Horrific

neon4891 wrote:

Gimp wrote: Maybe that's why I'm an autocrosser... I'm a chicken E36 M3.

That needs to be in print

I was about to post this. +1, as the kids say.

Vigo wrote:

I don't know who to blame there, I think bad decisions were made by both parties. If any were to be called malicious, I'd blame the golf. The camera car was faster, and the golf tried to block. Did a fight break out in the pits

I dont know anything about this kind of racing.. Is there qualifying? The camera car was obviously faster than everything else that could be seen in the video, but if he's starting at the back.. well it depends on if there is qualifying. Anyway, i think since he obviously had the power to pass everything else, trying to push so hard right there was just dangerously greedy. It looked like he could have passed easily NEXT time he came onto that straight when the crowd thinned out a little.

It looks like a regular SCCA Improved Touring race. There is qualifying, but it's for the enitre group, not single-car. If you catch a slower car in the wrong place during the Q, you don't quite get the lap you're capable of doing on your own. In club racing, there's also times when really fast guys have mechanical trouble during Q, and get it fixed before the race (again, IIRC..the SCCA allows anyone turning 104% of the pole's lap time to start in the back).

And starts are just tricky under any circumstance. Any car you can beat at the start usually stays behind you, if power output and driver ability are about the same. And the races are short..IIRC (it's been a long time! ), an SCCA Regional point race is only about 30-35 miles long. Also, people can just as easily make a mistake at the start as they can anywhere else in the race. Missed shifts, lapses of concentration, and probably the worst traffic you'll see during the entire race. I'm still betting someone in front of them both had to slow to maintain position well enough for the starter to throw the flag in the first place (if the starter doesn't like the way the field's lined up, they'll send you back around for another try).

One last thing..on the start, you're just as worried about running into the back of someone who gets a bad start as you are about someone coming up on you. The green Golf may not have had the chance to check the mirrors as the camera car came up.

I used to be one of these "road racing snobs" that thought rolling starts had no place in sportscar racing. Then I attended my first Drivers' School. Talk about your revelations!...Rollers for me, dude..I can't imagine being any busier than that!

I like it when they end like this ;) http://www.youtube.com/user/willy19591#p/a/u/2/4M9XFsfVBEw

It looks like a regular SCCA Improved Touring race. There is qualifying, but it's for the enitre group, not single-car. If you catch a slower car in the wrong place during the Q, you don't quite get the lap you're capable of doing on your own. In club racing, there's also times when really fast guys have mechanical trouble during Q, and get it fixed before the race (again, IIRC..the SCCA allows anyone turning 104% of the pole's lap time to start in the back). And starts are just tricky under any circumstance. Any car you can beat at the start usually stays behind you, if power output and driver ability are about the same. And the races are short..IIRC (it's been a long time! ), an SCCA Regional point race is only about 30-35 miles long. Also, people can just as easily make a mistake at the start as they can anywhere else in the race. Missed shifts, lapses of concentration, and probably the worst traffic you'll see during the entire race. I'm still betting someone in front of them both had to slow to maintain position well enough for the starter to throw the flag in the first place (if the starter doesn't like the way the field's lined up, they'll send you back around for another try).

Thanks for the info. It still seems to me as though he was accelerating harder than even the cars in the vid that didnt seem to have anyone in front. To me that implies he could have passed later when the traffic thinned out. I think it was imprudence on his part. I think the guy in the green golf was playing it safe and basically got rammed from the direction he wasnt looking by an overzealous driver.