Evan,
Alright!! Now we're on the same page. I can't respond long, got lots of work to do, but really quick...
As David and yourself pointed out, the Cobra crowd is seen as more aggressive. Most street rodders tend to be "waxers" if you will. No disrespect at all to them, there is nothing wrong with that. They tend to shine their cars, drive them slowly to a show, polish them, talk about them and look at them. Then drive slowly home. You don't see them on the road course or normally blazing down the back roads. Cobra drivers do tend to be younger, drive faster and have a reputation (right or wrong) of being more reckless. And I'm sure there are some reckless Cobra drivers out there. We need to show that we can organize a group of responsible drivers driving safe cars.
We have discussed and agreed on the need for safety inspections of our cars. Working the details of the inspection out may be more difficult, but we'll get through it. It will only help us, both insurance wise, and plain safety wise.
You're right, a Cobra is a Cobra. Just like a street rod is a street rod. No self respecting rodder would put a 150 hp 4 cylinder motor in their rod. I don't think it is a problem putting all this horsepower into the Cobras, and I would never condone putting a restriction on it. That's going waaay too far. What we need to do is show that we can handle it responsibly. That's all. Plain and simple. I specifically asked our underwriters about horsepower, and they said they haven't turned any street rod down due to its' power. They'd like to know that the owner can handle it, but if so, no problems. They'll write it. As you said, it isn't the performance potenital itself, it is what WE are doing with it that causes the problems.
We definitely need to form our own seperate group from the NHRA, NSRA or anyone else, which we have discussed and agreed on.
Hmmm...if insurance companies are snakes, does that explain why I love Cobras and Vipers so much??
Your right. What's fair is fair. Here's the problem with an exclusion in the policy for street racing and/or 100 in a 55 zone. And I know this part VERY well, because I do it for a living. How would the insurance company prove it? How can I prove it was a street racing incident? Without telemetry, how can I undeniably prove they were going too fast? I face the same problem when doing my fraud investigations. How can I prove someone actually ditched their car, instead of it being stolen? Even if I strongly suspect it, how do I prove it? You should know that the courts don't generally look favorably on auto insurance companies. A good lawyer would be able to demonstrate that we couldn't definitely prove street racing or excessive speeding. And I don't want to get into a debate about lawyers or courts again, but you know what I'm trying to say. That's why they won't really do that. You may have that street racing clause in your policy, and I think it's great that you do. As you point out, it has NO place on public roads. But unless there would be witnesses to say "Yes, I know for a fact that he was street racing because he said so" and the insured admitted to it, denying coverage is not easy to do.
We can't get the manufacturers directly involved in this. DV pointed this out before, and I don't want to redo his whole point, but what if FFR gives more than SAI, or SPF gives more than Backdraft. We can't get involved in that. Not to mention the whole liability thing again. I definitely hope we have a good working relationship with the manufacturers and can positively influence them, but we need to be fully independent.
Speaking of liability, I agree we need to totally abosolve ourselves and the inspectors of any liability. This is a voluntary program designed just to help each other out. It should not be taken as legal documentation that the car is safe or otherwise "approved" legally. I assume, but dont' know, that the NSRA et al. do the same.
Your quote: "I think the key is to give the owners the tools to assure the carriers the cars are roadworthy when completed.
The carriers want business. They just don't want to buy a claim." Amen to that.
However, our agenda is to go beyond the insurance problem. Yes, it is the most pressing problem we have right now and needs to be addressed, but we want to group to go on strong once that problem has been faced and solved.
I know I didn't say everything I wanted, and sorry if my comments are half baked. I'm swamped, we had 8" of snow this morning, so I missed a half day work. Got lots to do.
Thanks and keep the thoughts coming.
Steve
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