Vincent Keene wrote:
Take this with a grain of salt, but aren't we being just a little too dramatic here? We have had TWO isolated incidents. It's not like this is a huge reoccuring problem.
Umm, no, I don't think so. I think we all probably agree that autocross is pretty darn safe- we can figure out the number of runs that have been made in the last
n years and divide it by the number of incidents that have resulted in vehicle or property damage and come up with a "safety factor" number.
Track, most people will probably agree, is a riskier proposition. Still, figure out how many laps have been made by all participants in the THSCC Time Trial/HPDE program, and divide by the number of incidents. I don't know what that number is, but I'd guess it's at least within an order of magnitude or 2 of the autocross number. I'd be interested to know, though.
Currently for rallycross, I think that number is looking
much worse. As someone who cares about this club and about the rallycross program, I want to be alert to what kind of job we're doing, how we stack up to comparable programs, and what our competitors' experience is. If they think we run a dangerous event, even if they're "wrong", they'll stop coming. Even if they think we run a good event, if they also think there's a real chance that they'll roll their cars here, they're going to think twice about coming. I would.
When something like this happens, it's a black eye on the program, and we need to make it clear to everyone, in no uncertain terms, that we do
not think this is OK and that we are looking for lessons we can learn and use to make our events better and safer in the future. We don't want or need to make any knee-jerk reactions, but I think there's plenty enough fun out there that that we can make some fairly minor changes and still provide an awfully good time for folks. The trick is going to be to learn to make as many of those changes as possible
before the event starts, and then be willing to make adjustments, in mid-event if neccessary, to remedy the things we
did miss.
Quote:
Both incidents were mainly due to noob-style driving behavior. If we make the courses idiot proof (which is hardly possible) they will be no fun and attendance will drop.
Just as in autocross and in track, you're always going to have noobs. You've got to plan for them, and you've got to love them, because they're the future.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
We've been using slower courses in the morning to attempt to get people accustomed to sliding around & avoiding holes, then speeding up the afternoon course for those with the need for speed. I thought the morning course was about right as far as speed goes (I hit around 45mph or so on rally tires), but I was right at the limiter (55ish) in the afternoon in a few places. I'm not sure it would work, but we could also start shifting the course over between run groups to avoid massive ruts. If you look at the photos that I'll be posting sometime soon, you'll see that there's a lot of room on the inside of the left turn before the right into the finish in the AM. That's where people should be driving, but they're actually out in the fluffy stuff getting bogged down. Run after run after run. So even if we do shift the course, I'm not sure it would do much good - unless we put a wall of cones on the outside of the turn. 
