCA does have a rule, and has enforced it for years. If they violated their own longstanding rule for one individual, and then had an OSA-related incident, they would have very significant liability because they broke their own rule that would have prevented the incident. This is "legal 101" and is not debatable. That's why the only viable path was to comply with the rule this year, while it is still in force, and then focus on taking steps to try to change the rule for next year. If the rule could be removed for next year, the liability would also be removed -- but the rule is already in force for this year and there is no way to undo that. The PCA even gave him the option to have an exception this year, all he had to do was not make the exception public. That was a generous offer given that it does create significant liability risk for the PCA if there was an incident and it became known that they violated their own rule. He should have taken the exception and lobbied for change for next year.
I wish people would actually read my posts instead of having knee-jerk reactions because I said something negative, while they haven't absorbed a single word of what I posted. It's fine to say any of my posts are BS, but quote what you claim is BS and say why you think it is wrong. The current approach is not working -- he is not getting to race this year, he now has zero chance of changing the rule, and he's been banned for one year. Why are so many of you encouraging continuation of the same path???? When something isn't working, and someone is digging a deeper hole for themselves, it's the right thing to do to encourage a change of course.
@peterp there was / is nothing preventing PCA from fixing the issue / making a change during the year as demonstrated with the 13/13 change (which even had a retroactive aspect to the fix / change).
@peterp there was / is nothing preventing PCA from fixing the issue / making a change during the year as demonstrated with the 13/13 change (which even had a retroactive aspect to the fix / change).
But the policy of requiring CPAP data doesn’t impose a large burden, doesn’t make things less safe, and might make things more safe to some unknown degree, so they have no strong reason to change the policy.
Just because other clubs don’t do it, that doesn’t mean PCA can’t or shouldn’t do it. Somebody had to be the first to require use of a HANS when using harnesses.
I’m not saying that PCA should require the CPAP data. I think it’s enough for the personal doctor to sign off and say the person is fit to race, and PCA shouldn’t be asking for any information beyond the signed form saying the person is fit to race, without any medical conditions disclosed. But per PCA’s medical form, they’ve chosen a more activist route where they want to evaluate the fitness of the person themself (via the medical committee), and if that’s their approach, it’s reasonable to ask for the CPAP data.
Looking at this issue more broadly, there are a lot more drivers in DE than club racing, and I think there should be consistency in how these medical issues are handled for both.
For both, I think a good approach is to provide drivers with a document which details the rigors of driving on the track and how various health conditions can affect ability to drive on track, advise drivers to consult with their personal doctor to discuss their fitness to drive on track, and have drivers sign something attesting that they're fit to drive on track. This puts all of the liability on the driver, and encourages them to evaluate their fitness.
The next step up for both DE and club racing, which I think is also reasonable, is to have both the driver and the personal doctor sign something attesting that the driver is fit to drive on track, but putting all of the liability on the driver. There should be no disclosure of medical conditions, just a declaration that the driver is fit to drive on track.
I don't think that either DE or club racing should use a form where medical conditions need to be disclosed, the club's doctors evaluate the driver's fitness and can ask for whatever information they want, and the club's doctors decide if the driver is fit. That's unnecessary and very invasive.
The important issue highlighted by Luigi's situation isn't Luigi's case in particular, effects of OSA, need for CPAP data, or the behavior of some people in PCA National. The important issue is how health and fitness considerations are generally addressed for both DE and club racing.
Looking at this issue more broadly, there are a lot more drivers in DE than club racing, and I think there should be consistency in how these medical issues are handled for both.
For both, I think a good approach is to provide drivers with a document which details the rigors of driving on the track and how various health conditions can affect ability to drive on track, advise drivers to consult with their personal doctor to discuss their fitness to drive on track, and have drivers sign something attesting that they're fit to drive on track. This puts all of the liability on the driver, and encourages them to evaluate their fitness.
The next step up for both DE and club racing, which I think is also reasonable, is to have both the driver and the personal doctor sign something attesting that the driver is fit to drive on track, but putting all of the liability on the driver. There should be no disclosure of medical conditions, just a declaration that the driver is fit to drive on track.
I don't think that either DE or club racing should use a form where medical conditions need to be disclosed, the club's doctors evaluate the driver's fitness and can ask for whatever information they want, and the club's doctors decide if the driver is fit. That's unnecessary and very invasive.
The important issue highlighted by Luigi's situation isn't Luigi's case in particular, effects of OSA, need for CPAP data, or the behavior of some people in PCA National. The important issue is how health and fitness considerations are generally addressed for both DE and club racing.
Why? Arguably, it doesn't make sense that people are allowed to drive on track, sometimes with an instructor in the right seat, without making a declaration that they're fit to drive on track. Most organizations require a tech form attesting that the car is fit to be driven on track, yet most crashes are due to driver error rather than mechanicals. PCA Potomac already has such a declaration, which I'm sure YOU have signed:
Why? Arguably, it doesn't make sense that people are allowed to drive on track, sometimes with an instructor in the right seat, without making a declaration that they're fit to drive on track. Most organizations require a tech form attesting that the car is fit to be driven on track, yet most crashes are due to driver error rather than mechanicals. PCA Potomac already has such a declaration, which I'm sure YOU have signed:
Thats pretty standard on MSR and CR for every DE event in one form or another.
Thats not what your post said.
You said that DE should have the same standards (medical form, doctor sign off, etc.) as racing.
Please stop saying that.
A DE student and a club racer are not under the same level of stress, competition, or pretty much anything else.
If you hold DE to CR standards in the medical form aspect, DE will be over. Cut it out.
No, I can’t elaborate further. Said everything that needs to be said in THIS post.
A DE student and a club racer are not under the same level of stress, competition, or pretty much anything else.
If you hold DE to CR standards in the medical form aspect, DE will be over. Cut it out.
No, I can’t elaborate further. Said everything that needs to be said in THIS post.
I don't totally agree with Bruce on the rigors, but making another hoop for someone to do a PCA DE will significantly affect it's participation numbers negatively. People outside of PCA already complain about the tech requirements, event procedures, etc. Adding something else will be giving people a reason to leave.
Thats pretty standard on MSR and CR for every DE event in one form or another.
Thats not what your post said.
You said that DE should have the same standards (medical form, doctor sign off, etc.) as racing.
Please stop saying that.
A DE student and a club racer are not under the same level of stress, competition, or pretty much anything else.
If you hold DE to CR standards in the medical form aspect, DE will be over. Cut it out.
No, I can’t elaborate further. Said everything that needs to be said in THIS post.
Yes, I'm saying it should be the same standards for DE and club racing. And I've indicated what I think the standards should be, which is a lot less than what PCA CR is doing now.
I don't agree that the standard should be lower for DE. DE cars can be just as fast as race cars (or faster), and DE cars generally don't have full cages, halo seats, etc. Some students in DE cars are quite fast. Many instructors are in the car most of the day, between their own driving and being in the right seat, and they do this even when the weather is hot.
As you noted, many DE organizers already have a fitness declaration, and all I'm advocating is that (a) drivers be provided with more information about the rigors of driving on track and how health conditions can affect driving on track and (b) advise drivers to discuss their fitness to drive on track with their personal doctors. This isn't a large step beyond what many DE organizers are already doing. DE will not be over if we take that additional step.
08-19-2024, 10:07 PM
