Stan Pope wrote:I go a bit overboard and prep ...
I've written about 200% of what I know about measurement theory in that post. It would be helpful if someone really trained in the theory chimed in and gave us the straight info on the topic. I think Randy L has the training ... maybe someone else, too.
Meanwhile, I'll add a few more percent beyond my training:
If my scale reads out to one decimal place and I pop a 5.00 oz reference on the scale pan and see 5.0 on the scale readout. I'm good to go, right?
Well, maybe so, maybe not.
If I pop a 5.04 oz reference on that scale it should still read 5.0, as it should if I use a 4.96 oz reference. If my calibration weight were off a hair, for instance 0.02 oz over or under, then the 5.04 reference might indicate 5.1 oz or the 4.96 oz reference might incidate 4.9 oz. These could allow a barely legal car to need adjustment because it read out 5.1 or induce a marginally underweight car to get an extra bit of weight.
While this is equally fair to all, it is really unfair to all in that raceday adjustments introduce risk, and your inspection process should avoid adding risk to the participants. Most of them have risk enough already!
Am I too fussy with all this? Well, maybe so, maybe not. I prefer to be safely in the "maybe not" category.
YMMV