THSCC Forums

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/4562562/detail.html

A very sobering story, IMHO this should be required reading by ALL who participate in track events. It's sad enough when this sort of thing happens in a race, but even more so in an HPDE.

IMHO, there is absolutely NO REASON for this sort of thing to happen at an HPDE. (<period).

Bret.

There is a WHOLE lot more to it than the news story states, this was NOT a HPDE, this was a rich boy lapping day.





More pics here:
http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthrea ... adid=50833

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

Okay, I poked around some and here is what I gather from the data posted:

CGT was on track doing hot laps.

Ferrari was entering track from pits. Marshall said go, Ferrari hesitated. Marshall says stop, Ferrari goes anyway (don't know if he heard or could hear the Marshall at this point, however).

CGT was now coming at around 165MPH (so someone hesitating less than a second could have gotten him into view and in the way in a hurry) and appeared to be startled by the Ferrari. Don't know if the Ferrari took the entire track or anything like that, but CGT does pass him without contact. CGT loses control basically in the straight and hits wall with the passenger side very hard. Passenger killed instantly, driver died enroute to hospital.

Appears it was normal CGT with no additional safety gear, which just means it had three point belts and airbags. Both people in car had helmets on.

That's what I gather from what I can find to read on the topic. Now my commentary:

First, it appears there were no corner workers. No idea if the "marshall" was someone with proper training for race control. Sounds as though it wasn't his fault at all. Ferrari driver screwed up, plain and simple. I wouldn't put the deaths solely on him, but he screwed up. Well, unless he had some reason not to trust the marshall, and some very good reason. I'm sure nobody needs to tell the poor guy anything, though, since he knows what happened and was first on the scene. I'm sure it was not a good place to be for someone involved in partcular.

Not that corner workers could have helped better avoid this, but damn. I can't imagine doing something like that in cars like that without them. Silly. Hopefully that's the end of it for that track, too. I am pretty certain VIR won't do anything like that for any group that's going to be in anything anywhere near "high performance."

Second, I think tracks are going to end up putting some performance metrics in place before too long that require anything above a certain level of performance to have full safety gear. Drag strips already have that sort of thing...you couldn't show up at any bigger strip, anyway, in a CGT and take passes unless you put a cage and other gear in first. Why? Well, it's obvious why. There is a point, however, in which you can make passes without all that gear, but I'm betting it varies from track to track.

I don't like the thought of them having to do that. In fact, I'm completely against such things for those who are renting the track for a one car at a time thing. You want to take your chances in a CGT with no gear? Get the track to yourself and sign a waiver and kiss your wife and kids before you leave. But when others could end your life so easily, well, those places are going to have to take precautions to keep from getting sued into oblivion.

Damned shame for the families of those two. I'm gonna spend some quality time with my family this weekend.


--Donnie

I find it very hard to believe that there were no corner workers. I too have read alot of heresay about this incident on various forums, and it seems that there are still alot of unanswered questions.



Bret.

Bret, I hate to make this into an east cost west cost thing, however it is very common out west for organizers to rent track days just to play without corner workers, for what ever reason, they do no seem to have the same idea about saftey as we do here on the east coast. There are tone of videos floating around the internet of open passing without points in hpde groups and even open passing with out points without corner workers.

_________________
David Teague
2015 Lexus IS 250c
1994 Honda Del Sol HS 39
2009 Dodge Journey R/T
http://teaguefamily.us

>From a posting on the Porsche Owners Club bulletin board by someone named Johninrsf:

Just to clarify what happened, I spoke to someone this evening who was there as Chief Driving Instructor and learned the following:
(1) The oval was not in use. They were only using the infield.
(2) The accident took place just past the bridge by a small access road that is used to enter the track from the pit, if you're only using the infield.
(3) Ben [the driver] was allegedly going over 160 mph after the bridge --this is pretty incredible for such a relatively short straight following such a slow turn.
(4) Participants were told to stay to the right just in case traffic was entering from the pit to the left.
(5) Ben was to the left, not the right.
(6) Ben was in the midst of an extra lap (they weren't supposed to take) after his run group had finished.
(7) The individual who organized the event was directing cars from the pit to the track and probably made a mistake in letting another car out when Ben was still on the track --he probably, mistakenly thought everyone was off the track as they were supposed to have been.

_________________
David Teague
2015 Lexus IS 250c
1994 Honda Del Sol HS 39
2009 Dodge Journey R/T
http://teaguefamily.us

From Stacy King. I could not word it any better myself this is
a cut and past from the EventMasters Forum:


Today's Topics:

1. RE: Tragedy at Fontana (Stacy King)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 13:38:28 -0400
From: "Stacy King" <zstackgo@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Eventmasters] Tragedy at Fontana
To: eventmasters@pdc-racing.net
Message-ID: <BAY104-F5E22F7998DFEE4340D58AD3FB0@phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed




>>I wanted to open up the floor to discussion around it from an
>>EVENTMASTER'S perspective.


>>How can we prevent this in the future?


You can't. Anyone who thinks you can is naive and shouldn't be organizing
these events. Having said that, there are ways to make it extremely
difficult for things like this to happen. As with any catastrophic accident
like this, its never one thing that is the cause - its the combination of
many small things that happen at the same time.


>>How can we protect ourselves from the tragic?


SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF !!
-- Make sure all your participants have car numbers, have passed a safety
inspection (car and driver), have a current medical questionaire filled out.
Make sure you have a pre-set event schedule and make sure ALL your
participants have a copy. Make sure you have a good PA system that covers
the entire paddock area. Make sure you have a driver's meeting each morning
and make attendance mandatory to get on track.

DON'T CUT CORNERS TO SAVE MONEY !!
-- Use proffesional corner workers... i.e. people who work corners every
weekend, whether provided by the track or outsourced. ALSO pay for a
pit-out worker. They usually cost a little more than a regular worker, but
there's a reason for this... Sounds like this incident is a perfect example.

BE DILIGENT IN POLICING YOUR MEMBERS !!
-- Make sure each car is clearly marked for run group and numbered for
corner worker ID. The pictures I've seen, it does not appear this car had
either... THIS APPLIES TO INSTRUCTORS AS WELL. Make sure you have an event
staff member on grid checking these things before they get to the pit-out
worker. MAKE THEM GO BACK if they don't have the required info on the cars
or, even more importantly, don't have the proper insurance waiver arm-band
(seperate color for instructors). Passenger should ONLY ba allowed to ride
with an instructor. Solo students are not allowed to take passengers at our
events. This helps to ensure no 'show-boating' for their friends.

KNOW YOUR INSTRUCTORS !!
-- Have a system in place to check your instructor's event history, don't
let just anyone who says he/she is an instructor out there. Check their
references, if they don't have any, have an instructor 'clinic' of some sort
and check them out your self using a trusted instructor as a mentor.

KNOW YOUR PARTICIPANTS !!
-- Make sure you get an event history from all your participants... if
something looks fishy, ask for references, call or email other club
orgainzers and get the person's history with that club. Start a system of
participant feedback. Have your instructors fill out feedback on each of
their students, as well, have your participants fill out feedback on their
instructors. This is an excellent way to know what your people are doing in
the cars on track. As an aside to this... we're have recently started using
the Pukkasoft event management system and we'll be incorporating our
participant feedback into our member database.

WHEN IT COMES TO SAFETY, LET THE PROFFESIONALS HANDLE IT !!
-- ALWAYS pay for Advanced Life Support and wrecker/tow service. Your
insurance should require the ALS anyway

KNOW WHATS HAPPENING ON TRACK AT ALL TIMES !!
-- Stay in constant comunication with the corner workers at all times.
Request and pay for (rent) a radio from the corner workers and keep an event
grid marshall on the hot grid at all times with this radio on. Request a
head set and use it so you can hear the workers clearly with cars on track.
Monitor it, list every incident that is reported. Give the workers freedom
to black flag any infraction - have the lead worker attend the driver's
meetings each morning so they hear what the driver's hear. Meet with them
to work out any questions before hand so there is no confusion. State your
'off rule' clearly. Ours is 'two-offs and your parked for the day'. We
don't penalize for controlled offs (i.e. blew a braking zone and drove
straight off under control) but we still require them to come in for a
cool-down talk in the hot pit and a check of the car. This two-off rule is
for the each day, not just in one session.



>>What are the implications for insurance coverage in our industry?

-- This is much more difficult to answer. It's going to depend on what kind
of lawsuits arise from these incidents. Costs are already going up... most
tracks here on the east coast are starting to require 5M in liability
coverage. K&K won't do this on a per-event basis. This will usually force
us to purchase additional coverage through each track, since getting that
much coverage would require us to buy a year-long policy (another 10k). We
got lucky this year, one track waived the 5M (left it at 3M minimum) because
of our good safety record.

The most important thing here, in my opinion, is to make sure all
participants sign not only the insurance waiver, but make sure on the entry
form, either paper or online, that they sign something that states they are
voluntarily entering into an event that risks injury or death.

As far as this particular incident, from what I've heard (from trusted
sources) this is something that sounds like even with most of these
safeguards in place, it may have been un-preventable. What it boils down to
is that you can never predict when someone is going to have a momentary
lapse of judgement. No matter the circumstances, it sounds like this is
what happened and it is very unfortunate. I hate to say it, but until an
investigation is done to determine something mechanical, we must assume it
was driver error. And unless there is some in-car video with audio, we may
never know exactly what happened here. We can speculate til we're blue, but
it won't do anyone any good.

Stacy King
Triangle Z Club
Tarheel Sports Car Club
HPDE Chairman/Event Steward

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Mark Vitacco
THSCC TT Chairman
mvitacco@bellsouth.net