JDChristianson Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 Just going to throw this out for discussion. The series needs more green flag laps, and more cars that live to race again. Seems like we need a good public awareness program that is talked about constantly to encourage safer driving. Possibly we need a point system for drivers that don’t seem to respect other teams cars. So let’s start something like Green For the Win. Or Drive with Respect. Let’s maximize the fun with green flag racing. thoughts? Ideas? 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dinanm3atl Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 That is all well and good as an idea but the track itself, the cars(and how many) and drivers have more control over it than say ChampCar. Or setting up a program to hopefully get people more aware. We towed down to NOLA and it was mostly clean with a lot of green. 30 something cars. Road Atlanta yesterday with 86, national championship and first race... well there were some incidents. Not sure how you penalize folks to make things change unless more harsh and severe penalties happen but how do we decide what those are? And when they are going to be issued? I saw plenty of bone headed driving and I only did 1 stint yesterday. Including the front row of the 944/Boxster incident coming down the hill. A noble thought but not sure how you can make that happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMiskoe Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 You're not the first to bring it up. https://forum.champcar.org/topic/20414-making-champcar-better/ https://forum.champcar.org/topic/19388-how-does-champcar-help-new-drivers/ https://forum.champcar.org/forum/76-champcar-mentor-program/ We went to the Watkins Glen race last spring. Day two was dry and clear and a generally great weather day. 7 hour race, 2 hours of caution time. Sure makes me consider a different event for 2023. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petawawarace Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 54 minutes ago, MMiskoe said: You're not the first to bring it up. https://forum.champcar.org/topic/20414-making-champcar-better/ https://forum.champcar.org/topic/19388-how-does-champcar-help-new-drivers/ https://forum.champcar.org/forum/76-champcar-mentor-program/ We went to the Watkins Glen race last spring. Day two was dry and clear and a generally great weather day. 7 hour race, 2 hours of caution time. Sure makes me consider a different event for 2023. That was pretty frustrating at WGI. we are signed up for Daytona and with 120 cars I have a feeling it’ll be similar although should be more room at Daytona. Is this a case of too many cars? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obscene Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 Daytona might be an outlier though given its bucket list appeal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freshmaker_phd Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 I feel like this discussion has come up every year after the Road Atl race... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obscene Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 36 minutes ago, freshmaker_phd said: I feel like this discussion has come up every year after the Road Atl race... Comes up on facebook after every single race. If I had a dollar for every time somebody flexes about racing licenses and comp school... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gkuhn41 Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 Id love some sort of driver tracking in Champcar if not for the info of whos in the car when and to know who logs the most seat time. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Jass Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 18 minutes ago, Gkuhn41 said: Id love some sort of driver tracking in Champcar if not for the info of whos in the car when and to know who logs the most seat time. I would like to see us start using driver tracking too, other than expense, I am not sure the downside. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BollingerChump Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 (edited) Tough to pin down an actual cause - it ranges from license holders driving like its a 20 min sprint to complete noob thinking this is iRacing. Great idea to track drivers, but that's another thing the organization will have to manage so I can imagine some pushback. I personally think a 3 minute video discussing the "vortex of danger"/"don't hit what you can see" and a few onboards of incidents like this weekend would do *far* more than any speeches at any driver's meeting I've attended. Edited February 6 by BollingerChump 3 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gkuhn41 Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 We need to do something because the introduction of the F class cars is probably going to create more cars with a wide speed/experience delta. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 33 minutes ago, Gkuhn41 said: We need to do something because the introduction of the F class cars is probably going to create more cars with a wide speed/experience delta. A lot of the incidents this weekend were fast championship contenders. In my opinion, there were super aggressive drivers in the championship race, and then non championship drivers who just wanted to race road atlanta. This disparity caused lots of confusion and some erratic driving. The last point is that road atlanta doesn't leave room. For mistakes. Not much (if any) runoff. Concrete destroys cars. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMiskoe Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 I know I can be unpopular for comparing CC to other clubs, but let's look at the parts that other clubs get right. AER uses RFID tags to know who's in the car. It is really pretty cool as an end user since it also offers things like a text to your phone 5 minutes after your stint showing some stats about your stint. Some SCCA regions do "contact impound". If you touch someone on track you have to go fill out a page with some details. This does a number of things, one is it allows people to get in touch with each other. Tell their side of the story. Let's the region keep a book of reports and when they have the same driver showing up repeatedly they have a bit more history to know is he/she an idiot or just bad luck. Many clubs require video cameras any time the car is on track. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoachMK21 Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 (edited) The closing speed is certainly one big concern. However, it's not only for fast and slow cars. This incident with Pinkies Out shows how slowly some cars were going through the esses. I don't know if something specific caused those cars ahead to be so slow, other than it was dark... I think the majority of ChampCars do have a camera in the car. But I don't think CC is doing anything with the video in the car of incidents. I know they will use the live stream feeds to go back and review an incident, if it captured it. I too would really like to have a RFID or similar tech used to track drivers. It will have added costs and maintenance, but it's silly we don't have this. Edited February 6 by CoachMK21 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Bill Strong Posted February 6 Administrators Report Share Posted February 6 We are starting... Though because I was not able to be in the actual race control this past weekend, I did not get the calls for accidents, only black flags, or issues I saw with my own eyes. At future events, teams will be listed better for contact. I learned a lot this past weekend about how to do this. And yes, WRL helped us. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bO7yNRMP4hQ0jLAU70YLwgdYpHWXwXMkAILkT-YiW0c/edit?usp=sharing 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veris Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 Maybe a big N on cars with new drivers? Might help with newer drivers so folks know to pass with extra care. Won't help with aggressive drivers. Only help here is stiff penalties for contact which are always hard to enforce without professional flaggers. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Bill Strong Posted February 6 Administrators Report Share Posted February 6 3 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chbright Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 48 minutes ago, Bill Strong said: SO putting this on the car! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMiskoe Posted February 7 Report Share Posted February 7 4 hours ago, Bill Strong said: We are starting... Though because I was not able to be in the actual race control this past weekend, I did not get the calls for accidents, only black flags, or issues I saw with my own eyes. At future events, teams will be listed better for contact. I learned a lot this past weekend about how to do this. And yes, WRL helped us. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bO7yNRMP4hQ0jLAU70YLwgdYpHWXwXMkAILkT-YiW0c/edit?usp=sharing Bill - this is good stuff. Having having a small amount of detail is a big deal too. There were a couple of cars on that list that were frequent fliers, but when you read the description they were mostly just having a bad day. The trick will be having the previous race information available during the current race to see who didn't remember their lessons from last time as those are the guys who need some training. Of course it is all based on the car, and the drivers may be a revolving door. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMiskoe Posted February 7 Report Share Posted February 7 4 hours ago, veris said: Maybe a big N on cars with new drivers? Might help with newer drivers so folks know to pass with extra care. Won't help with aggressive drivers. Only help here is stiff penalties for contact which are always hard to enforce without professional flaggers. To be honest, most of the time the novices aren't the issue. You can tell by their body language they are there to drive, try to finish and not get run over. I've said this a few times - CC has three groups of drivers - Novices, intermediate and experienced. The novices, as described above are generally OK, sometimes they really have the blinders on. The fast guys are fast, predictable and pretty decent to race with. The most dangerous are the guys in the middle - they are starting to get some speed, getting the car out to the edges of its abilities but are not able to drive fast while being aware of what is around them. They think they are wicked fast and never think to look at who might be trying to get around them. This isn't a time trial, there is a lot more going on than just what you can see out the windscreen. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Bill Strong Posted February 7 Administrators Report Share Posted February 7 There was a group of young Miata racers over by their trailer talking Saturday morning. Problem was that they were not at the driver's meeting. They looked young and experienced. But they were not at the driver's meeting. I am not certain, but I think that car was involved in big later in the morning. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimS Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 I’m not a novice but I’m also not as fast as the top teams and drivers. We were running our race and being mindful of other much faster cars. I will say I had to make several evasive moves when cars tried to pass off the track and in places where there just wasn’t room. I also had to avoid spinning cars after they went off track to pass people in front of me. There was a lot of very aggressive driving and big accidents in the very early hours of a 14hr race. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obscene Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 17 hours ago, TimS said: I’m not a novice but I’m also not as fast as the top teams and drivers. I think it's important to differentiate talent from safety. Some of us have the talent to drive fast. ALL of us have the ability to drive safe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimS Posted February 8 Report Share Posted February 8 2 hours ago, obscene said: I think it's important to differentiate talent from safety. Some of us have the talent to drive fast. ALL of us have the ability to drive safe. I would agree but some cars just don’t have the same potential either. Ability to drive fast and a car with enough potential to match doesn’t mean you have to pass slower cars by going off the track(not you or your team but happened more than once to me) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDChristianson Posted February 8 Author Report Share Posted February 8 Good discussion and ideas. I started the thread to see what folks thoughts were. Right now there seems to be very little in the way of consequences for over aggressive drivers that cause problems. I would love to see driver tracking via bar codes on helmets (SCCA has done this for a long time at autocross) or something. That tracking could be used in a number of ways. To build a resume for drivers that rent from diff teams, or they want to run with another organization. The records could be used be rental team captains when Ricky Bobby calls up and says I’m awesome. Could also be used by the series to say “well Ricky, you’re a problem don’t come back until next July”. And then it’ll be probationary for a year. I also think any team that has a car off say 3 times in a stint should be parked for a significant time. And hour or so. Punish the whole team and they will be far more alert to not letting someone go nuts in the car. Penalties for contact should be severe. Loooong black flags. Especially in the first couple hours of an endurance race. Calm down people. just some of my thoughts. so what do we do? Write petitions? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.