The Vette and Lotus 23 were on the track together as part of the USRRC race,
which features Over and Under 2.0 litre sports racers, and Over and Under 2.0
litre GT cars. This was the way this formula was run in the 60' and was
being recreated today. That grouping had nothing to do with VARA, as the
USRRC race is organized separately by Victory Lane Motorsports.
When you have mixes of cars like that on the track there can be problems if
the driver's aren't heads up about it. The best solution if you don't want
to participate in that sort of situation is don't enter. Personally, I found
it to be a lot of fun and didn't have a problem with it. CSRG has mixed
similar cars in events in the past as well.
The Lotus/Alfa incident was an unfortunate racing accident. WIthout knowing
more about the specific circumstances, I can't comment as to what could have
been done to avoid it. I don't think car grouping was amiss in this case;
having the Mk9 with small bore production cars seems reasonable to me. From
the video, and what I saw when I was on the track, was that probably some
combination of mechanical failure and driver inexperience or inability to
avoid it contributed to making it an unusually bad accident. The good news
is that the safety equipment appeared to work to minimize injury, although a
horsecollar would have been a prudent thing to wear (I always wear one).
Regards,
Myles
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