Baltimore ALMS Race....somewhat spoiler

What a joke this whole venue is and then the start of a race. And the amount of time it took to clear the cautions. Let's hope the new horribly named series doesn't plan on going there in the future.

Here's the mess:

http://youtu.be/72rFXyYmUYE

Sucks the Falken and SRT cars got hammered.

turboswede wrote: Here's the mess: http://youtu.be/72rFXyYmUYE Sucks the Falken and SRT cars got hammered.

I'd say it sucks worse for the black car that was just waiting patiently for the car in front of him to go, only to get spun out and head-on'd....none of which was his fault.

what a fuster cluck

WTF? There are tire dividers in the middle of the bloody course? Who came up that idea?

In reply to Ian F:

It's a chicane.

Apparently the Indy guys love the chicane too

https://twitter.com/willbuxton/status/373826695314563072/photo/1

That was an ugly race.

But Bryan Sellers was AWESOME in the booth.

The Aussies know how to do tire barrier chicanes properly:

http://youtu.be/4PSn4yU5Z1k

The wife and I decided last minute not to go (mainly because baby had mud butt) and I sure am glad we didn't. College football turned out to be a much better choice to watch. Plus I cleaned and organized just about every square inch of the living quarters.

Ian F wrote: WTF? There are tire dividers in the middle of the bloody course? Who came up that idea?

apparently it was to slow them down before the trolley track crossing to keep aero good.

Ian F wrote: WTF? There are tire dividers in the middle of the bloody course? Who came up that idea?

Seriously, what the berk?!?!?

Strike_Zero wrote: But Bryan Sellers was AWESOME in the booth.

Plus Juan Million.

While the race started out as an embarrassment, a redeeming feature was that Sellers couldn't race. Regardless of his talents at the wheel, the man has a bright future as a broadcaster.

And racing on the streets of Baltimore? WTFBBQOMG were they thinking?

turboswede wrote: In reply to Ian F: It's a chicane.

How is it a chicane when you can go on either side?

irish44j wrote:

Ian F wrote: WTF? There are tire dividers in the middle of the bloody course? Who came up that idea?

apparently it was to slow them down before the trolley track crossing to keep aero good.

Geeez, it's gotta feel good going over trolley tracks in one of those cars.< (Internet sarcasm)

What a mess that was.

That is about the dumbest thing I have seen on a course in quite some time.

Very narrow strait - Check Walls on either side with no runoff - Check Cars that have suspensions that are not very good with bumps - Check

So who was the guy that said "Hay I know all this is not enough lets put obstacles in the middle of the track."

EDIT: Actually thinking about it I am betting it was the insurance carrier.. . . My bet is they were mandated to slow the cars down. We don't want another Montreal type crash like the Indy cars had many years back.

No I believe it's been a mess for the past two years as well. This is just a better example of it.

Street races can be ok on appropriate tracks.

Once you add bumps that get air, it's bad. See San Jose and Baltimore.

Or if you have a narrow track, it's not interesting even if they keep it clean.

But above all, just the lack of places to go means that it takes just one or two bad judgements and massive problems happen. Happened in Detroit, too.

If we are going to have street circuits, they should be SMOOTH. No bumps.

I bet there will be carnage at the Indy Car race later today.

Ian F wrote:

turboswede wrote: In reply to Ian F: It's a chicane.

How is it a chicane when you can go on either side?

The only bypass the chicane on the start. Keep the two car wide smooth.

This is the better of two really bad choices- either a massive jump over tracks or a narrow chicane at high speeds. A better choice would be find a more appropriate course.

alfadriver wrote:

Ian F wrote:

turboswede wrote: In reply to Ian F: It's a chicane.

How is it a chicane when you can go on either side?

The only bypass the chicane on the start. Keep the two car wide smooth. This is the better of two really bad choices- either a massive jump over tracks or a narrow chicane at high speeds. A better choice would be find a more appropriate course.

Yes, the chicane is by-passed for the start. I don't know if the same is done for re-starts, though.

Apparently, from an interview with ALMS driver Klaus Graf (who started from pole), the front row drivers were instructed to start racing only after they reached a certain point on track. The organizers wanted at least three rows of qualifiers to be past the chicane before accelerating.

Graf claimed that his competition jumped the start and the left-side of the grid got away faster than the right. This seems true as seen in videos. That got the guys on the right side riled-up and they wanted to go too and this led to a concertina of woe.

Naturally, Dyson (who shared the front row) claimed otherwise.

Today's race has all the clues to being an event dominated by FCY laps with a few green ones thrown in for grins and giggles.

Why are there 3 prototype classes and 2 gt classes?

In reply to moparman76_69:

There has been in ALMS for quite some time. Now why they didn't separate the classes at the start is another matter as the speed differential of the different classes contributed to the problem.

moparman76_69 wrote: Why are there 3 prototype classes and 2 gt classes?

Car count. The spec prototype class almost doubles the total number of prototypes running, from 6 (2 P1, 4 P2) to 11. Almost the same for the GT classes.

One wonders why Grand Am is so able to take control of racing of the two bodies- car count makes it pretty clear that not many want to run the LeMans rules. IMHO, it's really not a problem that DP cars are slower than P2 cars- there are so few P2's that they should just slow them down.... (that will make some people mad).

Bryan Sellers was HORRIBLE in the booth. That's why they went without his commentary for the re-broadcast on ABC today. He wrongly accused the Corvette team of hitting the BMW, making the bumper cover come loose. And then, when Lammers hit the tire chicane with his Corvette, claimed that Lammers was obviously the culprit, cause there was the damage on his front bumper (despite the damage not being there for three laps after the BMW's bumper started to really come loose).

And Scott Tucker tried accelerating while on those tram tracks. He spun his tires, causing the car behind him to get into him. He was certainly not an innocent victim. He's just a Bob Costas.