Porsche CGT Crash Settlement

KendtEklund · **Joined:** Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:29 pm **Posts:** 1204

Back on topic,

Lawyers and judgment amounts aside, I'll try to remember how several little mistakes don't add up, but increase exponentially the combined bad effects in a track situation.

I'm in for Chin VIR in Dec - Novice - lets see- Ferrari 460, Lotus Elise, Porsche GT3 :shock:

William Gravely · **Posted:** Fri Oct 26, 2007 2:31 am

steve remchak wrote:

c'mon Patrice, you have a real Porsche. not one of those water cooled sissy cars we all complain about.

HEY!

KendtEklund · **Joined:** Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:29 pm **Posts:** 1204

William Gravely wrote:

steve remchak wrote:

c'mon Patrice, you have a real Porsche. not one of those water cooled sissy cars we all complain about.

HEY!

I've wanted a 944 ever since I was a kid - it's on the list of 'track cars' I'd want to have someday.

I had another thought - don't F1 circuits have a pit-out light system that shows the drivers on track that someone is exiting the pits?
Couldn't it become standard procedure to have a flagger at pit-out hold out the slow-moving vehicle flag to the cars on track when someone is exiting the pits? This would give the drivers at speed a heads-up that someone is joining the track.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:32 am

William Gravely wrote:

steve remchak wrote:

c'mon Patrice, you have a real Porsche. not one of those water cooled sissy cars we all complain about.

HEY!

Thats OK, its not like everyone is telling you that your car is a VW and not a REAL Porsche. :lol:

No, let me think about it. The 944 crowd also gets a bit of the "Not a real Porsche" thing as well.

Oh, wait, I just insulted the VW crowd. :shock:

Will the insults never end!

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

KendtEklund wrote:

Couldn't it become standard procedure to have a flagger at pit-out hold out the slow-moving vehicle flag to the cars on track when someone is exiting the pits? This would give the drivers at speed a heads-up that someone is joining the track.

Well, it would only really be necessary at tracks where the pit-to-track flow was designed by a bunch of drunk monkeys, like at VIR Patriot Course and apparently Sears Point.

WTF were they thinking?

steve remchak · **Posted:** Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:07 am

that still won't stop the slow moving car from pulling out and crossing in front of oncoming traffic. no matter how many times it is mentioned in the drivers meeting "stay right into turn 1" some genius always tries to reach the turn-in point straght out of the pits. :roll:

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:19 am

When track events become to expensive due to lawsuits, its all going to just go underground....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a71AwX4x ... ed&search=

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

KendtEklund wrote:

I had another thought - don't F1 circuits have a pit-out light system that shows the drivers on track that someone is exiting the pits?
Couldn't it become standard procedure to have a flagger at pit-out hold out the slow-moving vehicle flag to the cars on track when someone is exiting the pits? This would give the drivers at speed a heads-up that someone is joining the track.

F1 has a lot of very cool and very expensive things. I'm not expecting to see any of those on tracks we run. As Mike pointed out. If pit out is designed properly then you shouldn't be hitting things. And as Steve pointed out. There are the people who leave pit out and decide to merge onto the line when they shouldn't. That car coming up on you could be traveling 100mph faster than you. Something is going to break...

The track in question extends the pit area wall. Basically throwing a jersey barrier perpendicular to the track and not adding a tire wall in front of it. That's 2 major strikes in 1 change. That is the one part of this whole law suit thing that I actually agree with. It was a blatantly stupid and dangerous setup. It is not the only track that has poorly designed or stupid additions that are a catastrophe waiting to happen. The settlement is a warning to other tracks that they better revisit their layout or plan on possibly facing the same issue.

That part also falls into Robs' comments about what is "negligence" and what is "gross negligence". Apparently if you can show gross negligence then you have a case and that waiver you signed is cat box liner. So where is the line drawn that gets you from one to the other...

KendtEklund · **Joined:** Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:29 pm **Posts:** 1204

Graham Jagger wrote:

F1 has a lot of very cool and very expensive things. I'm not expecting to see any of those on tracks we run. As Mike pointed out. If pit out is designed properly then you shouldn't be hitting things. And as Steve pointed out. There are the people who leave pit out and decide to merge onto the line when they shouldn't. That car coming up on you could be traveling 100mph faster than you. Something is going to break...

The track in question extends the pit area wall. Basically throwing a jersey barrier perpendicular to the track and not adding a tire wall in front of it. That's 2 major strikes in 1 change. That is the one part of this whole law suit thing that I actually agree with. It was a blatantly stupid and dangerous setup. It is not the only track that has poorly designed or stupid additions that are a catastrophe waiting to happen. The settlement is a warning to other tracks that they better revisit their layout or plan on possibly facing the same issue.

That part also falls into Robs' comments about what is "negligence" and what is "gross negligence". Apparently if you can show gross negligence then you have a case and that waiver you signed is cat box liner. So where is the line drawn that gets you from one to the other...

I'm not suggesting lights, just a standard procedure that gives a driver on the straight a heads-up on a merging car. These aren't races, after all, so I don't think anyone can argue that safely easing up and getting the driver's eyes up is any kind of hardship for the driver on track.
I'm still in noob land, and the setup at the Rock is such that you see the cars coming out of the pits all the way down the backstraight.
But just watching VIR onboards it looks like one of the pit configurations (was that the VIR Patriot course?) is not the best.
Wouldn't this fall under something reasonable and prudent a club could do to protect themselves from liability in case there was an incident?

Jason Panciera · **Posted:** Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:02 pm

Richard Casto wrote:

When track events become to expensive due to lawsuits, its all going to just go underground....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a71AwX4x ... ed&search=

Man that looks like fun!!!

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

KendtEklund wrote:

I'm not suggesting lights, just a standard procedure that gives a driver on the straight a heads-up on a merging car.

We need to require those little orange flags like they have on recumbent bicycles to improve visibility of a car entering on track:

I'm gonna go order one right now and duct tape it to my fender. Woohoo!

KendtEklund · **Joined:** Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:29 pm **Posts:** 1204

MikeWhitney wrote:

We need to require those little orange flags like they have on recumbent bicycles to improve visibility of a car entering on track:

I'm gonna go order one right now and duct tape it to my fender. Woohoo!

Would that pass tech?

Stacy King · **Posted:** Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:30 am

KendtEklund wrote:

I'm not suggesting lights, just a standard procedure that gives a driver on the straight a heads-up on a merging car. These aren't races, after all, so I don't think anyone can argue that safely easing up and getting the driver's eyes up is any kind of hardship for the driver on track.
I'm still in noob land, and the setup at the Rock is such that you see the cars coming out of the pits all the way down the backstraight.
But just watching VIR onboards it looks like one of the pit configurations (was that the VIR Patriot course?) is not the best.
Wouldn't this fall under something reasonable and prudent a club could do to protect themselves from liability in case there was an incident?

We consider Pit-out/control to be an extremely important track event item. We don't skimp here. In addition to all the corner workers, there is usually one, sometimes two track personnel who's only job is to direct traffic on and off the grid. The fee for this job is about 50% more than the fee for a normal corner worker. We trust these individuals to not put our driver's in harms way. They keep an eye on the track, and generally will not release a car if they think there's any chance the oncoming car (on a hot lap) won't easily get by the car exiting the pits.

If there's any question, he will remind the exiting driver to stay on the pit side of the track (either verbally, or the universal two-armed pushing motion that would indicate which side to stay on.) Just as often, if he's released a car, and then realizes the closing speed is greater than he thought, he will give a similar sign to the car on the hot lap as he passes the pit exit.

Unfortunately, this is not a mandatory thing when groups rent tracks.

Of the tracks we go to now, I think VIR is the worst pit-out set up. Cars on a hot lap are coming up very fast, cresting a small hill AND taking a fast semi-blind right hand kink which is remarkably close to pit-out. Thankfully, the blend area is offline and most cars will be naturally tracking out away from it as they head into the braking zone for T1. CMP is bad in the sense that pit out puts you out right at T1, already deep in its braking zone.

Stacy King · **Posted:** Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:32 am

Of course, in a DE setting, all this talk of pit-out procedure is moot if everyone would show up to the grid ON TIME!! :wink:

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Thu Nov 01, 2007 10:01 am

Stacy King wrote:

Just as often, if he's released a car, and then realizes the closing speed is greater than he thought, he will give a similar sign to the car on the hot lap as he passes the pit exit.

I've never witnessed this at VIR. Do we really expect the grid marshall to be seen by someone on a hot lap as they approach the kink? I see the worker in the flag stand, but not the grid marshall.

Stacy King wrote:

Of the tracks we go to now, I think VIR is the worst pit-out set up. Cars on a hot lap are coming up very fast, cresting a small hill AND taking a fast semi-blind right hand kink which is remarkably close to pit-out.

At VIR I always make it a point to look over to pit out to see if a car is leaving the pits. It's easy for me (on a hot lap) to see that area, but hard for me to to see the hot lap cars as I exit the pits.

Stacy King wrote:

CMP is bad in the sense that pit out puts you out right at T1, already deep in its braking zone.

I actually think CMP is the worst (I've never been to RR) for the reason you've stated.

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