I worked as a flagger at Turn 10 all day on Sunday, so I thought I would pass along a few observations:

During the Big Bore race, a Mustang hit the rear of a Cobra very hard, which knocked him straight off the track and into the outside tirewall. Since it was not in the normal run-off area, the Cobra bypassed the gravel trap... Driver was fine but the car will need a lot of front end work.

During a 1st lap yellow of the SCCR race, a former front runner retaliated by passing everyone along the inside and giving a "love-tap" to the car now in the lead. We hear they had tangled in Turn 1.

(We also witnessed the white BMW going too fast in Novice, going 2 wheels off, over-correcting, and going nose-first into the inside tire wall, discussed rather thoroughly earlier.)

There was a 4th incident we had to document, but it escapes me right now.

I flagged at Turn 1 on Saturday. Although there was a lot of excitement at 1, it paled in comparison to what we saw on Sunday.

It was fun watching Beno in the familiar black 3rd gen. Civic, "carving" through the Novice HPDE. Nice job, and with the lowest hp car in the field.

Congrats to Corey who did an excellent job running with the American Iron folk.

 

Yeah the number 46 stock car punted 22 in turn one. 46 had locked up his brakes which is why he rear-ended 22 but that caused 22 to spin and get hit again which im sure angered him sufficiently. That said there is no excuse for him coming back to try to hit the guy again. OK, time for work

 

Did this have anything to do with the annoucement that one of the cars was being held on pit lane for intentional contact under the yellow flag? And people wonder why ECHC has a 13/13 rule.....


Matt

 

Yes

 

screw SCCS........... I understand they bring a substansial amount of money with the racews but they are the most annoying bunch of racers and racing that I have met. Godamned NASCAR wanna-be's!

 

The thing that annoys me about them is their belief that they own the paddock, and the fact that they oil the track almost every damn time we run with them. We should just move all of their run sessions to the end of the day so we don't have to suffer.

As for intentional contact under yellow - that guy should be thrown out of the series. At least I hope that is what we would do in ECHC!!!


Matt

 

[QUOTE]
It was fun watching Beno in the familiar black 3rd gen. Civic, "carving" through the Novice HPDE. Nice job, and with the lowest hp car in the field.
[QUOTE]

NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats my car! -

edit 'was' my car.

Damn I miss it already!

So ..........Beno put a smackin' on the HPDE rookies!!!

Look out Floyd.

 

 

One of the SCCS competitors (who I don't think is a stereotypical "stock car" driver and thus isn't on their "in" crowd) pointed out how most of them diagnose problems with their cars. Bring car into hot pit, lift hood as a bunch of guys crowd around engine bay, driver revs the hell out of the engine a few times, one guy reaches in engine bay and does something, close hood, send car back out. Repeat after a lap or two. It's fawking funny!

 

I still don't get their reliability problems. Are the GM 385 motors grenading, or is somebody running the Ford or Chrysler blocks? The t-10 transmission isn't unreliable either. What gives?

 

The whole series of incidents between the 22 & 46 cars was f'ed up. The contact in turn 1, the retaliation by the 22 driver as he was entering the pits (as Tony will tell you, they were within a couple feet of the pace car when they had contact), the driver of the 22 car hoping out of his car at the end of the race and having to be restrained by numerous people to prevent him from making some more "personal" contact with the driver of the 46 car.

They may bring a lot of money to the track, but their attitudes for the most part leave something to be desired.


[Modified by Dragon, 6:38 PM 11/5/2002]

 

Gee. I was hoping you would say "Look out Keith". Oh, well...

 

I should at least say something here. The drivers of the 22 and 46 cars are very long time SCCA racers from at lest the early '80's sometime. The have each raced small bore cars and won SCCA national championships. I have raced against both of them many times during my racing career. Jeff Werth (46) has had more than one perfect seasons (totally unbeaten) in GT5 racing a Nissan 210, so saying he (they) came from those redneck stock car guys the belong at some 1/4 mile oval is totally inaccurate. The nature of the large cars on the small track leads to a little agressive driving, it is more a situation of the environment than it is the people (strong IMHO here).

 

I saw the "love tap". It was a bit more than that

Being that he was punted in T1 he was in the back of the pack.
On the first pace lap I picked up the cars in 6a (where they stopped from the red flag)
He was the last car
By the time I was reaching T10 he had managed to pass every car under double yellow
He then proceeded to smash the front end of car 46 nearly missing the Pace car Brought by the SCCS grand marshall (Daytona of 2000 Official Pace car not a knock off)
After the race he jumped out of the car and tried to kick the **** out of the driver of 46
luckily he was stopped

Can we say Tony Steward

 

He and a porsche 944 were right behind me coming out of 10...in my rear view mirror i saw lots of dust and the m3 bolt right past the 944 behind me into the tire barrier...i was so intrigued in watching that the car in front hit his brakes pretty hard when the red flag came out...i had to jam on my brakes but the 944 driver behind me was also watching in his rear view mirror...yikes

no worries though...both the instructor and driver were ok


[Modified by Nasa_Racers, 1:51 AM 11/6/2002]

 

Tony is absolutely correct; it was much more than a "love tap", but I couldn't think of a better way to describe it.
Such retaliation has no place in racing, IMHO.

 

I have seen behavior like this more than once. Several times actually.
People just do stupid things sometimes in the heat of battle.

Now, that said, a car is not a weapon. I don't know how NASA and SCCS will handle this situation, but Honda Challenge folks better not even think about doing something like this. You will have to find somewhere else to race, no argument entertained.

If you feel like kicking someone's ***, do it at the hotel or on the highway in front of the track. Don't make an *** of yourself in the paddock.