Applying “Driving Standards”
Retirement from competition motorsport has presented many new challenges to Paul Stokell. Whilst his company, Driving Events caters for many varied types of post licence driver training one of Paul's many other activities includes working alongside CAMS (Confederation of Australian MotorSport) in a DSA (Driving Standards Advisor) role.
Over the last few years this has included Australian GT, Kumho V8 Series, Radical Australia Cup, V8 Utes and this year Porsche Carrera Cup.
"It's a challenging role but my job is to look at incidents from a neutral prospective and advise to CAMS whether action needs to be taken. It's a pretty thankless job... drivers either love me or hate me depending on the outcome".
Years ago there was no such thing and each incident would be reported by corner observers (flag marshal's) and CAMS acted on this advice, which in the heat of the moment is not always correct. DSA's provide a fairer system but the downside from the drivers point of view is there is nowhere to hide! All cars have in car cameras to capture the action but they are mainly fitted for judicial purposes.