Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Posted By: Maxspeed99 on July 22 2007 at 01:05:42 PM   The Florida DOT wreaked havoc on the ASCS teams headed to the Milton, FL race last night. The teams that continued through to the race were cited for a wide variety of Florida violations and several teams got word and turned around. They nailed them for overall length, licences, etc. Motor(home?)-toters are a major target for them. This has been going on for the some time now with the stock car racers traveling to Pensacola but the DOT seems to have stepped up their enforcement. They were going so far as to take photos of the trailers, enclosed race cars, and equipment with threats of $1000 fines for any sponsors with decals or other signage. Their claim is that these companies are violating interstate commerce laws. I'm not sure if that is going to hold up or not - Seems like they're stretching the ordnance far beyond the norm. Before heading to Florida to race, check to make sure you're not going to be in violation. Back to top

sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me!

just pigs tryin to make buck..........you can tell just by reading that it was excessive. DOT trying to duplicate cops and make them some money. great law makers voted in down there. Racetracks should file suit. This is SUPPOSED to be the USA where you can travel COMPLETELY free from state to state. not have papers and crap. It's not like crossing into another country. what a buch of ASSHOLES!

How much would could a wouldchuck chuck if a 
wouldchuck could chuck would

Or, one can look at it another way........... Professional racers involved in commerce using RV plates on their tow rigs to avoid paying their fair share of taxes to maintain the roads.

dont they pay taxes when they buy fuel, parts, food etc.

I wouldn't know..........Oklahoma has turnpikes. Roads pay for themselves.........then turnpike authority starts bankin. Half the money legislated to go to road construction or maintenance never makes it there anyways..........it gets skimmed off the top. How else are lawmakers able to be on vacation 75% of the time? It's not just done through roads.....they do it with education as well....among many other things. Because not all politicians are fortunate enough to be on Halliburton or Bechtel's payroll.

How much would could a wouldchuck chuck if a 
wouldchuck could chuck would

DOT is subsidized by the Feds, not the state.

Member of this message board since 1997

they are all dirty bastards. either way. but thank you for the correction my fellow sooner.

How much would could a wouldchuck chuck if a 
wouldchuck could chuck would

welcome to my world! I think it was California that did this several years back to Bernstein the drag racer and he either missed a show or was late because of and started a big stink about it, but once one state gets away with it the rest start to jump on board they all are looking for that extra easy buck and the trucks are the easiest target. Now if I could interest anyone on here in a class 8 tractor and trailer I could then become a professional spectator! today Florida and tomorrow the rest will follow!

also in reply to hawker and the funding I am not sure how it is done in Florida but here in Ohio it is run and staffed by the Ohio state patrol. Funded in part with federal money I am sure as most are but each state seems to have its own version of enforcement, witch is why I keep ripping more and more pages out of my atlas. sigh, this must have touched a nerve!

Its just another way for the law to collect a few bucks in fines which is truly bullshit they get it in other ways for sure. I heard of the same kind of thing when the teams went through missisipi and arkansas. They where even questioned about there alcohol containers across state lines. True a lot do you use RV plates to avoid some cost for road tax and yes they do pay taxes for food, fuel etc but lets not be mistaken when it comes to taxes most of the teams that go out on the road with these huge sponsors are there for that very reason, money that would ordinarily go to the government is convieniently used as a nice big tax write off. for some giant company. Maybe thats why the country is in the shape it is?

They probably thought Scott Bloomquist was coming to town :)

The topic of Florida DOT and race rigs was started on a Florida racing message board today:

http://www.karnac.net/cgi-bin/AnyBoard/anyboard.cgi/FSCR?cmd=get&cG=5323437303&zu=3532343730&v=2&gV=0&p=#52470

....Opperman forever!

http://www.karnac.net/cgi-bin/AnyBoard/anyboard.cgi/FSCR?cmd=get&cG=5323437303&zu=3532343730&v=2&gV=0&p=#52470

....Opperman forever!

why not find out what laws are the problem and comply. if its Proper plates , CDL, log books, it doesn,t sound impossible to me.

It's not impossible, but the costs and administration for a race team operating the hauler as a commercial vehicle is quite complex and expensive.

That RV plate - no big expense - now becomes a $4500 or so base plate depending on the state of registry. As a commercial vehicle, there is also the Interstate Fuel Tax Authority to acquire. This involves record keeping on all fuel purchased and distribution of taxes to each state traveled in at a given rate for all miles driven. Try accurately tracking that in your personal vehicle for a single month to get an idea of the hassle it becomes. Keep in mind, there is no such thing as an honest mistake. Any discrepancies are automatically presumed to be falsification and penalized accordingly. The commercial vehicle also becomes subject to yearly inspections as well as the need to keep full service records on everything - right down to wiper blades.

The CDL is easy enough to get but tough to hang on to if you play by the cowboy rules a lot of 'private' hauler rigs operate under. Working in the pits all night then driving 15 hours to the next show isn't going to happen under CDL restrictions. Toss in a requirement for 50% of the drivers in any fleet to be random drug tested at least once a year and better living through modern chemistry is no longer a viable aid in fighting off the sleep monster. It doesn't have to be meth or amphetimines either - common ephedra products are forbidden now.

Depending on the amount of fuel one transports along with other noxious chemicals, the driver may also need a Hazardous Materials endorsement on his license. Getting that involves a 2 - 3 month process of fingerprinting, background check, and testing, all conducted under the benevolent eye of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration. Cost for that is around $90 - $115 at renewal time every 4 years. Don't forget the proper hazmat placards, keeping Material Safety Data Sheets and bills identifying hazmat onboard.

Driver logs are a real profit maker for DOT across the land. Keep in mind, when the driver signs his name on each page, he is swearing to the accuracy of the information. Once again, no honest mistakes. One driver for a company I used to work for simply made the mistake of entering the same date on 2 consecutive log pages. It's easy enough to do when tired and groggy. The result was a $178 fine in Kentucky for log falsification. The information was completely in compliance for hours of service - just the date was bad. The was in the good ole days of mercy. Under new regulations, log book fines start at $300 and go up from there to around $3000 - payable before you are permitted to leave the scale house.

The hours of service will have many teams wondering how they're going to get from A to B in the time available. Under CDL rules, you have a 14 hour workday from the time you go on duty to the time you are required to be off duty for a minimum of 10 hours. Out of that 14 hours, no more than 11 can be spent actually driving. The alternative is to have two drivers running a team operation. Again - more expense. I used to get drafted into driving a hauler from time to time. I can't afford to do it now. If I get paid, those hours must be recorded and count against my 70 hour per week maximum allowable on duty hours. If I work in the shop, the pits, or any setting I receive pay for, those hours are recordable too. If I only sweep bird crap out of cuckoo clocks at the mall for an hour every day, that counts too!

My regular employer isn't very understanding about me starting the week with only 50 hours available to work, having squanderd 20 or so over the weekend playing with race cars. After 34 consecutive hours off duty, my duty cycle can be reset to 70 available hours for the next 6 days.

BTW - I don't do this for cheap. I drive chemical tankers for a living. Yes, I carry the real bad ass stuff that will eat your face in 30 seconds and take your happy thoughts for the next 30 years. My compensation is well over $1000 per week. Any commercial drives I do outside my regular employment will have to pay the same since it has the potential to reduce my available hours to earn a living at my regular job. Considering the financial and legal ramifications of going commercial, I would urge anyone in racing - high level pro or weekend warrior to fight the DOT on all levels regarding this situation.

The barrage of entities that regulate what a commercial vehicle does is staggering. We deal with city, county, township, and state cops of all kinds, highway patrol and commercial vehicle enforcement in each state. Some states have now expanded their commercial enforcement to include a unit that deals exclusively with hazmat loads. Toss in state DOT, Federal DOT, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Homeland Security, and Transportation Security Administration and the whole conglomerate of enforcement becomes a hellacious burden. As one who is growing increasingly weary of the onslaught of ever more intrusive regulation of how I make a living, my current Hazmat endorsement may be my last.

Every racer - no matter how small his weekend warrior operation is, right on up to the largest of the touring pros needs to learn as much about this attempt to extort more funds from racers and fight it on all levels as hard as they can.

just because something is a tax write off for one company or person does not mean that no taxes are paid on that money at all. it just means that the tax liability is passed on. that is to say that the money spent on parts and food and gas that may get wrote off buy the teams as operating expenses shows up as income to other companies. who then in turn write off a portion as operating expenses. in this country you are allowed to write off the money you have to spend in the course of making a profit. i guess the shape this country is in is why people of many countries are lining up to get in. (legally or not) over all this country is not that bad off. totor homes most often can be considered a motorhome and not subject to the same rules as other rigs. the drivers use motorhomes to go from track to track in a commercial venture. what is the difference. if the laws allow for it . it gets complicated when some states implement different laws than the state that the vehicle is registered in. the vehicle registration says motorhome and correctly so in the home state. but then you get to another state and they tell you it is not. plus the race rigs are not hauling payloads. they are not for hire. i am not sure but i think in some states things are different when you are not hauling a paying load for some one. i believe in some cases the cops try to bunch the race rigs into a catagory they don't fall into. i have heard that at times you can beat the tickets but is it really worth it to have to go to that trouble. the part about going after sponsers for having advertising on the trailers and cars is absurd.

My favorite part about this topic that nobody seemed to mention...

I bought a semi so I could pull my race car trailer. Because I get paid and cross state lines, I have to comply with all the above mentioned log books, IFTA, etc. The DOT doesn't care if I make money, they consider the racing a business that must comply.

However, I don't think the IRS would like to see a loss year after year, they define it as a hobby loss. Doesn't seem to make sense to me!

On a side note, I love how an ordinary Joe can go buy a 53' RV and drive wherever. Heck, even throw a boat or enclosed trailer behind it - no problems!

dglennon..........very good point about the RV's. All I can say is hassel the livin shit out of your local congressman or district representative. It's true that if enough people hassel em it will change. It does seem screwed up to me that they are making an effort to charge race car drivers that are losing crazy amounts of cash so they can do what they love (racing).......and average joe in his 53 footer is headin to the lake to get drunk and maybe get in a boating accident.

How much would could a wouldchuck chuck if a 
wouldchuck could chuck would

So if they stopped a newspaper truck and opened the doors and took a picture then all the advertisers could be sued $1000?

Sprints rule

Apparently this is a real gray area with the laws in most states.

Many of the people I work with are in the same situation and have been either hassled, ticketed and/or had the Highway Patrol classify their tow rig as 'commercial' in nature; plus make them go through the weigh stations.

Curt Barnett at Barnett H-D told me that they were so tired of the problem when they'd go to race at Las Cruces from El Paso that they met with the NM Police Commander; and here's what he told them:

1) If your vehicle is over 26,000# you should go get a CDL. He went and got his, took him about 4 days and a few times of taking the test, but all in all, that was it and it cost him $60.

2) Talk to your local Police Commander and see if you can get a ruling on your specific case. In Curt's case, the Commander gave his cell phone number to Curt and told him that if a Highway Patrol pulled them over and was hassling them for the patrolman to call the Commander to release them.

But with state laws that are clearly unclear, if you have a big stacker trailer and you're planning on doing a lot of traveling; you're probably going to get pulled over, so be prepared as best possible.