138 replies to this topic

[Caveman-kwebb99]

Didn't say they wouldn't place blame... Just said they wouldn't be able. Slight difference... If we are placing blame then I'm on the its all Danny's damn fault bus... Kidding dannialson.

[Sean - MiataCage]

Full disclosure.... I have limited time/experience as a pace car driver and I was only watching Danny's video from a small screen on my I-Phone....  However......

 

If I were the SOM I would be having a discussion with the pace car driver.  It sure looks like to me the pace car never had control of the field.  If the lead car and pack behind the pace car slows down I believe it is the job of the pace car to slow down as well to keep the pace of the field otherwise, why have the pace car on track at all.  It looked to me like they were just driving around and didn't care how far back the group was.  Why not slow the pace, force the pack to catch the pace car and be on the pace cars bumper.  If they don't radio it into the tower that they are not forming up properly and keep doing pace laps until they comply or the clock runs out.

 

The field should have been under better control prior to the re-start and I think it could have eliminated a bunch of what went on. 

 

Just my 2 cents....  Sean

[suck fumes]

View from the caboose.

http://youtu.be/SSie23dBH9U

The last hood fly up caught me by surprise haha

[davew]

The last hood fly up caught me by surprise haha

 

 I liked Josh's ( White car stopped drivers left) bumper falling off ten seconds after coming to a stop.

[FTodaro]

Full disclosure.... I have limited time/experience as a pace car driver and I was only watching Danny's video from a small screen on my I-Phone....  However......

 

If I were the SOM I would be having a discussion with the pace car driver.  It sure looks like to me the pace car never had control of the field.  If the lead car and pack behind the pace car slows down I believe it is the job of the pace car to slow down as well to keep the pace of the field otherwise, why have the pace car on track at all.  It looked to me like they were just driving around and didn't care how far back the group was.  Why not slow the pace, force the pack to catch the pace car and be on the pace cars bumper.  If they don't radio it into the tower that they are not forming up properly and keep doing pace laps until they comply or the clock runs out.

 

The field should have been under better control prior to the re-start and I think it could have eliminated a bunch of what went on. 

 

Just my 2 cents....  Sean

I agree with this, having been involved with pace car operations in the PCA world the pace car is given  directives to speed up or slow down based upon how well the filed is grouped in an effort to keep the cars packed up.

 

However, this is a yellow flag deal and as a driver you are supposed to catch up to the filed and then maintain the pace, it looked to me like the pace car was kicking some ass getting to the pits.

 

Again, lots of factors coming together to make things turn out the way they did.

 

Danny FWIW, i think public opinion on this one is on your side.

 

I had a good weekend till one corner on sunday

 

 

 

can we change the topic?

 

I had a hoot getting the tour of Elkhart like with Todd Lamb and Tom Brown and Kyle. I told you i was going to drink Tom's beer well it turned out it was Beer and Rum and rootbeer's, I missed the booze cruse, but we made up for it the night before.

 

We also had lots of fun in the paddock, Danny took first place for the most cones in a spec miata. Eric Stearns finally got the label for the car he deserved as the Planet Miata look alike vehicle. Drago worked tirelessly in the paddock serving as ballast while his crew tuned his car.

 

I signed Tracy Fowler up as my Pit crew, but for some reason she was hanging out with Tom all weekend.

[mlewis]

Not an SM racer but do enjoy your races when I get a chance to watch.  Shame to see so many good cars go to waste at RA last weekend.  No dog in this fight but like the guy who commented earlier it mystifies why everyone's lookin' for someone else to blame, and it stretches from pace car to last guy in the field?   Hate to see you guys tearing each other up on the forums.   From an un-biased view, here's what I've seen on videos.

1. Sometimes bad stuff happens.  its a race and people do strange stuff.  as someone who's been to plenty of pro driver meetings, no amount of talking about it is going to stop people from making mistakes and doing strange stuff.  Talking is always good but mistakes like this are spur-of-the-moment so hard to regulate.

2. the pace car was not at fault. looked entirely normal.

3. the leaders were not at fault.  looked entirely reasonable given the circumstances.

4. SOME of the guys involved near the back were not at fault.  For example, the guy in the video who called himself the caboose.  Based on that video I don't know that senna or prost could have foreseen that!  I mean those cars STOPPED immediately by contact .   Even with optimal braking he was toast.  He's a victim here and he gets to bitch. 

5. Somewhere up towards the front of the melee there are 1 or 2 guys primarily responsible.  The first guys to make contact.  They had room/time to see and react (unlike caboose man!).  They either had their eyes on the mirror concerned with rearward traffic, or were texting or whatever??!!    It doesn't make them bad guys, we all make mistakes.  But that's where it started.

 

Now i'll withdraw and look forward to seeing some of you east coast guys bring it west to Laguna in October!  In the meantime.. keep up the great racing for us all!

[Danny Steyn]

Hi guys, finally getting a chance to respond while sitting on the plane. Greg – If you don’t mind, I feel need to take the time to personally respond to your posts. First off, thanks for the “nice guy” comments. It is gratifying that you have heard good things about me. I hope my dissertation below does not change your mind about me.

 

But, you have gone so far as to repeatedly blame me and implicate others for the crash, and yet somehow absolve yourself from any blame, so I feel the need to respond.

 

FIRST - Your statement ………… “I do think it is unfair of you to lump the whole class of hundreds of drivers in with the maybe 10 who have been pulling these shenanigans”  ……. needs to be addressed.

 

Greg – I am sure that if we look at your video (and almost the entire pack) showing the race-start, that we will see that you, just like everyone around you, went WOT about 10 – 15 seconds before the green flag gets waved. If you accelerated to full throttle with the pack, then you are just as guilty as anyone of jumping the start.

 

Sure the front of the pack started it.  And no doubt you thought about doing the right thing and staying at pace car speed until the green was waved, but you realized that you would have been swarmed at the start and been way late into T1. And so you went early. You made an adjustment on the fly to compete with the rest of the drivers around you. If I am right in my assumptions, then you are just as guilty as any of us.

 

In the same way, on the restart, if I had run behind the pace car and allowed the drivers behind me to hang back for the run, then I would have been late to T1. So I chose to hang back with them. We are ALL making these small adjustments to hopefully allow us to compete evenly with the other drivers around us, the way that they are racing us on the track. No driver that I have been around can claim their innocence.

 

SECOND – When we all go out on the pace lap at the start of a race, most of us at the front are doing massive flat out accelerations in 2^nd through 3^rd gear sometimes getting up to 70 and 80mph, and then braking hard almost down to zero, to put heat into the rotors and the core of the tires, and to practice our 2-3 WOT upshifts prior to the race start. I have no idea if everyone is doing this back in the field, but most of us do it at the front. Yet somehow, despite all these rapid accelerations and decelerations there are no massive pile ups on the pace lap, and people have closed up the gaps caused by this rapid acceleration and deceleration.

 

Now dealing with the incident at T14, as I said before, the slow speed MAY have been a contributing factor, but it was NOT the cause, and I have no doubt at all that my steady 35mph approach to T14 had little if anything to do with the crash. I do however suspect that several things conspired.

 

Scott Sanda, Keith Andrews, Ron Allan, Tom Sager, none of whom were at the race have posted important observations about race restart behavior that leads to this sort of thing. Here are a few of my own

 

• On the last FCY lap none of us at the front were accelerating to high speeds and braking hard like we do on the out lap as we all had heat in the rotors and the core of the tires. All we needed was some surface temperature in the tire so we just scrubbed tires back and forth. No sudden accelerations or decelerations. So no-one was being put on high alert to pay attention to the accordion effect that normally happens earlier in a typical pace lap.
• We had several very slow laps behind the pace car. That relaxes everyone and people’s adrenalin dissipates and they are not as sharp as they were in the middle of the battle. This possibly lulled some driver’s reflexes.
• Coming up over the crest of a hill makes the situation worse, especially if you are staring at the bumper of the car in front as you are unable to see through the window to the car in front of him as you come over the rise. Most of us instinctively know this and make adjustments for situations where there are blind corners or crests to hills. From the videos it appears that some did not. 
• If you watch “the video from the caboose” you will see the accordion effect at work, trying to close the gap that was allowed to form. 
• Justin Elder running in 8^th stated….. “I can assure everyone that although the pace was slow, it was steady from corner 12 through 14 and then the leaders began to accelerate”.  
• Forrest Landy running in 14^th stated …… “I was in 14th at the restart so not too far behind you guys and for me and I believe the car in front the restart was a standing start”. 
• Looking in the rear view mirror of my video it appears as if about 14 or 15 cars come around inline behind me and then there is a large gap.
• So it appears that we are still missing some VERY telling videos. From Josh Billicki’s video there appears to be several cars stopped on the track ahead of him. He stopped in time, Tracy behind him did not. But what happened ahead of them? 
• In the search for understanding, so we can learn from this, and NOT TO POINT BLAME, it would help if we could see everyone’s video from T12 and see if drivers have to accelerate/decelerate on the run to T14. Small accordion effects get magnified quickly. 
• Posting video from T13 does NOT show the small acceleration/deceleration that that potentially exaggerates the accordion effect further back in the field. 
• Dave Wheeler stated …. ” I am sure videos will be forth coming that will show what really happened”. I really hope you are right. 
• Dr Domm asked ………“what speed was the leader and others going?  How far off was the speed?” Ralph, as you can see in my video I held a speed of 33-37mph the entire way from T12 to T14. This is about 3-5mph slower than the 35-39mph the front row ran at the start of the race. The start was also a very steady affair all the way until the front row went WOT.

Greg, I urge YOU and others to also look within and see what you could have done differently to prevent you inclusion in this mess. And if you or others did something that might have had an effect on the incident, THEN MAN UP and take responsibility for your part in it.

 

From my first post I said I accept full responsibility for slowing down to the pace of the guys behind me to limit their ability to get a run. And yes the 4mph slower average speed might have compounded the effect, but it most certainly did not cause it.

 

And on it goes……

[DrDomm]

 

• Dr Domm asked ………“what speed was the leader and others going?  How far off was the speed?” Ralph, as you can see in my video I held a speed of 33-37mph the entire way from T12 to T14. This is about 3-5mph slower than the 35-39mph the front row ran at the start of the race. The start was also a very steady affair all the way until the front row went WOT.

 

 

Ralph?  I'm Domm, but that's ok.  

 

Yeah, after the videos came up I think it's hard to point blame at the leaders...including Danny.  The right thing to do is prolly adjust to pace car speed, and then hold that speed til the green waves.  Not the best tactic, though.

 

I think most people can interpret how this wreck happened from watching Josh's video.  It prolly isn't worth getting into, and assigning fault.  I'm sure no one feels good about it.

 

Bottom line is that people are accelerating while the yellow flags are out, and before the green flag is waved.  Aggression before safety.  It's a compromise.

[Michael Novak]

I was in position #13 in front of Forest and we had a small accordion effect going on, BUT there were no large gaps.  

 

 

What position was the first crashed car in?

[Danny Steyn]

Ralph?  I'm Domm, but that's ok.  

Sorry about that Domm !

[Danny Steyn]

I was in position #13 in front of Forest and we had a small accordion effect going on, BUT there were no large gaps.  

 

What position was the first crashed car in?

 

Not sure Michael, but interesting that Forrest says that for him and the car in front of him (that would be you)  the restart was a standing start - that means the bungee effect had brought him and you to a standstill, so that means the acceleration / deceleration / accordion effect had to be ahead of the two of your, which is why the video from those drivers from T12 through T14 would be so valuable to see.

 

NONE of us want to assign blame, we want to understand how this happened so we can avoid a re-occurrence 

[Van B]

From my recollection of the videos shown there were two red cars near the front of the mayhem. One was the #3 Britt Casey I think, and I'm not sure who the other one was. I was further back after a rookie spin put me behind the pack that crashed. I've never been more glad to have screwed up.

Jeff Van Buren
#93

[Michael Novak]

I don't have video of the restart as I only put a 2mg card in and it ran out around the kink. I didn't want to risk the draft and was riding to Blake tight. Everyone has a plan- mine was if the front few tangled in 5 I would be there're to go through.

[Forrest Landy]

Here is my video:

 

http://youtu.be/dYPPht68fug

 

I only got around to reviewing this today and I think that it does a good job of showing that there was no one person to blame for the whole incident. I spoke with Mr. Rowley (the burgundy car directly behind me) after the race and as I remember he was knocked out of gear when we stacked up, which explains why the sudden stop occured further back. One thing I want to make absolutly clear is this was NOT the fault of the car directly behind me, he was a victim of the incident. However it is possible that that unfortunate turn of events which caused him to pop out of gear may have indirectly caused the pile up behind us. The stack up effect has ALWAYS happened in my (limited) experience with full course yellows, even sometimes on starts. It's just a fact of racing that it is our job to be as close to the car infront as is safely possible and this often results in slight variations of speed which grow as they move back through the field. In my view it seemed that what happened behind wasn't due to the negligence of the leaders or the irressponsible actions of the victims, it was just incredibly unlucky. My goal in posting this video is not to persecute or blame a particular party, as I said in my initial post that this was a racing incident and I hold true to that statement. As I said before it was a shame to end the weekend that way. 

[Danny Steyn]

Forrest - thanks for sharing. You can definitely see and hear the accordion effect in the throttle trace leading up to you having to slow down dramatically prior to T12. I would love to see the front video.

 

And Forrest I appreciate your comments, many thanks

 

And yes Jeff, if I recall from one of the videos I watched, there did appear to be a red car almost stopped, I would expect that it is ahead of Forrest. 

[Jim Drago]

My video card is corrupt.. This is an Iphone video of my screen. BTW I am not accelerating. I am holding revvs up and holding the brake with left foot.





Not assigning blame.. But when Seths car was knocked out of gear and didn't move, I am pretty certain the cars behind starting crashing behind him. Terrible deal for a lot of people.

Jim

[Michael Novak]

You should work on trying to make your car faster it looks like the car in front leaves you.

[Jim Drago]

You should work on trying to make your car faster it looks like the car in front leaves you.

THATS WHAT I WAS THINKING!

[Danny Steyn]

Hi All

 

here's my 2014 June Sprints Race video - warts and all - have at it guys, I have developed a pretty thick skin this past week