138 replies to this topic

[Jim Drago]

One of my new years resolutions ( I swear I am not making this stuff up) was to be more tolerant and and far more patient. I have absolutely zero patience! Mostly with people who I feel aren't very smart. ( That doesn't apply to Jamie) It is a terrible personality trait and one I have to work on. So I will start here as I feel Jamies post falls slightly in to this category.
 

We will see what the COA says but I think the rules are pretty clear and the last lap will not count.

I tend to agree with you. But I don't think that is what ANY of us went there for, Alex included. If nothing comes of this but a better way to administer the races, I look at the result being a positive one. IMO, and I haven't found anyone that has disagreed. ALL races should start with a green and we should race until the checker. That order should stand within reason. We really need to demand better. This is the PREMIER racing in SCCA, The Majors. The administering of this race did not meet Chump car standards IMO.
 

Frankly my personal belief is that you, Todd, and others are piss poor sportsman (dealing with this issue) because you did not get the results that you wanted. Isn't it already enough that your cars have more horsepower than everybody else's, that you can out drag race anybody down the straights. That you can win Championships by showing up with multiple teammates using radios to keep the competition at bay. I hope Alex shows his video because after seeing it I think it will start a whole new topic.

First off, by your posts, most would believe you are can be a real a$$hole in person, in fact you have never been anything but nice to me in person and tried to ease some tension over the last few seasons, I have to say I respect that. You stick up for your guys to a fault. I honestly don't believe for a minute you feel I am a bad sport. The almost EXACT same thing happened to me at COTA. In front of 70 plus SM competitors I stood on the podium and said something to the effect that this is NOT right, I did not win this race, Craig did and it needs to be fixed. I wrote a witness statement against myself and encouraged my friend and team mate to protest me. I did not and do not want to win that way, then, now or ever.

I had a long talk with Alex yesterday. Very cordial. What we said was between us, we will always agree to disagree on many things, but fortunately he can lead his life and make decisions he feels are right and so can I. I don't judge him, he did what was in his best interest. My only comment that I will share of our conversation is that the protest could have been handled much better. "I" would have found Craig before or during the protest and informed him personally of my intentions. Had we not stayed for the STL race and heard them call Alex to the tower, we would had no clue. I didn't like that Dave Wheeler protested me at the Runoffs, but I respected that he came to me personally and told me what he was doing and why. I think had Alex done that, it would have went a long way. They certainly would have agreed to disagree, but "I' feel that would have been a better way to handle it, and Alex agreed. Everybody makes mistakes ( Even Blake : ) )

As far as the car stuff... All who can read realize there is tension between our camps at this point. Well, tension in your camp about our camp. Ironically, I speak with Jeff everyday and do business daily and we laugh about it.
The deal on the cars and tension as we see it:
Racing is a cyclical deal, it always has been, always will be. The cars right now and the racing( at the front) is just stupid. There is no harder fought, deeper talent pool and level playing field than SM. As recently as a few years ago, a top driver could easily win down 3-5 HP. I will tell you right now that is all but impossible at a moderately attended race. We are seeing differences as little as 1/1 show up and appear more like 3/3. I know this as I dyno all our cars and race against them and I am amazed at times what shows up and what doesn't.
The tension as we see it kind of goes like this.. In 2010 our team was down to you guys all year, and to start 2011 at Sebring we were really down. So much so that Sandlin told Craig that he joined the team at the wrong time..The exact quote" Craig, you joined at the wrong time, we used to be like Hendrick, now we are more like Petty or a start and park team" We left Sebring with P5-7 type finishes, all the Florida guys happy and telling us what great guys we were and what great drivers we were etc. Then a funny thing happened. We left Sebring saying this is nuts, if we can't get closer, we are wasting our time. We had gotten comfortable from 2007-2010 and in that period, we went from the top to the middle. We then started our own engine program, bought our own dyno, started a technical alliance with Ademir at SAC Racing and we really started putting in the time and money to advance our program. We soon had as much or more than you guys on average and suddenly we were now non driving dickheads that only win on power and team orders etc. Same guys, feel we have always been the same. Somehow, when the shoe was on the other foot, we weren't such good guys anymore. Ironically, when you guys were beating us regularly, you never saw a post, never heard us say anything about cheating or we are getting beat on power etc. Too much respect for Jeff and all of the drivers in the camp to say that, nor did we believe that. We just kept our mouths shut and tried to improve our package. I think we( East Street Guys) are all passed it at this point. We all race each other the same as if there was no tension, hopefully at some point things will get back the way they were, we can all stop taking ourselves and our girly car racing so seriously and just have fun again. That is my primary goal of racing in 2014.

BTW.. You look very handsome in your new avitar picture, did Danny take that one

Also very strange that many of the regular guys with opinions here have little comment on the way the race ended. Maybe they are just avoiding hate mail

Jim

[Tom Sager]

 

GCR Page 65:

C: Late Checker

If the checker flag is not displayed at the scheduled end of the race and the race is one or more laps longer than scheduled, the race is scored as if it had ended at the scheduled length......

 

 

Assuming this is the only rule that governs this decision, the protest probably stands as that is the rule.  I think there is a good debate to be had about this being a good rule or not.  Seems to me that race control (pace cars, safety crew and flags) should override something written in the supplemental regulations (race length).  It's tough to expect race control to be able to manage a timed finish a the S/F down to the last second so to me the race should end when the checker waves. It's a tough call.  In the end one camp won't be happy but it's hard to point a finger in either direction.   

 

In the end there were some great performances by the guys up front regardless of the final (official) results.  

[Jamz14]

Jim,
 
How come asshole and dickhead make it through the filters but hell doesn't?

[Mitch Reading]

I am also a little surprised nobody has mentioned a car ass packing another car during the caution laps and then SM hitting the wall at the bridge under full course caution which caused even more caution laps.

 

You guys seem to have the deal with the clock management well in hand, and I hope lessons are learned for the future... but whats up with this statement???  A case of mis-managed "packing up/accordion effect" under yellow simply...  or are you inferring there were tempers flaring and resulting carnage under yellow?   

[Jim Drago]

Jim,
 
How come asshole and dickhead make it through the filters but hell doesn't?

What? Works fine on mine
I will fix....

took awhile to find. All word filters removed except the F word and I just don't see a need to use that one

[Danny Steyn]

As one of the drivers that regularly post race reports, I had decided to take a back seat and let this highly energized scenario play out, but I suspect the last line in Drago’s post above applies to me as well as some others, so here goes.

 

I have several comments regarding the weekend’s event.

 

First of all JD, your post above is a really good post – it’s good for the class - thanks for that. I agree with pretty much everything you said in it. Personally I REALLY like Jamie, but I dislike the tone of his post. I can fully sympathize with why he feels the way he does, but IMHO this is not something that should be aired this way in a public forum. But I know Jamie, I love him for who he is, and I have been on the receiving end of Jamie’s wrath before, and I respect him for standing up for his peeps, and I actually admire him for often saying what many other want to say but do not have the balls to say.

 

Yes, I think East Street has more motor than most, but no I do not think that East Street is cheating in any way. You have just found something that the rest of us have not. And yes JD, it is cyclical.

 

From the Race 1 YouTube video Alex posted, it’s clear that Alex drove the wheels of his car. Not saying Craig did not, but it was clear that Craig had more motor. And yes, Alex hurt his exit speed several times taking defensive lines, so the closing and passing speeds in several instances can be mistaken for large HP differences.

 

As for the protest, the rules are the rules, and until they change the way they are written, they need to stand. As club members and drivers we can push for changes and I would love to see a workable proposal submitted to address the way the SM Race 2 ended.

 

Personally I would not have filed the protest as Alex did, but I fully understand why he did it, and the GCR is on his side. And I agree with JD that Alex should have told Craig what he was doing, but I understand the tension that has been brewing for quite some time.

 

If an event runs longer than normal and cars come in to Tech underweight due to unexpected additional fuel burn, will they be given a waiver because the event ran long? If not, then we all need to consider running additional gas to handle the potential for laps running longer than the posted race length. I suspect that this has something to do with why the rule is written as it is. Even though many of us don’t like it.

 

I would much rather have a two lap dash for the checker to determine the winner. But I have also won under Yellow and while you don’t like to win that way, it still pays the same points and the same contingencies as winning with a waving checker flag. But I am most definitely NOT IN FAVOR of a one lap dash to the end. That is just a recipe for disaster. Everyone back to 70^th suddenly thinks they can move up ten places and it all goes to hell in a hand basket really quickly.

 

The event overall, and the SM race 2 in particular was handled badly on SO MANY LEVELS. There needs to be some serious post mortem analysis being done this week at CFR so that they can learn from the many mistakes made over the weekend. If they really care, I would hope they reach out to drivers and club members and understand the frustration and level of dissatisfaction.

 

As for my own races, I made a stupid mistake in Turn 5 in Race 1 and got sideways in front of Blake and he had nowhere to go. He tapped my bumper and I went off, rejoined in 12^th or 13^th place and drove back to 9^th with some pretty decent lap times at the end of the race that made me feel at least somewhat less of an idiot.

 

Race 2 was hard fought, both before the FCY and on the last lap that didn’t count. It was pretty obvious that Turn 7 was going to be as disaster so I backed off and waited for the inside line to open up and when it did I moved into 4^th behind Lamb. Turn 17 of the last lap was once again one of the most enjoyable times I have had in a car, two wide, two deep, no-one giving an inch. So much respect for the driving skills of the drivers in this class. Finishing 4^th there was hugely rewarding!

 

Once again I feel it’s a huge privilege to race with this tremendous caliber of driver in this amazing class that is growing in size and I am so proud that we are attracting so many younger and amazingly talented drivers to this class. 

[LarryKing]

Just a guess - races are time-limited to stay on schedule. Most tracks have an additional fee if events run long.

[Mike Ferrara]

 image.jpg   11.06KB   8 downloads

[Ron Alan]

Nicely written Danny! As much grief as I've seen you and Jim take over the years, you both always manage to stay dangling just above the cesspool of anger and emotion that kicks up on occasion. 

 

We all love a good Archie Bunker now and then(old guy reference!)but outside of our personal circles would never publicly go there.

Everyone has there own style...

 

Jim...for what its worth, I've always thought you display an incredible amount of patience. Much more and we may think your not human 

 

Protests seem to be a double edged sword...no one seems to win(no pun intended). But they serve a purpose and should not be feared. The motivation behind Alex's decision should not be questioned...regardless whether another driver would have done the same. It is well founded within the rules. The silver lining is hopefully SCCA (a club run by members?)makes some clarifications to avoid anymore of these situations...

 

Hey...be thankful we dont have 2 wide restarts

[Alex Bolanos]

Not much to say publicly about this (if that isn't obvious at this point) but basically:

 

Reason number one I filed the protest:

 

 

 

If an event runs longer than normal and cars come in to Tech underweight due to unexpected additional fuel burn, will they be given a waiver because the event ran long? If not, then we all need to consider running additional gas to handle the potential for laps running longer than the posted race length. I suspect that this has something to do with why the rule is written as it is. Even though many of us don’t like it.

 

 

I was EXTREMELY close on fuel weight due to that last lap, neither tech or any of you would have given me an inch, pound, or second of leeway if the table was turned.

 

 

Reason number two is:

 

 

 

I would much rather have a two lap dash for the checker to determine the winner. But I have also won under Yellow and while you don’t like to win that way, it still pays the same points and the same contingencies as winning with a waving checker flag. But I am most definitely NOT IN FAVOR of a one lap dash to the end. That is just a recipe for disaster. Everyone back to 70^th suddenly thinks they can move up ten places and it all goes to hell in a hand basket really quickly.

 

Between Charb, Blake, and Drago's cars there is $15k in damage due to a lap that should have never been run.  What if I was the guy with $5k in damage to fix before Friday qualifying at Palm Beach?  What if Drago would have been hurt by being t-boned by 5 SMs?  I told SCCA in the tower that they had blood and bodywork on their hands, we're not the lion tamer circus clowns of club racing... Don't give us a green white checker to watch us kill each other.

 

 

Random thoughts:

 

-Craig was on it all weekend, how we are knocking on the :34s is beyond my comprehension in these cars.

-Racing was clean up front for the most part other than me being gangbanged by the East Streeters (hah)

-SM7 is the same shit with tougher skin apparently, I'm keeping my set on for Palm Beach to see what happens.

-I miss the double podium ceremonies and full field impound but I'm glad we were whistled and more thoroughly teched.

-I feel bad for you mid country guys that have to race against the East Streeters all year, ya'll better quit sharpening your pencils and just switch out the lead in the wood.

-Saturday's video is in the SMTV section, Sunday's video is boring.

[john mueller]

GCR Page 65:

C: Late Checker

If the checker flag is not displayed at the scheduled end of the race and the race is one or more laps longer than scheduled, the race is scored as if it had ended at the scheduled length......

 

 

What a shit rule...  Well, I'm off to scour NASA's CCR to see if they need to change or clarify what the 'eff it really means.

[Alex Bolanos]

What a shit rule...  Well, I'm off to scour NASA's CCR to see if they need to change or clarify what the 'eff it really means.

 

Yes, definitely a shit rule.  Should read "Race should run X laps or XX:XX minutes or however long we decide based on our lack of crash clearing efficiency."

[Todd Lamb]

While I get the sentiment of Danny's point about the fuel, in this case it doesn't make any sense - we ran 25 minutes under yellow  (11 of the 15 scheduled laps if you include the green lap at the end) and you were close on weight? I was 30# over from all the fuel we didn't use.

 

Not much to say publicly about this (if that isn't obvious at this point) but basically:

 

Reason number one I filed the protest:

 

 

I was EXTREMELY close on fuel weight due to that last lap, neither tech or any of you would have given me an inch, pound, or second of leeway if the table was turned.

[Alex Bolanos]

While I get the sentiment of Danny's point about the fuel, in this case it doesn't make any sense - we ran 25 minutes under yellow  (11 of the 15 scheduled laps if you include the green lap at the end) and you were close on weight? I was 30# over from all the fuel we didn't use.

 

I was about 15 over on Saturday and decided to cut it a LOT closer as I needed everything just to stay ahead of Craig (see Saturday's video).  

[LarryKing]

 

What a shit rule...  Well, I'm off to scour NASA's CCR to see if they need to change or clarify what the 'eff it really means.

 

John, I can answer that one, at least in the Great Lakes NASA, if a race is 25 minutes long it's over at the 25 minute mark whether there's been 12 laps or 2.

[Todd Lamb]

Right, but you should have had at least 15# of unused fuel in the car at a minimum, due to the long yellow and/or due to running 4 laps shorter than the scheduled distance. If not, you'd have run out of fuel if the race went green the whole way.

[FTodaro]

I personally would like to see Eaststreet and the FLA gang bury the hatchet, competitors don't have to be in love with each other but lets face it we take it seriously but at the end of the day its for fun. Anyway I like all involved, and life is to Freakin  short.

 

The Rule:

 

the rule needs to be changed, if i read this right that any time the leader crosses the line even if its .003 beyond the time limit then the last lap is not going to count, we are inviting this to happen over and over. We like to criticize the volunteer workers at the SCCA, being a part of a region putting on races and working the events, we need to make the rules work for both workers and drivers, its not as easy and you think to put on an event and this rule as written just makes problems that need not exist.

the rule should be written that if the event times out, the the official end of the race is at the checker, that way the drivers are on notice of when the race is on and when its over. I see no other fair way to do it.

 

if your worried about Gas. IMO you should be planning for this anyway. i always run an extra gallon,

[Danny Steyn]

I miss the double podium ceremonies and full field impound but I'm glad we were whistled and more thoroughly teched.

 

Alex - I think this is something that was missed by most of the competitors. For most of last years majors we were ALL held in impound until after the podium ceremony. This year we jut drove to our pits and the podium finishers had no one to cheer them for the well deserved results. As much as I want to be let go so I can go and prep for the next race, I much preferred last years approach where we were all present to see out winners accept their accolades.

[Jamz14]

Thanks Jim! I feel more myself now.

 

But about fudge, what's so fudging wrong about fudge?

 

The fudge filter is working!!

[john mueller]

Yes, definitely a shit rule.  Should read "Race should run X laps or XX:XX minutes or however long we decide based on our lack of crash clearing efficiency."

 

The tower has control of the race.   The rumor is there was some communication issues...  Common sense is If the starter and/or a corner station can't hear the tower (or visa versa) the race should be red flagged by the starter.