Jim Ham satated he was not sure whether this was a sanctioned
SCCA event, but thought it was.
The course clearly did not meet the SCCA's guidelines. A SSS
should have intervened, if it was in fact held under the SCCA
sanctioning. It is the Safety Stewards responsibility to both the
club and to it's members to ensure that these type happenings
do not occur under the club's banner and insurance.
George
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Mark Praner wrote:
I was there This track was insanely fast I think in my 91 N/A mr2 i was
reaching speeds up to 85mph it was too fast to do anything. No wonder why
the vette smacked into the concrete barrier.
Mark
- ----- Original Message -----
Jim Ham wrote:
OK fellow netters the latest from the Chicago Region. Camaro flipped over
today at what was an incredibly fast race course designed into the two
access roads at the Route 66 raceway in Joliet, Illinois. This was the
Chicago Region's 2nd event of the year and turnout was large. Most of the
course was done in 3rd gear in most cars and top of 4th in the mods. The
roads traverse an expanse of about 3/8 mile in each direction and is
approximately 20 to 25 feet wide. You may be familiar with this place if
you've read the Sportscar issue reporting on the roadrace held there last
year.
The day was wonderfully mild with bright sunshine and mild winds. The
drag racers all looked in amazement at all the strange looking cars
entering their arena but were more in admiration than jealousy. The
event had gone long due to numerous timer errors and the large number of
cones being hit.
Corner workers had a tough time getting the course reset as competitors
smacked and whacked cones in the high speed offsets and multi-cone slaloms.
The way the course was designed this day would have found the dragsters to
hold fast times since there wasn't much turning involved. Cars on street
tires were running competitive raw times to their race rubber clad stock
class equivalents.
Now more on the flip...a resident local racer with a white Camaro Z28 lost
control of his car at very high speed and slid off the asphalt, then about
45 feet across grassy surface into a drainage ditch and flipped over
eventually landing back on it's wheel. The event came to an abrupt halt
while the wrecker from the dragstrip made it's way out to the car and
pulled it out of the muck. Luckily the driver was not seriously injured
and
the car was able to be driven off the course. The car was badly battered
and the rear window smashed out.
Part-time Ace-reporter Jim Harn signing off...
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