Ya gets yerself caught with a cell phone in your car in a NASCAR race and it is a nice little $5000 fine!! Use it … and it is a $25,000 fine (ask Brad Keselowski)!!
THAT would get the players attention, now wouldn’t it … LOL!!
You mean the former players?
The smallest prize for 1st place in a NASCAR race in 2015 was $166,760, so the fine is about 3%, 15% for using it.
At our club that would be $4.20 and $21, which would indeed get the attention of notoriously… frugal… chess players 
-Matt
For those of us who don’t follow NASCAR, what would be the point of a cell phone in the car? Don’t they have two-way radios?
I’m not a NASCAR follower, but I remember reading about the Keselowski story. There is, IMO, a natural hook to what we’re grappling with in chess.
When I saw the headline on ESPN.com (was it 2012? 2013?), I originally thought the issue was safety. That was an incorrect guess. NASCAR is concerned about any non-engine electronic component being used to gain an advantage in a digital coc[k]pit. They’d already banned laptops, tablets, and the like. Smartphones are a logical extension of that.
(Love the auto-censor. 
)
Maybe if you wanted to order Jimmy Johns for the next pit stop?
Boyd pretty much hits it right on.
Traction Control, et al, are banned in NASCAR (though it takes a very small sensor to operate it [and could be controlled from a cell phone]) … … … now that NASCAR has gone to Electronic Fuel Injection … which is pre-programmed (though no “on board” computer is permitted) … the programming can be changed by as simple as accessing the EFI Control Unit with a cell phone (that is close by, hence by the driver) … … … I would say this is akin to chess – as in what is the difference in changing the motor’s performance by changing its programming … and, using a cell phone to look up the 17th move of some Rubenstein French variation?
In my 40 years of being a TD, I learned a long time ago that when it comes to rules … ALL sports (Chess included!) can learn something from (almost) all other sports! For instance, my “Time Penalties” for various violations are based on Hockey (2 min. … 5 min. … 10 min … … “Game Misconduct” = loss of game … “Match Penalty” = expulsion from tournament) … … …