Nov 4 Classic TGT

[Native]

Well, that was fun!

Thanks, Brant, for the codrive. Your driving is getting a lot better!

Thanks everyone for helping out today. We had a bit of a skeleton crew, and numerous folks pulled double-duty, or offered to. You guys are the best!

Lastly:
I swear this isn't mine. I don't know how it got here!

[Loren]

Great group of folks, indeed! Thanks to the four people who let me drive their cars, too!

Results are up.

9k rpm out of a vintage Toyota truck V6? Impressive! Can you tune my S10?

[BrantR]

Thanks, Brant, for the codrive. Your driving is getting a lot better!

Thank you for the sponsor, the advice, and for making my Miata look good in motion! If I can get as smooth as you I'll be doing great.

I've finally conquered the snap oversteer with much smoother throttle and steering inputs. Now it's down to tidying up my racing line and learning my brake and gas points.

I'll see you all out at Brooksville where I'll be celebrating my ascent from Novice-hood.

[twistedwankel]

Thanks for another great day of racing.

This course was a lot of unique activity with the rolling pavement and more grippy than I expected since I left the good tires on a better than Moby Dick car today. My taller DW tires would have been a perfect diameter for 100% 1st gear flat out course. Maybe a future event I'll get motivated to change tires? Haven't done that in over a year. I did run a softer suspension today which felt good. I should have gone so much faster than I did. No excuses. We all ran the same course.

My daughter-in-law really enjoyed riding along with a number of you in my car today. Might I add that all my co-drivers were faster than I was but I think I had more fun:) They were all learning the car. Some were dirty but fast. It's different having been built from petrified mushrooms in Hiroshima with a pony keg engine. The electric steering is weird making one over steer some elements. A good fit for this course tho'. As Jamie mentioned my vette could have easily been a revving 1st gear course the S1 C5 looked like he was having fun last heat but hit too many cones. An S1 car with Randy getting FTD. Yikes. High revving was good today with torque not required.

The few times we run at the Dog Track this could be a favorite yearly one. Loren did great bringing it back.

Oh and my wife loved playing with little grand daughter outside the flags. There is actually a nice park next door with slides and things. Never noticed that before today.

Have to go reset all my clocks now before I forget.

[Loren]

I have to admit... much like Philip, I kinda like the RX-8. Doesn't have gobs of torque, but it has very nice and smooth power delivery. It feels sort of like an electric motor... just keeps buzzing steadily up to the rev limit.

Can't say I noticed anything about the steering. It was fine. I just couldn't quite put my finger on where the grip level was or what gear I needed to be in with just two runs. My only gripe with it was low-speed understeer. The car wasn't happy coming out of that tight hairpin... which caused me to never push it in the other two more open turn-around sweepers.

Wish I'd brought the Mirage today. It would have been entertaining on that course.

[twistedwankel]

Note: Loren and Phillip (who I let drive without a deposit due to no grass and my wife in the other child area not stopping me.) BOTH totally kicked my ass.

Also note: Loren thinks he can out think the RX8 with a Mirage. (Yeah, he can.) The Professor is well.

[oregonmon]

I now want more elevation in all the autox I do! Fun times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKkMMagvXlI

[Carracer]

I had blast. Big thanks to everyone that let me take a run in their cars! Pictures of run heats 1, 2, and a bit of 3.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmawzLCq

[oregonmon]

I had blast. Big thanks to everyone that let me take a run in their cars! Pictures of run heats 1, 2, and a bit of 3.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmawzLCq

Thanks for the photos! I'm flickr impaired, can we download those or just share them?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[FullmetalZ26]

I had a lot of fun at this event too, and thanks to Randy and Loren for the sponsorship and advice! I definitely feel like I'm on my way towards sucking a little less Looking forward to the next one!

[Rpwolf]

I had blast. Big thanks to everyone that let me take a run in their cars! Pictures of run heats 1, 2, and a bit of 3.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmawzLCq

Thanks for the photos! I'm flickr impaired, can we download those or just share them?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

You can do both, click the share icon and a download option will show. took me a min to figure that out.
thanks for the shots, Philip!

[Native]

So Drew, the Safety Guy, tested all of you yesterday, when he completed one of his runs sans helmet.

Grid let him go.
Starter let him go.
ALL the courseworkers let him go.

I was in the trailer, and before it was clear what had happened, he was basically done and we couldn't have stopped him.

Fail.

A driver or passenger with no helmet doesn't start, and if they do, they should be red-flagged. And anyone can call it! If you guys don't act on the rules reviewed at the driver's meeting, we may have to spend more time at the meeting emphasizing important stuff like this.

[Jamie]

So Drew, the Safety Guy, tested all of you yesterday, when he completed one of his runs sans helmet.

OK, fail. Punishment accepted. Note a couple of realities:

- The grid guy is herding cats, and it's not uncommon for drivers to leave grid still putting on or buckling their helmet. If we want to change that, we can, but we need to make it clear to grid.
- The starter is looking at the ground (to set the car), the course and the courseworkers...most of the time, the driver just gets a quick glance. With the starter to the right of the car this time, to be able to face the course, the driver wasn't always completely visible behind the windshield frame or under the roof...especially with those little half-helmets unique to FAST. That's all fixable -- keep the starter on the driver's side regardless of course layout, and emphasize a helmet/belt check.
- The courseworkers are looking at the car and the cones. We can tell them to look at the driver, but they'll miss cones.
- It is ultimately the driver's responsibility to be properly dressed and tied to the car. At classics, we all tend to assume people know what they're doing, so are not looking as hard for some of those basic errors. Human nature being what it is, that's unlikely to change, no matter how many lashes.

[jbrannon7]

So Drew, the Safety Guy, tested all of you yesterday, when he completed one of his runs sans helmet.

OK, fail. Punishment accepted. Note a couple of realities:

- The grid guy is herding cats, and it's not uncommon for drivers to leave grid still putting on or buckling their helmet. If we want to change that, we can, but we need to make it clear to grid.
- The starter is looking at the ground (to set the car), the course and the courseworkers...most of the time, the driver just gets a quick glance. With the starter to the right of the car this time, to be able to face the course, the driver wasn't always completely visible behind the windshield frame or under the roof...especially with those little half-helmets unique to FAST. That's all fixable -- keep the starter on the driver's side regardless of course layout, and emphasize a helmet/belt check.
- The courseworkers are looking at the car and the cones. We can tell them to look at the driver, but they'll miss cones.
- It is ultimately the driver's responsibility to be properly dressed and tied to the car. At classics, we all tend to assume people know what they're doing, so are not looking as hard for some of those basic errors. Human nature being what it is, that's unlikely to change, no matter how many lashes.

Starter and Driver, course workers have a hard enough time seeing cones and car numbers. Many times a driver puts his helmet on between grid and start. If you want to punish someone you could DNF the driver. I have done starter manty times and have held start to make people fasten chin strap and put on helmet.

[Rpwolf]

I had a lot of fun at this event too, and thanks to Randy and Loren for the sponsorship and advice! I definitely feel like I'm on my way towards sucking a little less Looking forward to the next one!

Thanks for coming out, say hi to nick. go check out your times in the results page. you made some good steady improvements throughout the day. you and the car have potential, especially with some good tires and tweeks to the car.

[Loren]

Starter and Driver, course workers have a hard enough time seeing cones and car numbers. Many times a driver puts his helmet on between grid and start. If you want to punish someone you could DNF the driver. I have done starter manty times and have held start to make people fasten chin strap and put on helmet.

This.

We're not looking to "punish" anybody. Steve didn't even mention any names. (other than Drew, who should certainly know better... I know *I* would never leave the starting line without my helmet ) Just pointing out something that happened, and asking EVERYBODY to be more diligent about such things.

When training a new Starter, the first thing I tell them is that "you are our last line of defense". They should be giving the car a quick look for obvious things like a tire problems, obvious leaks, hood not latched, trunk open, whatever. And as they are lining up the car, they should be looking to see that the driver and passenger are belted and helmeted and the car has a tech sticker. THEN they can look back at the course to see when it is safe to start the car.

We all miss things from time to time.

[AScoda]

Steve is being a bit cagey to make a point. I wasn't intentionally testing anyone. I was the biggest failure. I jogged back to my car from the john or the trailer for some reason, jumped in my car and rolled to the line.
The "teachable moment" here is that everyone needs to be watching out for things like that. The driver might be rushed getting out of grid, grid worker is busy, starter is also trying to keep things moving. There is also the fact that people tend to maybe not pay as close attention to the long time regulars like me or Steve or Loren or Jamie, because they assume we will be doing things right.
This was a uncommon event in that no one noticed until I got back to grid where Robert(the grid worker) was patting his head, meaning "where's your helmet, fool?"
I don't want anyone to think that we are implying that people just aren't paying attention, because I have seen grid, starter etc telling drivers to don helmets or belt up at nearly every event. It is always worth reiterating, though.

[Native]

"Cagey" is a good way to put it. I apologize for my chosen approach. When I spoke to Drew at the event right after his run, I joked about a "safety test." I carried that over, which was ambiguous, at best.

As was stated, not looking to punish, and deliberately did not name names. Even if I wanted to, I (before) didn't know who was working. I still don't know who was running grid. But it doesn't matter.

This page: http://drivefast.org/work/starter/
and this page: http://drivefast.org/work/grid-marshal/
make it pretty clear what our expectations are of workers in given positions.

And in the drivers' meeting, we always state that if ANYBODY sees a potentially unsafe situation, they should say something. In the case being discussed, no one did. I'm not innocent either. The first I heard of it was someone who said aloud to no one in particular, "Drew's helmet just flew off!" Which prompted a confused, "wait, what?" from me (I know Drew is fast, but really??). And by the time it fell together, 20 of his 30 seconds had passed. Too late.

We all miss things from time to time.

The "teachable moment" here is that everyone needs to be watching out for things like that.

[Loren]

In other news:

Y'all need to quit trying to take "instructor runs" and "fun runs" and "extra runs" and such at Classic events. * Everybody gets as many runs as we can fit into the schedule, and it's usually "lots". It's not fair to everyone else for you to take it upon yourself to take more runs. If you want to drive someone else's car, do it with some of YOUR runs. If you want to volunteer to let somebody else take one of YOUR runs (because they've already taken theirs and you want them to drive your car for some reason), that's fine, but you can't then take your runs on top of that. We're just trying to be fair to all here. Personally, I took runs in 4 different cars yesterday... I took exactly 7 runs.

Along the same lines, when you're driving somebody else's car, you need to either get YOUR number on the car correctly, or be sure that somebody (grid, starter, somebody) let's TIMING know what the heck is going on.

For example, at the end of the day yesterday, we had car number 19 being driven by driver number 314 (who already had 7 runs), and he went out twice with the number 1 on the car. #1 is Drew's number, who also had taken all of his runs. As it happened, I knew what was going on because I'd just wandered over from grid. But, if I hadn't been there to explain the situation to timing, they'd have been much more confused and rightfully miffed about it. In fact, I wouldn't have blamed them for red flagging that mysterious "#1" the second (or even first) time they took to the course. Timing needs to know what's going on! If you create choas in timing, they have no choice but to STOP the event while they figure out what's going on.

* At an Open event, we don't want to do "fun runs", either. But, we're more liberal with "instructor runs" as long as they are LEGITIMATE instructor runs. You're instructing a newb who just plain isn't pushing their car hard enough, or just doesn't "get" what you're trying to tell them... sure, take an instructor run to show them. But, not just because "that looks like a fun car, I want to drive it".

[Loren]

The first I heard of it was someone who said aloud to no one in particular, "Drew's helmet just flew off!"

Whoever noticed the situation should have immediately found someone with a radio or a flag and stopped the course. THAT's what we're talking about here.

See something, say something.

Doesn't matter who it is, if they're doing something obviuosly unsafe, we need to rectify the problem... not just let it continue.