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Watkins Glen Majors Roll Call and Smack


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#41
svvs

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T6 into the boot in the rain is a great place to hit something.....as are a lot of other places!  Driving the rain line at WGI you look drunk.

 

Have fun guys....should be a great social weekend as well as racing weekend.


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#42
38bfast

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Sorry to hear about your luck Frank. That sucks.
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#43
Steve Scheifler

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#44
Todd Lamb

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Only 12 hours left in the ride home...lots of time to reflect.

 

Lots of ups and downs for many people this weekend. First off, glad Frank Todaro is more or less ok after a big shunt in qualifying. Was looking forward to having beers with Frank/Tom and Tom/Frank, but they packed up early to get Frank home to recover.

 

Lots of laughs all around the paddock up until race time Saturday, then all hell broke loose. Extremely disappointed in several driver's decisions on the racetrack. They didn't even affect me directly (this time). We owe it to our fellow racers to keep each other safe and make reasonable moves and decisions. There were several instances of that not happening this weekend. Disappointing. I hope there is a lot of internal reflection by those drivers, and things change in the future. There's no reason to bang up 5+ cars before turn 3, and then in a separate incident no reason to write off 3 cars before turn 4 ON THE FIRST FRIGGIN LAP!!! Watkins Glen is no place to be putting other driver's lives in jeopardy....fast track, no run off. We are very fortunate that everyone left without serious injury this weekend.

 

Rant over...

 

Thrilled to have a great weekend for Atlanta Speedwerks. Brian Zellner and I opened the shop in November, and with a lot of help from a lot of people have managed to be a contender in our first 2 race weekends with our house car. Thanks to East Street, all our clients, our competitors (both in the biz and racing), family/friends, schnauzers, etc. for the help and support.

 

We had the scales setup as usual, since I'm a huge believer in making the car easy to drive (I'm lazy  :burst: ). It paid off for us, and we had a revolving door of competitors stopping by to use them as well. Hille recognized that his setup was holding him back a bit, so I spent a few hours with him Saturday evening going over his car and making changes. All the while, Brian was in the paddock next to us, hammering/chiseling/welding/pulling/taping/ziptieing/grinding/bending/prying away at the only 1.6 in the field, helping Jim Locke get it back together for the morning warmup. The car was totaled in the first lap mess, but they managed to get it driveable (barely) so Jim could get a finish on Sunday. After all that, we finally shut the lights off at 1am to get some sleep.

 

Congrats to Buras, Leverone, Hille, and Drago for the podiums, and honorable mention to Kicera, Goring, and Clements for being right there in the mix.


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#45
Craig Berry

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Congrats Todd! Great weekend! Sorry bout your luck Frank and hope your feeling better.
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#46
Jim Drago

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Congrats to Todd on a stellar weekend.  Also nice job by Todd Buras and Nick Leverone on Saturday.  Outstanding job by Justin Hille yesterday. While they didn't podium, Tyler and Johnathan were right there all weekend and could have easily been on the podium. 

 

 

Starting with practice for me.. The car was pretty good right out of the box.  Went out the last test session with Todd and Erik and we all felt confident we could qualify well together. We went out and fortunately for us, I think my car was spot on and Todds was a tick off. Todd was able to drive it well, the corners he was a tick off were 11 and 1. I was strong in both so we were literally connected at track out and the entire next straight.  My car was excellent, Todd is extremely consistent and makes very few mistakes so we literally ran 2-3 laps nose to tail with never more than a few feet between us, that was a blast. Some of the most fun I have had in a car in a long time!  We were 1.2 seconds clear of the field on lap 2-3 and were waiting for the rest to come but they never got hooked up, so we pulled in after 5-6 laps. 

 

Saturdays race.. 

The plan was simple.. get through T1 and get behind Todd and try to check out as we did in qualifying and try to settle it between us near the end.  It went to hell in a hand basket in T2. The video is out there somewhere or I will link it. My race was over, Todd went on to win.

 

 

here it is.. rough as it is from my phone recording the video on computer screen. 

 

Sundays race.. 

Todds car was as good or better than qualifying and we missed it a little.  So I was driving my ass off to stay and in the process using up the tires a bit. It was progressively more greasy and slippery. I had a second place car with an outside shot at the win at best.  That outside shot went out the window when I found the limits of T11 and popped the wall with 4-5 to go while on Todds bumper. My mistake. I went back to 5th with a bent wheel ( I assume as it was vibrating it ass off) and I am sure some screwy alignment settings.  I figured out how to drive it bent in a few laps and managed to get back to second and even a shot at the lead with 2 to go, but it was a handful. At some point in those closing laps, I was heading towards the wall again and I think I grabbed way too much wheel to avoid it and it caught and jerked drivers right  across the track and I contacted Tylers LF wheel with my RR. I am upset that happened and have apologized to Tyler as that sucked for him and he was hit twice and neither was his doing. Again Tyler, My sincere apologies there.   

 

 

To echo what Todd said above. I think Watkins is probably right there as my favorite or one of my favorite tracks to drive. But it is no place for foolish decisions and no place to take this stuff lightly. We are in 2400 lb cars doing well above 100 mph with walls on every side, a very lethal combination.  These bad decisions that repeat themselves time and time again by the same driver will eventually hurt or kill someone.  I admit, I have no death wish.. I am no adrenaline junky. I like to push my car but I always feel safe and in control. This weekend my safety and that of many others was effected by the decisions of other drivers who seem to drive with reckless abandon and blatant disregard for the others they are racing with while busy working on their highlight reel of miraculous saves and near death experiences for their you tube channel. That is not why I race. I want my races to be as boring as humanly possible. To each his own, but if this doesn't change, I need to makes decisions about what I want to do as I do not want to race like this, i wont race like this.  When multiple drivers are saying it is time to put driver "X" into the wall hard.. it is time to reconsider wtf we are doing here.

 

 I think there were more cars destroyed this weekend than I have seen in a very long time. We are very lucky that Frank and Whit are Ok, both took tremendous impacts.  Both were a little banged up and cars destroyed. I hope they are feeling better today and wish both a speedy recovery and sorry about losing their cars.  

 

Not that the weekend was a total downer, we all had the normal fun off the track and screwing around, but hard to laugh and joke when you have people hurt and destroyed cars parked all throughout the paddock. 


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#47
Amy M

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I think we are all in agreement that there was a lot of sloppy and aggressive driving in Saturday's SM race.  What a difference in the STL race: so much more respect shown for fellow racers.

 

It is a shame what happened to Whit, who is arguably one of the most gentlemanly drivers out there.  His car is destroyed and he likely has some cracked ribs (going to the doctor this week).   

 

I'm hoping we see better driving at the NJMP Majors.  


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#48
Jim Drago

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I think we are all in agreement that there was a lot of sloppy and aggressive driving in Saturday's SM race.  What a difference in the STL race: so much more respect shown for fellow racers.

 

It is a shame what happened to Whit, who is arguably one of the most gentlemanly drivers out there.  His car is destroyed and he likely has some cracked ribs (going to the doctor this week).   

 

I'm hoping we see better driving at the NJMP Majors.  

Amy

I hope Whit is Ok. I don't know either of you very well, but I have the exact opinion of Whit you mentioned above and i was concerned as it was very clear to me that he was hurting.  I know it is little consolation, but I hope he is feeling better and I am sorry that his car was destroyed. I have been there myself and while we can all afford it is not fun and at least for me always starts me thinking am i getting too old for this %$^^& and is it time to pick up golf again. I hope that is not the case for Whit and hope to see you guys out there again soon.


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#49
Parity

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Jim, a great deal of energy is exerted on rules, parity, etc to ensure a competitive field. As important as the competition is to everyone I would think safety would be the ultimate concern. I've never been involved with the governing bodies so not sure if this is the route but shouldn't the SMAC or CRB give this some attentions as well especially when it's obviously focused on specific individuals? Maybe there needs to be something beyond the existing formal protest which mainly focuses on one incident. If there is a consensus among drivers as if the case here can a disciplinary action be initiated? I myself have written of two cars at the Glen due to bad decisions by other drivers and I know some have left SM because of this type of recklessness. I doubt anyone wants to see more of that. Maybe I'm off here but just throwing it out there.


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#50
Ron Alan

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Maybe someone who wants to throw stones can explain the video...I see contact but not sure what is happeneing in that 60's 8mm film clip :)


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#51
Jim Drago

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Maybe someone who wants to throw stones can explain the video...I see contact but not sure what is happeneing in that 60's 8mm film clip :)

 

I don't want to throw any stones... But I will explain..

 

Simply put... I lift a little exiting T2 as I don't want my left front corner to hit Todds right rear corner as he is turning right at 100-110 mph or so and spin him in front of field. That allows Yiannis to get a run and as Todd turns right, Yiannis follows him to stay in his draft. Unfortunately he never looks out his passenger window as I am there. he turns into and around the front of my car, that shoots him right into Kiceras car, he then bounces left and ends up into the front Of Buras car with no where to go.  This incident could have been anyone of us. I think the concern of many is this is becoming too common with one driver. 


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#52
Mike Collins

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I pulled in early from last years SM race at the Glen because everyone around me was being stupid.  My car is ready for the runoffs now.  While I missed seeing all of my friends this weekend, I did not miss that race at all.  


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#53
38bfast

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For me the issue of bad driving and carnage far outweighs the splitting hairs in parity. Fixing poor driving decisions should take much higher priority than a plunge cut being out of tolerance by .001.  This is not just a SM problem its a SCCA in general problem. No one likes to fix crash damage and many can not afford to do it over and over. It also does nothing to brining new people into our sport. 

 

Like Mike we chose not to attend do to the higher risk of carnage at that track. 

 

The risk is just not worth the reward in club racing. 


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#54
Todd Lamb

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So full of crap. If the doctor would have cleared you to race a day sooner you would have been there! ;)

While I missed seeing all of my friends this weekend, I did not miss that race at all.


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Full disclosure: SMAC chairman, my opinions do not reflect anything to do with the SMAC unless specifically stated.

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#55
Johnny D

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Did you guys happen to see last night/this morning race ?
https://www.youtube....6&v=84hz9w2GlV4

J~


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#56
Jim Drago

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So full of crap. If the doctor would have cleared you to race a day sooner you would have been there! ;)
 

It did sound good though ;)


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#57
Johnny D

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Here's the results.
http://www.scca.com/...ins-glen-majors

J~


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#58
Mike Collins

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So full of crap. If the doctor would have cleared you to race a day sooner you would have been there! ;)
 

 

Probably...  but the BS driving has to stop...  


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#59
JRHille

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Here is my in-car from Sunday.  All the stupid driving decisions aside, we always seem to have the best racing.

 


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#60
38bfast

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The only way it's going to stop is if it is indentified and penalized. Penalized hard.

I have written paper many time to mostly come back "racing incident" IMHO a racing incedent is when there was no way possible to avoid. Like getting into oil, mecanical failure, act of God and such. All authors can be avoided by not being as aggressive and situational awareness.

This is a big problem that has been talked about over and over again but nothing changes. This is an issue that has to be mandated from the top down in SCCA.

Carnage certainly does not atract new blood to our beloved sport.
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