To Barry and all participants:
I agree with Barry in the first paragraph (below) the each site has its
challenges. Isn't the whole idea of driving on different surfaces to teach you
how to drive faster in any situation, not just optimum driving conditions (like
sacramento)?
About your throttle sticking - that sounds like a mechanical problem to me.
The finish orginally was designed to go straight ahead. One veteran suggested
a kink after the finish to slow the cars down more so they would not be
barrelling down on the timing slip person. I thought it was a good idea -
hence I put the kink in. However, if you got into trouble - there was plenty
of room to skip the "kink" after the finish lights to break in a straight line
- that way you could head straight off the course BEHIND the cars gridding on
the second grid. (BTW - why were you looking down?)
RE: "A larger zig zag should have been added before the finish " - this is the
classic John Kelly NO NO. This would have caused cars to spin out at the
finish line, which would have caused many red flags thrown, many re-runs and no
fun runs at the end of the day. With the given design, we did not have any
cars spin out and only one car in trouble at the end.
AS for the part of the course that you decided to change at the beginning of
the day where you thought cars would be spinning off - we had NO cars spin off
course with the ORIGINAL design. If you are having a hard time with the site
choices, course designs, safety stewards not doing their job, etc. then I hope
you will help us perfect our events next year by arranging our schedule,
booking our sites, designing our courses, chairing our events, and working as
safety steward at our events.
Can't wait to see you at the next steering committee meeting as I am sure you
will be there to step up to at least one of the above tasks.
THANKS!
BEN
Barry Spencer wrote:
> To all,
> Is there a good reason why the SFR events are not held in
> Sacramento?. This time of the season is very important to get GOOD seat
> time for the driver's who are going to attend the Nationals. The event at
> GGF was NOT good seat time with the condition of the surface, nor was
> Sunday's event at Marina. Even with the course on Sunday reassemble clean
> to start. The grid area is FULL of small stones which racing slicks love
> to pick up. Then it takes half of your next run to get your tires
> clean. 3 Com park is to bumpy for mod cars. The surface is really bad at
> the Coliseum. I'm sorry if I sound VERY frustrated. Many of you may not
> know what happened to me on my second timed run on Sunday. My throttle
> stuck wide open when I crossed the finish line. With the cold weather my
> brakes didn't work very well. I looked up to find the exit of the course
> full of cars waiting on the pre grid, and the time slip guy standing very
> close to the exit. Luckily I managed to miss everything. :>)))). I was
> possible reaching a speed of 50mph at the finish, and having the exit going
> straight to the pre grid area was NOT GOOD. I spoke to many people about
> the danger of the exit design. One person mentioned it was bought up before
> the event had started, and nothing was done about it. Maybe, there added a
> small zig zag after the finish. A larger zig zag should have been added
> before the finish to slow the cars down at the finish line. I also
> mentioned it to the Safety Stewart who said talk to Ben he's the guy who
> designed the course. I would have thought the Safety Stewart's job was to
> correct a safety problem, and to over rule the course design. Isn't that
> his job?.
>
> Thanks for reading
>
> Barry Spencer
> EM 98
> PS. When I attend SFR events now, I feel like a rookie. Where did the old
> timers go. AAS, SAC?
--
BEN
DSP #60
Mercury Capri
-- Racing is life...all the rest is just waiting --
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