I don't like it at all. This was brought up on facebook and I believe this forum a couple of years ago when Racing Electronics advertised a Legend car special deal at one of the large racing shows. The negative uproar was pretty substantial on both media outlets and it was dismissed as an error or miscommunication a day or two later by INEX.
Two or three years later, today this is thrown at us again when the season has started. Its buzzing all over social media, mostly negatively. The rule released today should also say that its at the tracks discretion even if the rulebook says it. Many tracks are saying they wont allow them.
Racing electronics came along with a sponsorship deal so INEX made a rule change. All of our displeasure of this has and is falling on deaf ears. I guess its all about the money. I am as disappointed about this as I am the actual rule change.
With that said there are pro's and cons to this. Pro's, drivers could be made aware of who's around them obviously and accidents on the track even though we get that part on our raceivers. Con's, I feel its a tool that could be used for blocking and allowing the parents of young drivers to influenced to do something they are not comfortable with. When you've stood on the sideline and watched some of these crazy parents tell their kids to wreck another driver or bring there car home in a box if they have to, its a bit unsettling. Now they can do that in real time. Parents will be telling their kids how to drive on track, I don't consider that a good thing. I really dislike this rule for bando's. Drivers like myself come to the races alone sometimes, we don't have crews or crew chiefs, this isn't Nascar, so we are at an immediate disadvantage before the car is off the trailer.
People say this is not mandatory. That's great but there's a significant advantage to the racer with the radio over the one without. I really dislike the added cost this brings to the series. There are some car racing series that aren't even allowed to run mirrors, why do we need this?