Annual Gear Inspection
Richard Welty
NEDiv Divisional Administrator of Scrutineering

This article covers the changes that will result from the institution of  Annual Gear Inspection. Hopefully 
we will be able to make a go of this new system, and improve things in the process. It will change quite a 
few things in the SCCA tech inspection process, perhaps more than is immediately obvious.

Tech inspections at the first event of the season will only differ in one small detail. Once your gear passes 
tech, you will get a sticker on the left side of your helmet. This sticker will indicate the year of the 
inspection, and will be tamper proof. It will (obviously) be good until the last day of the year on the sticker.  
You will not be able to get this sticker unless your gear completely passes tech -- so make sure your gear is 
good before you go to an annual gear inspection. If you show up at the track for a gear inspection with bad 
equipment, you will have to either buy new stuff then and there to get your sticker, or go home without 
racing. It is highly unlikely that we will be letting underwear full of holes or duct-taped shoes through 
under any circumstances.

Once you have the sticker, then for tech at each race, you will take your log book to tech. Some regions 
(such as New England) require you to bring your helmet as well. You should check the supplemental 
instructions beforehand in order to avoid wasting any trips to tech. Tech will check for the annual stamp in 
the book, just like they always have, and check for a gear check stamp in the book as well. If both are 
present, you will receive a tech sticker for your car. With this change, morning tech at the track should be a 
great deal faster, and require fewer scrutineers. Hopefully, this will allow us to put more inspectors on the 
Annual line, permitting us to move it along faster and simultaneously be more careful in our car 
inspections.

Should your class be one of the lucky ones that gets reinspected during the course of the year, you will also 
need to bring your gear, as your gear will need to be reinspected at the same time.

Rentals are a special case. Drivers renting cars need to take special care to get their gear checked at the first 
event of the year, in order to make sure that they have the required sticker when they reach false grid.

There will be compliance checking as the race weekend progresses. Stickers may be checked on false grid 
by either grid or tech workers. Furthermore, you can expect that impounds for spot gear checks will be 
more frequent, as this will be the only time we see most driver gear during the course of a season.

At first, like many tech inspectors, I was a bit negative about this new system. Further thought has led me 
to the conclusion that if we work at it, we can make this a better system than the old one -- but it requires 
that everyone cooperate -- drivers, crew, stewards, and scrutineers -- to make the system work as well as it 
potentially can work.