Now, I've been accused of "disappearing" from team.net, and for
good reason -- there hasn't been much worth reading, much less
responding to in the last few months. But this whole thread on what
happened this past weekend at the Peru ProSolo is really not sitting
well with me.
For one, I think it's been mentioned plenty of times that ~220
competitors walked the course Friday evening and Saturday morning, and
no one thought twice about the safety of the course.
Secondly, even after the Celica vs. Sentra close call, I don't
think I even really thought about the safety of the course. And no one I
was talking to (mostly FS people, granted) ever really talked about it.
It was a freak thing. A car spun, and it happened to be in the path of
another car. I've seen it happen at the drag strip. I've seen it happen
come awfully close to happening at at least one other National event, a
Tour. No one stopped those events in the name of safety either.
No other close calls happened the rest of Saturday, if I'm not
mistaken. It wasn't until Sunday morning, when everyone is in their
"spin-or-win" mode, that the "tragedy" occured. People were concerned,
yes, but I actually think most people were more concerned with the
condition of the drivers, and whether or not the drivers trailered their
cars, how they would get home, etc., etc. I was gridded in the
two-driver lanes when the incident occured. I was talking with CS
friends in their grid lanes. At least *two* of those CS drivers have had
*significant* vehicle damage done to their cars at autocrosses, one of
them bad enough that he couldn't make it to Nationals last year. Did
they hesitate to do their Sunday runs? It didn't look that way to me,
but I could be wrong. Did I hesitate? Well, I *was* running by myself,
but I didn't freak out when I saw Alan Stratton lining up next to me
when I came back around for my left side run.
I think was I'm trying to say is that if a course is obviously
unsafe at the get-go, then it should be changed, without question. If
the safety of the course is more of a question of what certain drivers
are doing, then maybe those drivers are the ones who should be talked to
or even banned if their driving continues to put themselves and other
people in danger. Pretty much *any* course could result in what
happened, when it comes right down to it. If not two cars colliding,
then certainly there are curbs and light poles or concrete pylons that
could cause damage. The Harrisburg ProSolo last year was deemed safe,
yet my current co-driver came damned near to putting his Sentra into a
light pole. The National Tour in Atlanta in '97 was deemed safe, yet
Dean Sapp came within three feet of buying himself a wrecked ASP Viper.
I saw questionably close calls at the Ayer Tour in '98. And this doesn't
even bring into account the few occasions when I've seen people get lost
on a ProSolo course and make a wrong turn to end up on the opposite
side!
If you want to avoid the possibility of two cars ever colliding on
course, then we simply have to ditch the ProSolo format, and for Tours
(and this would include all Divisionals and regional stuff too), make it
truly a "solo" event, and never have more than one car on course at a
time. Period. If you want to avoid the possibility of car damage at all,
then make sure that any lot you right on contains no light poles, curbs,
concrete parking markers, "islands," wooden post-borders, concrete
pylon-borders, drainage ditches, or the like. Make sure the course
contains no tight slaloms, no negative camber turns, no decreasing
radius turns, nothing that might cause the car to spin, roll or
otherwise go out of control. Heck, why don't we all just leave our cars
in our driveways?
I am not being "casual" about the safety of an autocross. I've seen
cars roll, I've seen wheels come off and hit the car next to where I am
standing (both at an autocross and at a road race). I've designed
courses where the speeds ended up higher than I initially liked, and
probably would have made slower if I had known. I have spun my Camaro
and had course workers run -- and watched the video in amazement when I
realized how close to a light pole I was. Honestly, even after watching
a *friend* of mine lose it in that Chicago box and inadvertently collide
with his competitor, I feel safer at an autocross than on the DC
Beltway. At least at the event, I'm wearing a helmet.
If the possibility of car damage is something you can't deal with,
then you really shouldn't be driving a car, much less autocrossing one.
There is a reason for the safety requirements and the waiver. This
weekend's incident is a sobering reminder that autocross is not the
perfectly safe refuge for the speed addict, just as Greg Moore's and
Adam Petty's deaths are reminders that despite continual improvements in
safety, wheel-to-wheel racing is not inherently safe.
Send any flames to me privately, please.
Karen Kraus
1996 Camaro Z28 1LE (FS34)
Rosen Autosport : http://www.rosenautosport.com
Triskelion Racing : http://www.erols.com/kiirenza/trisk
--
"You never get away, you only get someplace else."
-- Lovka's Dilemma
"No matter what they're telling you, they're not telling you the whole
truth."
-- Todd's Principle
"The best view of your soul is from beyond the edge, looking back."
-- No Fear
http://www.erols.com/kiirenza/trisk
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