Turk, to answer your questions. Yes.
The cars will be certified to an agreed safety checklist. The drivers will be encouraged to drive defensively, participate in driver training schools, but I don't think there will be an official "certification" for the drivers per se.
Evan, as for the manufacturers, I too hope we can have a great relationship with them and work together to help improve their product. I understand what you're saying. I suppose it will be up to the manufacturer if they want to include the list in the purchase, but we definitely shouldn't have them "sponsor" us or be an official part of the group (I'm not implying that you feel they should be). But yes, I have high hopes that our relationships with the manufactures will be a positive and productive one.
I agree in theory with your points about policy exclusions, and perhaps I shouldn't even post my points here. You're right, the exclusions in the policy for street racing or something like that should be a strong influence on policyholder to keep them from driving like fools. However, I think the true street racing losses will be somewhat rare and again hard to prove. Like I said, if a company can definitively prove that the person was "racing", then they can deny it. I don't have any data to back up my thoughts, but I know from experience in claims, I haven't seen that many losses caused by actual "street racing". As you say about the McDonalds' lawsuit, the ones that do happen get sensationalized in the media, but in actuality, I think they are fairly rare. More often, the driver is just going too fast. I have never seen a policy that has an exclusion for pure speeding. Again, in theory, I agree with you 100%. But in practice, it just probably wouldn't happen. We need to push hard for our membership not to drive like that. It's personal responsibility. I don't know about you, but for me the incentive not to street race isn't because of fear of an insurance claim, it is the overwhelming desire to see the sun come up tomorrow. That's what we need to focus on. If we can accomplish that, the street racing will become a non-issue. For this reason, I would encourage owners to participate in legal drag racing or autox, depending what their desires are. Go to your local drag strip. It's legal, cheap and fun. No, it won't be covered by insurance, but the companies generally don't care about that, because that is a clear black and white issue. No coverage for racing period. Same with autox. I'm partial to autox, because I like to turn left and right. It also helps teach car control.
I know DV is absolutely buried with work, but hopefully he'll be able to jump in soon and give some thoughts. We're ready to move forward with this organization, and can't wait to get it off the ground.
Steve