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Steve D, I think the racers meeting at RA is/was all that was needed to recap the previous year(s) stuff. Besides, my cliff notes on what happened only represent one view of the story. So, if you don’t already have a clue about your fellow racers, well, that makes you clueless and one that perhaps I’ll try to avoid.
RP
Patton wrote:
If you want to see clueless, wait until I start wielding tools at your shop Sunday. :laugh: See you at 10.
IndyJim wrote:
…in case Jim and Craig (a/k/a The Grand Am A/V Club) show up.
See how much actual work is done by Jim (black hoodie) versus yours truly (black shirt with yellow logo) in the Grand Am car prep. http://vimeo.com/10720866
Steve, Jim, Craig: we need to change the topic to something that will be fun…too much poopie on the balance of this thread.
So, thread hijack, come on over on Sunday. We’ll call it quits once DeVinney’s transmisson is removed and go to the local Mexican or Irish dive for cold refreshments.
RP
I was just going to introduce my way to reduce ‘car-nage’ via a qualifying steel cage no holds barred death match, but upon reflection that too might favor Jones and his steroid fueled rage. Back to the drawing board again.
I might be able to swing Sunday if only for comic relief. Craig works on his cat grooming game during the weekends when he has time off from babysitting but I’ll see if he can break away.
Jim, use this address for your GPS pod
6190 Parkway North Drive, Cumming 30040
Bring beer.
RP
Roger - beer for you and Chuck.
Steve - white wine spritzer, wine coolers, zima or smirnoff ice for you?
LMK.
turbo329is wrote:
[quote]As a future se30 racer I must say that the top 25 idea is retarded. Whoever posted that should be blocked from the forum for a month.
If I wanted to race by myself I would have put a cage in my turbo car and ran gts.
For whoever asked the SCCA did and still does as far as I know limit the field to everyone within 20% qual lap time of the leader. So if your slow enough that you’ll be lapped in the first 5 laps then you can’t race. They don’t limit the size of any class.[/quote]
quoted myself
Being completely sober last night which isn’t common among my offensive posts that I delete the next day I severely edited my post for offensiveness and relevance. I decided that saying the idea was retarded couldn’t possibly be construed as attacking someone that I never met personally. The reason for why it was a bad idea sounded like I was boasting about my turbo car and was long and irrelevant. If I do post something that is offensive I am probably just drunk and pissed off. I have to many reasons why I don’t think the field size should be limited or split to list any of them. If you come to cmp in February I will hopefully be there and include my reasons along with my life story after drinking a substantial amount of beer. I think I made the guy who said spec e36 is the next spec e30 cry last time I was there so be warned. I don’t take what myself or anyone else says on the forum all that seriously so maybe I should put that as a disclaimer in my signature. I think the criticize in private thing only applies so as to not undermine a leaders authority by criticizing them in front of their subordinates. I don’t know most of you but I know se30 doesn’t have a chain of command. Sorry Ranger I think everyone can guess who that is for. Sorry to everyone else offended by me on this forum especially the doctors and lawyers. If you don’t know what I am talking about then don’t worry about it. finally change of subject.
Don’t say Robert. Its like saying the guy with the white e30. Maybe you guys had a vote years back that Patton gets to be the Robert, but it seams like half the se30 drivers I meet are Robert. I had to back track to the first page to make sure you weren’t talking about me.
Back to the original subject.
I thought we had a “modified 13/13” but I guess I’ve been tryin to keep up on the rules of to many clubs. Where are these point rules you mentioned. Anyway I thought this was a pretty important part of the rules.
“Lastly, remember that, even though you have the “right of way” it may not be smart to
insist upon it. You may be involved in a collision that was not your fault, but you may
end up crashing your car, sustain damage, get hurt, or at the very least be punted out of
the race. The other driver may get penalties, but that will not help you fix your car, get
your position back, or get you out of the hospital any faster”
turbo329is wrote:
[quote] I think the criticize in private thing only applies so as to not undermine a leaders authority by criticizing them in front of their subordinates. I don’t know most of you but I know se30 doesn’t have a chain of command. Sorry Ranger I think everyone can guess who that is for. Sorry to everyone else offended by me on this forum especially the doctors and lawyers. If you don’t know what I am talking about then don’t worry about it.
[/quote]
Re. my PM. Wasn’t trying to tell you what to do. Was trying to look out for you. Sometimes I confuse my subordinates at work the same way.
Okay, everyone seems to be getting caught up in the idea of limiting field size as if that was the main objective. While this was a very small part of it, that really wasn’t the impetus behind the idea; 25 cars in one group is still a pretty large field, but drawing the line at 25 and creating another race group was more a method of raising the bar for the slower drivers and penalizing people that have had body contact from the other group. If we label the second group as “racer wannabe’s” and temporarily relegate them to a different group, while still allowing them to race…it sends a clear signal that we don’t want body contact in the series. The fact that points cannot be earned while racing in that group makes the message all the more clear. I’m frustrated to hear people say “we are a contact racing group”, I don’t see or hear any NASA officials saying this and certainly the unenforced rules seem to imply otherwise. Steve raised a very good point about NASA being a business. Certainly it is hard for them to tell a driver that his entry fee will not be accepted due to point violations, which is why the idea of creating a different race class seems like a good idea to me.
At any rate, this will be my last post on this subject. I wish you all a Happy New Year…without incident.
IndyJim wrote:
[quote]Roger - beer for you and Chuck.
Steve - white wine spritzer, wine coolers, zima or smirnoff ice for you?
LMK.[/quote]
I’ll take club soda with a twist of lime. If we work late enough I will step it up with a Shirley Temple.
Gasman wrote:
I don’t think anyone is saying that they expect or condone frequent contact. The sentiment I hear is that it is unreasonable to expect no contact given how close our cars are and how big our fields are.
In spite of hoping for no contact and driving to avoid contact, I acknowledge that it will happen. That doesn’t mean that I am happy when it happens, simply realistic that it likely will happen. I have had one 50/50 with another SE30. He was spinning, so I’d put most of the responsibility on him. But I could have braked harder and hoped they guys behind me saw enough to check up.
General track guidelines: If you are comfortable with contact each race, run Spec Miata nationals and Runoffs with SCCA. If you are comfortable risking an occasional (1-2 per year) minor bump, run SE30. If you never want to do any body work, run CCA or historics. If you absolutely can’t stand the thought of writing off a car, don’t put it on track.
My car is at the body shop now. The largest area of damage (rear bumper, tail light, license plate panel) occurred when I backed the car into my spare tub in the parking lot at OPM. That was a high point for me…
Steve makes good points…but it boils down to respect. What I mean is you must respect the other racer’s right to be on the track. If you don’t, you put yourself and others in harms way and open the real possibility of personal injury. You must stay within yourself and your skills and allow other racers to do the same. Most SE30 racers are relatively new to racing, hence there is a learning curve. The most constructive thing I can say is to learn your limitations and stay within yourself. Oh, yea…there is no substitute for seat time…its amazing how close you can race people after a couple of years experience. Good Racing, Happy New Year…Chuck
I guess I didn’t realize that there was so much contact. I don’t really think there is. It is going to be impossible to eliminate contact, especially in a spec series where the cars are all virtually identical, the races are short, and particularly when the cars are under-tired as they are here. I do understand that it is the driver’s responsibility to keep the car under them, but we also have to practice a bit of realism. When 30 cars head into the same turn at about the same time on cold tires and brakes, don’t be shocked when they spin, hit, or do other things. There are ways to combat this problem, as long as they are within your talent scope: qualify further in the front. Find your way to the inside of the first turn if you can. Practice getting good starts. There are a host of other ways to reduce, not eliminate, contact early in a race.
There is a big gap in talent from the front to the rear of this class, and every other group. All of this isn’t to say that we should accept contact without issue or discussion, but I do think we all need realistic expectations on what we can and should expect.
All the rules you ever needed currently exist to deal with contact. I was surprised to see someone write that there is no 13/13 rule in the Southeast? I thought the 13/13 rule was everywhere, no? We have had a 13/13 in Florida since NASA Florida started.
Anyhow, let’s get the cars ready and on track and sort this out where we should, the track.
Happy New Year.
-Scott
BigKeyserSoze wrote:
Scott, here is a picture of my car at CMP coming through turn 1 lap 1 on the inside as you suggested. The White #70 had spun off track but kept his foot in it coming back on sideways and broadsiding me. Never even saw the impact. The #70 was originally a GT2 car dumbed down to be a spec e30. I’m sure the motor was dumbed down too, aren’t you?
I know I said it was my last post, but I couldn’t resist when you suggested that I do exactly what I had done to avoid problems.
edit: picture too large…I’ll work on resizing.
This thread has taken a number of turns and tangents, absolutely none of them helpful.
I’d suggest everyone please step away from the keyboard for a week or two.
Wow, interesting read!
I can’t complain too much, only had minor contact that was primarily fixed with a hammer and some black spray paint…However I can see certain people who can be a lot more upset over this than others. I would like to run more upfront, but I’m not a good enough driver and not willing to take same chances as some of the others, so I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. But certainly hope our group Spec E30 in SE and in general don’t get the reputation of being really rough on contact. We have enjoyed great growth and it’d be horrible if people start to look elsewhere!!!
Happy New Year everyone. See you in Feb.