Poor Decisions - Where is the outrage?

#21

I think this is a bit of a knee jerk reaction. Realities: Spec E30 fields are growing. Cars are equally matched. There is as deep a divergence in talent in our fields as I have ever seen in any racing. We go from the extremely talented to the drop dead awful, with every range in the middle represented. Under those conditions, crashes are going to happen, particularly in the midpack, a place I absolutely try to avoid. I consider myself somewhat lucky, as I’m one of the more aggressive ones out there, and I’m proud of the fact that I haven’t been the cause of anything major, but some of the suggestions frankly trouble me. I race because I like the aggression. I like being three wide with the engines screaming and an inch to spare on each side. I loved coming down the turn 12 hill at Road Atlanta with Palacio a few years ago so close that it folded my mirror back. I loved coming down the front stretch literally a half inch off of Walsh’s door at Roebling. I don’t even remember the dozens and dozens of times that I drove around with a car 500 feet in front and 500 feet behind me. Boring. I like watching a guy take his “one move” and drive down the center or to the inside of the turn to protect that lane on the last lap.

Some of the proposed rules will seriously curb the fun I think.

Understand that NASA’s “right to the line” rule is the most aggressive in any club that I have driven. In NASA, you own the line if the other car doesn’t have a tire to the driver. Folks, thats the written rule, and it is an aggressive one. PBOC and PCA have a share the line rule, where noone ever owns the line. SCCA just doesn’t mention anything about this in driver’s meeting, although it seems like those races are more NASA and less PBOC or PCA-like.

Asking a guy to fix another guys car after a wreck isn’t realistic. First, it directly contradicts about 100 years of racing. If someone wants to do it, that makes them a good person, but don’t shame people into this. If you can’t afford racing, don’t race. There are risks here. Every time I take my car to grid I prepare to kiss it goodbye, and I like my cars.

No moves rule? Please. Why? NASA has had that rule forever, as have most clubs. A driver gets the right to make one move to set their car where they want it. These aren’t slot cars that must drive on the fixed line. If we’re coming down to the last turn for the checker, expect to see my car either in the middle of the track or a full car inside that, and I expect you to do the same thing to me if the positions are reversed. I will either find a way by or I wont.

This quote I just don’t understand: “We are repealing the blanket “no dent” rule, but are, effective immediately, strictly enforcing the 50/50 rule. This means that all drivers are expected to fix major cosmetic damage to their cars before the next event. Going forward, any driver found at-fault according to the CCR Rules of On-Track Conduct in an incident involving car-to-car contact will be required to repair their own car to 5/5, not 50/50, condition.” So the guy doing the hitting has to make their own car like new, but what about the car that gets hit? Can he run it in junker format, or does that driver have to fix the car too? Makes no sense. Don’t tiptoe around it, if you want to punish at fault drivers, punish them, make them pay for the repair to the other car, not their own (and for the record, see above, I don’t support this).

A requirement to have a camera. Perfect. I have a go-pro, it works about every third time I go out, so don’t be mad if I really don’t have video but thought I did. I also dont routinely run cameras in practice or qualifying.

A requirement to fill out a contact form. We already have that.

If you really want to have an Incident Review Board (IRB), take the video to the driver’s meeting and let everyone in the group vote on it.

This quote I also don’t understand: “We will be strict in punishing and exposing overly aggressive, overly optimistic and unaware driving per the existing CCR Rules of On-Track Conduct.”. There are three things here, overly aggressive, overly optimistic, and unaware. Who decides this? I’m way aggressive, but I think safe. I’m probably overly optimistic at times, too, but I proudly think that I am never unaware. I just think we have to be careful that we don’t have people playing God and defining what is too aggressive or optimistic. What is aggressive to some is not to others. Talent levels vary. I’d rather a wildly aggressive move from someone with real talent than a mildly aggressive move from someone that is clueless.

I’m not suggesting that we should turn a blind eye to crashes and dumb driving, but I’m suggesting that the rules and thoughts that are being promulgated leave a lot of discretion and in my opinion, a lot to be desired.

Just my thoughts. Sorry in advance if anyone is offended.

-Scott

#22

My point to Chuck was that as a Region you can adopt a set of supplemental rules to try to fix the issues that you’re having in your race group. National doesn’t need to get involved. Yours is a Regional problem…fix it with a Regional solution. I provided the NorCal rules only as an example of what was done in our region. Have a Driver-Officials meeting, figure out what needs fixing, and if needed, make your own region specific rule set that works for all parties.

#23

Somewhat new to SE30, but we had similar issues this year in our local PRO3 series. There was a couple racers who it would be easier to count how many weekends they DIDN’T have contact.

So now there is some drafting of a rule set to try and reduce the chances.

The same topics have come up, and all the same excuses (chasing away racers if the fines are too steep, or favoritism…etc.)

Here was some of the feedback I gave them - even if you raise the fee per incident, there are people out there who can just “Buy their way out” of the contacts, and have no issues with losing a couple hundred if it gets them closer to winning a championship.

So my thought is use the tool that will hurt them no matter what their income or race budget - suspension. Start with single race suspensions, then if they continue to drive like asshats, start taking on more race suspensions. They will quickly find themselves out of any kind of running for a championship…

As for who determines what contact is considered excessive - make it a peer review. have the race director assign three or so drivers from different classes, and they can review the video and contact reports and decide ya or na. Make it black and white…

Sure this is racing, and it’s an expensive hobby, but when people start taking risks at the detriment of others, the organization has to determine if repeat customers (i.e. those that get the brunt of the damage) are wanted back. If you don’t care if they come back (regardless if they were at fault or innocent bystander) then by all means do nothing.

Oh, and the guy that was guilty of crashing in to someone almost every weekend this last season - took third in points (he had knocked his closest competitor twice in previous events this summer…)

#24

I usually find that when I criticize someone, I end up embarrassed that I didn’t keep my mouth shut.

I usually find that when I bitch about bonehead moves, I make a bonehead move the next month. Keeping the morale highground is a bastard.

Altho in the abstract I vaguely like the idea of a peer-review panel, I’d want it to be strictly SpecE30. We can win on proposals that affect only us. It’s a helova lot harder to win on proposals that will affect the other SE classes. Rather then peer review tho, I’d rather just see our co-directors make the call. If one of them is involved in the contact we’d have a designated alternate.

What’s missing tho is teeth. The panel has to be able to say “you are on probation”, etc, and that will require support from Jim. We can get that support, but we have to present it to him well.

Potentially we could do this w/o screwing with the rules. If, for example, after reviewing videos the co-directors say “Scott, trying to squeeze out Sally was over-aggressive. Altho her car didn’t get hurt, that was just luck. You are DQ’d for today’s race and you are on probation for tomorrow and next month. Do something dumb while on probation and you sit the next race weekend out.”

That kind of decision can be made without dicking with the rules. We would be depending on the judgement of the co-directors. I’m good with idea of depending on the judgement of people I respect.

#25

How do you handle suspensions? Say someone gets suspended on a Sunday race. Does that person have to pay for the next event, not go, then allowed to race the following event? That to me just seems like fine. Maybe just suspend the person for the Saturday race for the next event they decide to run?

#26

2 cents. there are 2 issues: over aggressive driving, and bad decision making in general (not based on aggressiveness). For aggressive driving, you can make as many rules as you want, but if everyone doesn’t understand them the same way it’s not going to matter. The rules are currently written where there should be no contact. The passer has to follow rules. The passee has less rules, and is governed by “don’t do something stupid that will ball up your car.” several of the issues of cars getting mangled up to all hell violate the “25.4.1 Passing General The responsibility for the decision to pass another car, and to do it safely, rests with the overtaking driver.” On the making general bad decisions, I’m exactly with Grace,

except in my opinion, staying on pavement allows more options for outs. In ranger’s shoes I would have just slowed down, and waited longer to pick my move like i did on saturday with Espinosa’s ice skater show. I’ve seen cars roll backwards so many times on TV it freaks me out. So, no two feet in: bad decision. car in middle not slowing seeing what could happen: aggressive bad decision. car on right not moving over: bad decision, bad awareness. if we had this other ruleset, i believe the same thing would have happened in this instance, as none of the drivers predicted the worst outcome, which inevitably happened. They all thought they were being safe.

Of course, we all aren’t perfect, but other than a ruleset, what’s a better way to better teach consequences of bad decisions? I think an extensive video would be a great idea. Nearly every Continental Series race someone is spinning, rolling backwards back on to the track and hits someone else. What about the Skeen incident at The Glen where the BMW drove right to the blind apex and Skeen in the Nissan railed him? A ruleset would not have prevented that. It is beyond me how others don’t know how horrible it is to roll backwards laterally on the track (pavement or grass), or try to reenter a track in the location that cars will be on the race line (apex, track out). What if comp school had a 30 minute video of crashes, etc., that was shown and instructors would explain how to prevent those accidents?

[quote=“bdigel” post=74436]maybe its just me , but it seams really reckless and selfish to expect other cars to make room for you after you have gone all 4 off track ?
I have seen too many cars get torn up from that .

to bad if you end up at the back of the pack, in my opinion its the only option .[/quote]

The only option is to not try to avoid a car coming back on to the track? While we all have large cocks, on track is not the time to whip it out and say, “hey look at mine you measly off track guy, yield to me!”. just because another guy went off, doesn’t mean that avoiding an incident is a decision not required to be made anymore. i’m not saying that the off track driver should have the right to immediately get back on the pavement no matter what, but if you DO NOT expect that a car is going to try to get back on track after an off, have you ever seen a race before?

Disclaimer: i’m no angel as i’ve made a few bad decisions also, even this past weekend as i overshot a corner and had side to side with Grace, and well, miatas don’t have mirrors :facepalm:

#27

Ranger,

I don’t disagree, and trust me - I made my share of bonehead moves. After all we are trying to make a lot of decisions adjustments in a matters of split seconds…

With that being said, the same guy I mentioned previously had a run in to me two years ago when he tried to go three wide through a corner at PIR you don’t go three wide through (nobody does) and in fact he had to go 4 off just to accomplish it. As such I got punted at close to triple digit speeds. At which point I went two feet in and managed to get the car somewhat down a secondary return road away from the racing surface (thus saving my own car, my person, and completely out of harms way.) Afterward, the other never once came over to apologize or even check on my well being…

That’s an asshat as far as I am concerned.

#28

So?

If people conduct themselves in a shameful manner on track and it results in damage to someone else’s car, why not shame them?

That is one of the lamest red herring arguments in this whole thread.

It’s about choices. I’ve realized over the past couple years that my family gets a lot more out of a beach house and a boat than they do from body shop and tire bills. They cost about the same by the way.

#29

We’re not going to change behavior with rules. Only consequences change behavior. So we have 2 choices that will work.

  1. Keep the current rule set and add consequences.
  2. Add rules and add consequences.

Choices that will fail

  1. Fail to add consequences.
  2. Add rules but fail to add consequences.
#30

Cameras are great–the replay sometimes makes things crystal clear. I run front and back.

Combine that with suspensions and people stop being douchey right quick. Suspensions are a real penalty that affect everyone, unlike fines or DQs.

#31

Well I had a really long post written and when I hit post I got a “you’ve been logged out” message :frowning:
So here’s the short version.

I’ve been racing since 2002 so I’ve been around this block a few times.

As an outsider of your region looking in, I’m glad to see you guys having this discussion. I know I’ve been hesitant to come run at VIR because of all the contact that seems to happen in SE (Sometimes MidAtlantic too) and I know I’m not alone in this because I’ve heard that comment from other SE30 racers.

Any contact on track can have the unintended consequences of taking a car out whether it’s from extensive damage, or loss of time/budget fixing, frustration, etc… There is just simply no contact that is “worth it”. Not having contact is not just luck (although sometimes luck can help), it takes smart driving on track, awareness, and committing to actively prevent it (not just avoid intentional contact).

I don’t know if rules & penalties are the answer, maybe they will help; you guys know your local situation better than I do. What I do think is independent of that and extremely beneficial is that we review incidents (both contact and avoided contact) as collective group so that we can all learn from each other on how on track judgements are made and what consequences they have. Maybe from these discussions new understanding and awareness can happen that will raise the level of behavior on track and help establish for everyone what is acceptable/normal. These reviews can happen during the weekend at SE30 lunches & dinners and here online after the race weekend is over.

I hope that we can, across all the regions, increase the level of clean driving and be able to spend all of our racing budget dollars on racing and not fixing cars.

ps. Our region race director has been letting everyone know at the past couple events that the 3/4 rule is for corners not straights.

pps. I’ll start another post (or add to one of the other camera threads) about lower cost camera options.

#32

Steve D, you can call me lame if you want, but facts are facts. This is a dangerous sport we are in. People can and do destroy cars. If you are doing this for your family, fist, you are wildly misguided, and second, you bet you get more out of a beach house and a boat, and everyone is welcome to do that rather than this. Your weekends are far more predictable with a beach house and a boat. I have both of those as well, and I don’t like them half as much.

The fact is, there is an enormous talent gap in Spec E30 as a whole. Hell, I watch half the crash videos out there and see ways to avoid the crash. It isn’t helpful to do a blow by blow recitation of this, but some of it is the fault of the guy doing the crashing, and some of it is cars crashing into other cars that are spinning and doing other strange stuff. I think most if it is avoidable if everyone has their head on straight, but that isn’t teachable. You get good from experience. I will re-quote an age old adage:
Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.

#33

I also don’t disagree with Gress. Without consequences, nothing will change. We do not need any more rules, there is a book full of rules that people dont read, dont understand and/or dont agree with. We do not need more rules. We need understanding and consequences.

#34

I’m not one to bite my toungue around here so I’ll give my .02.

IMO this problem can be traced back to the first time a new HPDE student sits down in the classroom. I’ve had group 1 students that couldn’t properly identify the flags, while I remember my first class was pretty much just 45mins of flags! I had a class early on in DE1 where we spent the whole time going over “in a spin both feet in” we even sat in our chairs and practiced. I went through DE back when you had an instructor in the car in group 1 and group 2. I think I did 6 weekends in group 1 and 5 or 6 in group 2 before I moved to group 3. I was lucky enough to have some great instructors that I would often ask to ride with me even in group 3. After DE3 I did a couple weekends in TT to get comfortable with open passing before comp school. I did comp school at CMP Feb 09. The on track part was very helpful but the classroom part was severly lacking. After the CCR test at the end of the day they went through every question, we had some discussion and then the correct answer was given. I studied the CCR so I had them correct, but a lot of erasers were being used.

Now in the SE we only put an instructor in the car in group 1. Students are doing 1 or 2 group 1 weekends before going solo. Shit guys are doing their first DE in Feb. and Comp school in Dec. of the same year. They might be fast, but they haven’t learned the proper skills because no one taught them. From group 2 through comp school they’re just winging it on their own. This same lack of instructors in the car leads to shitty instructors. Most instructor groups are a joke. Guys who can’t even pedal their own cars well are teaching our students.

We’ve got to improve the in-car and classroom instruction, maybe even offer an extra class to teach race craft for DE students with the goal of racing.

That’s my.02

Greg

#35

A lot of good comments overall. I am not outraged. The southeast has been a great group on and off the track for the past 5 years and I have enjoyed crazy close racing each weekend. That is what has attracted many of us to expand the class. We have a CCR with guidelines to follow and leeway to enforce a points system that we should be keeping. With Points ranging from 1,3,and 6 depending on the infraction, the IRB or powers at hand should be able to control those who are not racing within the rules safely. The accused has the responsibility to prove there case with video. The poopie board has threatened but I have not heard of consequences. We need a beer party to discuss. Lots of new racers with different levels of talent. Better to know eachother off track and respect eachother on track.

#36

Greg, see someone else’s previous comment about those with a vested financial interest making the decisions. More instructors and more instructed groups means less money for NASA. When they started the policy back many years ago that’s when I stopped instructing for them.

#37

This is utter BS! The number of car to car contacts has always been directly related to the # of cars we have in the class. We have had problems with overly aggressive drivers in the past - hence the reason Robert started a poopie board years ago. Every couple of years we have a scenario where one bonehead makes a move that affects/wrecks 3-4 other cars and we all get up in arms about it. I will start handing out severe consequences if you all think it will keep the racing safer, but the sad fact is Spec racing means close racing and close racing means possible contact. Why not simply have everyone put gigantic mirrors in their cars so they can see all around themselves to avoid contact altogether?!?!

As long as folks start using their heads when they race we’ll all be fine. I don’t mind moving people to the back of the pack for a low percentage move, but having a group of your fellow racers decide who does bonehead moves is akin to a lynch mob and sounds so “high school” to me.

We’ll take a vote at the next event with the drivers who are racing in SpecE30 to decide whether to adopt these rules. I don’t mind enforcing them and handing out penalties, just realize that when you point a finger at someone you have 3 fingers pointing at yourself. :wink:

#38

Seems to me that some lazy ass instructors got their way and were able to sell the one student per weekend to the powers that be. If you require an instructor in group 2 it won’t cause group 2 attendance to go down at all. Instructors get free track time for their service. IMO as an instructor give me 2 students and fill my day. That’s how it was when I has in DE and still the way lots of schools are run…

I’ve run into a bunch of instructors that now refuse to instruct with nasa-se everytime I instruct with a different group. Unfortunate really because they’re all good instructors and some of them are my old instructors!!

#39

I can assure you (because I was present when it was dictated) this policy change came directly from Nasa National. Last event I instructed at. If you want to know more contact me off forum, that is all I will say online.

#40

I can assure you (because I was present when it was dictated) this policy change came directly from Nasa National. Last event I instructed at. If you want to know more contact me off forum, that is all I will say online.[/quote]

I’m aware of the policy change from nationals, and it’s unfortunate the SE decided to run with it. MA ignored it and has a much better DE program.