Texting a coach during a match.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by NorviewsVeteran

My mom called me in the middle of a match I was driving in a couple years ago. (I let it ring and checked later)

Our driver's mom texted him just before a match last year. He checked it. The MC noticed, and had the field video crew zoom in on the screen. I don't remember the exact spelling, but I think it was the text equivalent of an excited squeal.

[Homsar66]

They're pretty lax. Last year at Atlanta as human player I duct taped a video camera (did have bluetooth) to my hat, and nobody had a problem with it. Even if it was obvious, I doubt they would penalize you for it. But texting to get an advantage doesn't really follow the spirit of the rules.

[EricH]

I wouldn't be too certain about that one, Homsar66. Last year, I was field reset at an event, and I saw a ref call a penalty on a particular team because a team member was in the lowest level of the stands yelling instructions to the drive team. They find you texting, you'll get a penalty.

There's a big difference between a camera that isn't used for an advantage and a cell phone/texting device that is. If that camera's view had gone to a viewscreen on your controls, you'd have been penalized under 2009's <T23>, which reads the same as the 2010 <T27>.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Al,

You're 13 hours behind the times!

Can I help it if I check Chief Delphi before I look at the Team Updates?

That really changes things though. As long as that rule has been in place (most of my 15 years) I would suspect that was an error to remove it in TU #8 and instead expect that the struck out language meant to change to (with the exception of the two previous bullets).

Sorry for the confusion but my previous thoughts are unchanged. Texting is a bad idea.

[Joe J.]

Texting while coaching would be like texting while driving a car, you are probably paying too much attention to texting and not enough on what is going on around you.