Is the MX5OC an MSA registered club?

Events Motorsport
21

Andy,

In direct answer to your Q. No.

In answer to the various other posts above:

Why?

Membership of the MSA actually ties you to their rules, which are designed more for motorsport.

If we were to join the MSA (we did in 2012/13) then for any Area or Nationally organised ‘run’ (known in MSA worlds as a ‘Touring Assembly’, I’ll call it a TA) involving a number of cars (again people have quoted 12 cars above, but there is no set figure and telephone conversations with the relevant desk suggested >25 cars, essentially no-one is willing to put a number on it) would require an MSA Certificate of Exemption which essentially says that the TCA does not meet the requirements of a competitive event and therefore would attract the standard MSA insurance benefits.

An accurate route would need to be sent, at least two weeks in advance, along with a fee of £25 for each and every TA that the Club were to run (whereupon we expect >12-25 cars to attend). So with so many Club Areas x no of TAs/month =£big bucks. This of course also comes with a significant workload from either Area Coordinators or me as the Motorsport Coordinator.

This was what made our final decision to cease our Membership:

Regulation D4.1 states that no event may be held unless the MSA has signified its approval by the granting of an organising permit or certificate of exemption, therefore, any MSA Recognised Club must apply for the appropriate approval.

Touring Assemblies are defined in the Definitions, Appendix B in the MSA Yearbook.

Membership of the MSA would require by Law  that every TA would need an exemption.

On top of that, what if the route were to be changed? Another exemption would be required.

 

Essentially, I saw Membership of the MSA as unworkable for a Club of our demographic and operating ethos. Were we to be more motorsport orientated then yes, the faff may be a necessary evil to enable the other benefits of MSA Membership. But at present I cannot warrant the time or energy to be filling out up to 32 forms per month, nor indeed am I prepared to cost the Club 32 x £25 / month either.

 

As an aside, the post above where cars were released on a Treasure Hunt event at timed intervals; ironically by doing something which would seemingly be sensible and prudent, you are actually (by Law) making your event competitive by virtue of involving timing! Stupid rules for the sake of rules? Probably, but such is the minefield that is motorsport and litigation…

 

With regards to Insurance; there’s been an awful lot of work going on behind the scenes with the Club’s underwriters to ensure that they are content with all the Club activities, from Spring and National Rallies, through to the Club’s own motorsport weekend at Blyton through to the usual TAs and social meets that make up a large proportion of the Clubs day-to-day running. If anyone is interested, we get around the obvious issues of engaging with track-driving (in itself classed as a non-Motorsport activity by the MSA due to the banning of any timing and/or competition) at Blyton by employing a 3rd Party (Mazda on Track) to run the ‘live’ side of the event. In doing so, our Club Members are operating under MoTs insurance and public liability.

 

I trust that puts a few minds at ease and answer the above posts?

22

Andy,

Any Club can invite the MX-5 Owners Club to attend and participate in any event. The OC participants simply would not be covered by the hosting Club’s MSA waiver/exemption/event licence.

This is the bit the MSA don’t shout about as they want everyone to be a Member. They are afterall a business themselves…

23

Cheers Jon

24

Excellent - thanks Jon, Nick & everyone for their informative and interesting responses.

I quite understand the reasons for MX5OC not currently being an MSA club and have no problems with that at all.

However in my case I’m still not sure that I would be allowed to invite a non-MSA club to compete at an AutoSOLO. If I’ve still got that wrong then do please enlighten me as I would love to be able to have some MX-5s from the club along.

But for those events that can apply for a Certificate of Exemption, then yes, certainly non-MSA clubs or Joe Public can be invited to join in.

“Events Exempt from these Regulations
(Certificate of Exemption)
5.1. Clubs organising events of the type specified below
may be granted a Certificate of Exemption providing
application is made to the MSA not less than four
weeks prior to any announcement of the event.
5.1.1. A Certificate of Exemption from these Regulations
indicates that there is no right of appeal to the MSC
and that provided the MSA has granted specific
approval members of unrecognised clubs or members
of the public may participate, but not officiate, at such
events.
5.1.2. Any of the following events which are run
commercially for profit will be levied a facility fee in
accordance with Part 3, Appendix 1 at the discretion of
the MSA.
(a) A Touring Assembly as defined in The
Terminology and in which there is no individual
timing except for the purpose of preventing
competitors travelling too fast or too slow.
(b) A Gymkhana held entirely on private ground.
(c) A Treasure Hunt run in accordance with R.17.2.
(d) A procession for charitable or historic purposes.
(e) A Concours d’Elegance.
(f) A Road Safety event run in accordance with R.17.1.
(g) An approved Driver’s Training day or Special
Demonstration for non-speed events. A charge
may be made by the MSA for such events.
(h) A Cross Country Promotional Event in
accordance with P.9.
(i) An Economy Run held in accordance with R.16.2.”

For those that are unaware, the main reason that membership of the MSA is often a good thing (even if it does come at some expense and its own extensive bundle of red tape, much to my chagrin) is that the MSA is the vehicle by which the government allows/sanctions/regulates motorsport in the UK which sometimes tends to ease the difficulties of insurance and certainly aids a defence should an incident escalate to the courts.

Cheers all,  Andy

 

 

25

Any examples of a non-MSA registered car club being sued in the last 50 years? I thought not.

15 years ago, I asked the same questions of the club. Concluded that if a MX5 owner wanted to go along to a local event, then the (typical) £10-15 pa club fee wasn’t much in the context of chamionship registration fees, event fees, modifications to car, Nat B licence etc.

Besides, the MSA’s role in motorsport is up for question; the government has just stopped a consultation process to reform the system of closing roads for road races, as they do in Northern Ireland. The government can take away, at a stroke of a pen, the reason for the MSA to exist (reform of the Road Traffic Act). At the moment, its a profit making organisation that has a monopoly.

In the consultation document:

26

Sorry SAZ, I can’t answer your question about non-MSA clubs being sued as I don’t have that information - and I suspect that you may not either.

However I do have personal experience of a competitor sueing my club and the MSA for damages following a crash and having the MSA appoint an experienced (and no doubt expensive) barrister to fight our corner went a long way to mitigate the stress of it all. We got as far as going to court in Birmingham where, fortunately, the claimant backed out after delivering his case but before we had a chance to defend. Very strange.

I am also personally aware of a claim by one competitor against another competitor which potentially could be extremely expensive and damaging but as the case is ongoing I’ll not say any more.

 

Can you clarify what you mean by saying “…the MSA’s role in motorsport is up for question; the government has just stopped a consultation process to reform the system of closing roads for road races, as they do in Northern Ireland…”?

If you are implying that the reformation process has been cancelled, then that isn’t so. It is merely the consultation process that asked for views that has reached its time limit and the move for reformation is still underway - albeit grindingly slow!

Andy 

27

Gentlemen, there are, as I see it two parts to this question.

I see the main question as being the same as applies to many clubs regardless of their activity.

First up, the fear that the OC needed MSA approval for runs was essentially about insurance. As stated by Jon, the MSA has a master policy which its at £60million. What this means is that for a MSA affiliated club, it would gain PLI cover for its sanctioned events. So the Bigglesworth and Shuttlecock Motor Club of 30 members does not need to find its own PLI insurance for its events. It would of course pay a contribution to the MSA for this cover for each event it runs. The OC has its own PLI which covers this and there is no requirement under law that the OC must have approval from the MSA to operate runs in the same way that Gumball doesn’t. In the same way that Football stadium or music concerts don’t need approval because hundreds of little convoys are converging on the venue and in the same way that the local rugby club does not need approval for the 1st and 3rd teams and supporters to drive 30 cars in convoy for their ground to the opposition ground to be there at a certain time 20 miles away.

Second, there are 16 organisations in the UK that are given authority by the Secretary of State to grant exemption from the Road Traffic Act, the MSA is just one of them. The MSA is the organisation that is associated to the FIA which is considered to be the world motorsport governing body and so therefore the MSA presents its self as the only way that motorsport can happen in the UK.  This is not the case. Just like you could set up a football tournament outside of the governance of the FA and in the same way that there are two codes of rugby and several boxing regulation boards. If you are however a member of the MSA and want the benefit of the insurance and structure it provides, then yes, of course it would insist you conform to its rules, naturally. 

However as for not being able to invite drivers that belong to the OC to participate in motorsport events, surely this is the same as any other club. Sporting Clubs up and down the country that are not public, have day membership. Again football, rugby, cricket etc. that run as private members bars, grant opponents day membership to use club facilities and surely this facility exists within the MSA. If someone wants to compete in a MSA sanctioned event they will require the requisite licence, but surely they don’t have to have the OC be a MSA member to participate in a MX-5 on an invitation basis.

28

Thanks Nick, that’s an excellent explanation.

The only thing that I’m not sure about is the matter of day membership. I seem to remember that some clubs have fallen foul of the MSA by trying this but don’t know of the details. Hopefully I’m wrong! In 7Oaks’ case offering day membership isn’t currently within the club’s constitution so that’s something we would need to have changed.

Off the top of my head though, I think that the recent category of Taster Event from the MSA is the only way round offering MSA sanctioned events to the wider public without the nuisance and expense of joining an MSA-affiliated club.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not OCD about rules and regulations and would love things to be far more open and accessible.

Its good to have this discussion - thanks!

29

Isn’t it down to what type of events you are running, or more importantly what class of event. My understanding is, that your licence grants that you are competent to participate in the activity and the grade of licence also dictates what level you can participate at and your sign on is a further level of saying you understand the risks. Your membership to a club is a further level of this accepting responsibility for what you are doing. Certain events are closed and other are open to different levels. Closed events are effectively saying that within your club there should be a certain trust level and understanding because you should know each other or at least be fully informed of how the club operates. More open events mean that there has to be more trust placed by people from outside that the events are going to be run in a uniformly accepted way and so there is a higher level of control in place.

30



Richard, most of your response made some sense. However, the comment above regarding the legality of treasure hunts and outings is complete nonsense.

To suggest that a treasure hunt becomes a motor sport competition, and as such illegal, simply because cars are allowed to leave a public car park at sensible untimed gaps is completely ridiculous and flawed. I understand you might have a case if there was someone with a stopwatch, noteboard and a clear objective to complete the task first, but to allow cars to leave to avoid a convoy does not constitute a timed competition. As such, other readers considering organizing such an event should not be alarmed and put off from introducing, what is common sense way of avoid congestion, distraction and interruption to other road users by allowing vehicles to leave the car park with sensible gaps. Approximately timed or not. It is purely speculative to suggest that a treasure hunt is illegal if cars leave a car park with sensible gaps to avoid a convoy, and as such a distraction to those participating and other road users.

As a reminder, any event should not involve the gathering of clues whilst driving. This would be a distraction.


As regards the minimum of 13 cars (more than 12).

For the avoidance of doubt, the number is quoted on the FAQ page of the MSA website in the links cited earlier on this thread.

A link to the specific mention of the number of vehicles can be found there. It particularly mentions Treasure Hunts:

http://www.msauk.org/uploadedfiles/msa_forms/Certificate_of_Exemption_Required_Permit_Chart.pdf

 

 

31

Keen not to get into a ■■■-for-tat conversation. I was merely pointing out that were we a Member of the MSA, then by instigating a timed departure from a venue/stop/location as part of your Treasure Hunt then by the MSA’s own rules you would have acted illegally. By this I mean that over-regulation has actually made it harder for Clubs like our own to affiliate to the MSA as their own rules become so restrictive.

Do what you like, we’re not a Member!!! Just do it knowing it’s your own neck on the block…

Having organised the Blyton Bash for three years now and currently in the middle of organising a multi-discipline race weekend for 180 competitors, 45 teams and 3000+ members of the public, I can assure you, the first thing I look at is the rule book.

32

I asked a traffic policeman once when i was installing equipment at their Maidstone Headquarters if it was illegal for us to drive in convoy because I regularly do so with like minded MX5 peeps upto and beyond 15 cars. His reply was no it is not and what do you think people do every day on every road in the UK…

Over regulation no thanks…

Back on topic thanks for the explanation regarding track days etc.

33




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Although not sued, back in the 70’s I was working as a driver for the local bus company and we had a small motor club, One of the organisers ran an event called a road safety event and invited local motor clubs.  The RACMSA as it was then not only gave the bus company motor club a smack on the hands but also the clubs that were invited and took part.  The bus company closed down the motor club. 

34

Apologies for digging up an old thread but seeking clarification.

I have approached, on request of a member, an Autotest club about taking part in an event of some sort. They were keen but stated this:

“Is your club affiliated to the MSA? You need to be a member of a MSA club in order to enter (insurance requirements) if you are then we can invite your club to save the cost of further membership. If not you will have to join one.”

Does this effectively mean that each person taking part would have to obtain membership of a MSA-affiliated club before taking part? It seemed to be suggested earlier on in the thread that an invite avoided the need for MSA membership but I’m not sure that was what was meant.

Thanks,

Karl

35

Participants would normally be required to be members of an MSA club. I have known people participate in racing without being members of a certain club, but they then have MSA race licences. I would expect that the potential numbers involved would preclude too many invitation drivers, however for many clubs membership is quite low.

36

Hi Karl,

The Northampton area contacted me a while ago about something similar, the best way of doing sprint/auto tests with a club is to join as a member of a club, that gives you the ability to take part in other clubs events throughout the country. My understanding is the cost for the Peterborough Motor Club is £10 for the year. here is the link http://www.peterboroughmotorclub.co.uk/ You could join this club and then use their membership to take part in events wherever you want to. I am looking at organising similar events for the club next year and this is the road that I will be going down regarding membership. If we  the club become a member of the MSA it opens a whole can of worms regarding club runs etc.

Pete

37

Interesting point Peter - but wouldn’t members still need a B license? - if it’s an official sprint?

38

Yes Gerry, if you were to take part in a hill climb sprint championship you would require an MSA Licence which you can apply for direct to the MSA with a small fee, There is no test or examination for this licence unlike circuit racing. I would recommend people to speak to there local club for requirements on clothing, helmets etc.

Its early days but I am hoping to have more info on sprint and hill climb activities for club members at the beginning of next year.

Pete