Most athletic associations no longer allow the use of wheels. There is a great aerial photo of a football field which was apparently laid out using one. They had some kind of a trapezoid, but not a rectangle. You didn't need to look too close to see that the lines across the field were anything but parallel. What made it more hilarious was that the divergence was not always on the same side.
As I read it, Chris's example used 4 different wheels. When Sharon's decree came down, a member of our club who runs mainly in another Association which virtually mandates the use of the wheel, thought she was nuts (bet she wishes she had a dollar for every time that happens, but I digress). We were having a Fun Day on a baseball field, so took the club's wheel out and rolled two different numbers on the diamond: variance if I recall of about 4'. We called another person over and they rolled a different number. Same wheel, 3 different results. No one even rolled their own number with a second try. End of discussion. It's a lot quicker to pace.
Now the only people I see using wheels are highways & utilities crews. Figures that wheels are considered "good enough for government work".
