Apparently these guys did.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czQClkc7Alw
Came pretty close to soiling my undies coming around that turn. GoPro lens distortion makes these people seem further away than reality. Had it been later in the day when the sun was coming right down that straight .... might not have seen them so easy.
-Hans
I had a truck drive on course and then sit there and argue with the worker that he wasn't in the race line. Then I thought they were going to beat each other's heads in. 
Yeah, but you got a re run on warmed up tires, and Darwin will catch up with them eventually.
True story: I threatened to use the fire extinguisher I was holding at the last person who crossed my hot course. Then the safety head arrived and threatened to use it as well, but as a bludgeon instead of as intended. Note that that was the second time they wandered in that day...
We've had people stop their cars, move our blocking cones, and drive on to the course. You just can't stop some people.
Also, in the construction zone down the street from our house, a woman got so incensed with the flagger stopping traffic that she backed up and then mowed him down. Didn't get her where she wanted to go, she ended up in the pokey instead with a vehicular assault charge. Like I said, you just can't stop some people.
I dealt with that at mall events. Makes me appreciate college parking lots in the summer.
Doing a mall autocross once. Guy rode his bike out to the middle of the course during a worker crossover, then proceeded to do full-throttle wheelies from one end of the course and back in a crisscross pattern‚ON A HONDA GOLDWING. Finally saw cars getting ready to run and he waved courteously and took his leave.
Over the years I've seen it happen a dozen times, usually involving an older couple driving a Crown Vic.
I've seen it as well, people duck under the barriers and climb over orange fences to cut across an active race lot. Often while walking their dog.
Look at it this way: people rush the stage to get close to their favorite rock star...just how good WAS your run?
Way back when, the Martin Sports Car Club used to hold events in one of the parking lots at Martin Marietta (before the Lockheed buyout) near International Drive in Orlando. Rental cars wandering into the lot looking for Disney was a common occurrence.
DeadSkunk wrote: Over the years I've seen it happen a dozen times, usually involving an older couple driving a Crown Vic.
Shoulda run out and taped numbers on it.
I am an organizer with a small club, the struggle is REAL.
We run at 3 venues currently, two of them are baseball stadiums.
We had a Jeep pull right into a hot and active course and attempt to park and yell at us like we were doign something wrong. Motorcycleists who planned an informal meet for our lot location (MC guys never communicate with the lot they want to use apparently) who went around the barricade and through the cone wall down onto an active course. A minivan pull in (again past solid barricade, past cones) and drive down our stop box the wrong way. Joggers and cycleists we have had to stop we went right past timing and the start line onto the course.
And lets not forget earlier this year when we discovered an import tuner informal meet that had planned to have a 200 car meet on our lot the same day as our event (again, without communicating with or renting the lot). Thankfully we caught that on facebook ahead of time and alerted the group (and the lot). After it was all said and done their meet happened in the secondary lot we use as paddock. Afterwards, we sent video of their participants speeding, doing burnouts, and other irresponsible behavior on the street immediately outside the venue to the stadium (I cant remember, but maybe also the police).
We also have a HUGE problem with people stopping in the middle of a 4 lane road with no shoulder to watch our event. Even had a sleepy's mattress truck do it. ON A 4 LANE NON-DIVIDED ROAD WITH NO SHOULDER!!!
Just before our event last weekend we invested in "No Parking" and "No Entry" signs that stick in the top of our tall cones. It only slightly slowed the tide.
Guess its what red flags are for and why every driver needs to watch for them.
The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix is held on closed city streets every July. I've been going to the event since it started in 1983 yet every year I still see people trying to walk, jog or push their kids in a stroller onto the course. Most of them claim that they have no idea what's going on despite the permanent street signs that mention the yearly closings, the hundreds of course workers wearing white, miles of jersey barriers, caution tape and snow fencing, dozens of boisterous racecars and the 250,000 spectators that descend into their neighborhood.
My favorite was the belligerent old lady that insisted that she had the right to walk wherever she wanted and was going to call the police on the "illegal" event. Two uniformed officers were standing almost right behind her doing crowd control and they politely explained that if she didn't stop being such a shiny happy person that they'd cite her for being disorderly and trespassing.
One time I was working a finish control for a club rally. We had road closed signs up and everything, but one local was determined that it was his road and by god he was going to drive on it. I explained to him that cars would be coming at 100 mph at him head on using both sides of the road and not expecting oncoming traffic. He went anyway. A minute later he came back, I guess his wife convinced him he was being a grade A asshat and didn't want to die that day. Thankfully no cars had started the stage yet.
Details are a little hazy on this one but I think this was at a HyperFest event when they were still at Summit Point. During an HPDE session, a car overheated and pulled off the race line. The driver then proceeded to get out of his car on a hot track, popped the hood, and was then joined by some spectators who jumped the wall to join them trackside as they began to work on their car.
Mild counterpoint is the closing of the road I live on for various racing events, without notification to those of us who live on the road. A few times a year we can not get out of our homes, or back to them if we were already out.
The various clubs and police that do this just shrug because they don't give a damn.
I should have pointed out that this was a dirt road through the mountains with no houses on it. Some of the roads used by that particular rally do have residences on it, but my understanding is that the organizers contact each of them individually in order to get permission to run those stages.
Years ago when we ran at the Zephyrhills (like the water) airport a plane came down the taxiway we were using for our hot course. He had to drive around some tall cones blocking the end of the taxi-way to do it. A worker caught it and radio-ed in for us to stop. I assume he had to drive on the grass to get around the blockade of cones we had set up.
Oh, and since that airport is a very popular sky diving site, we did have to stop a few times for people who drifted too close. It was common to see the rubber bands they use littering the pavement.
At our local we luckily have a fenced in area with only one entry that prevents people from coming in, but at Metlife I've definitely seen a few people just move cones that are blocking various entry points and decide to drive through.
The thing I notice at our local is that various cars and trucks with very loud exhausts will buzz by the lot at full throttle, sometimes doing multiple passes.
Keith Tanner wrote: ...Also, in the construction zone down the street from our house, a woman got so incensed with the flagger stopping traffic that she backed up and then mowed him down. Didn't get her where she wanted to go, she ended up in the pokey instead with a vehicular assault charge. Like I said, you just can't stop some people.
Must have been on her way to a Trump rally...
Amazing that someone'd throw a rally and not get all the residents on board!
Dennis Brunton got hit by a car at an autocross. My recollection is that he was nowhere near the hot zone, but some shiny happy person got off course and instead of pulling things together then re-entering the course, he went into hoon mode and.....
foxtrapper wrote: Mild counterpoint is the closing of the road I live on for various racing events, without notification to those of us who live on the road. A few times a year we can not get out of our homes, or back to them if we were already out. The various clubs and police that do this just shrug because they don't give a damn.
If this is true, it's highly unusual. Upcoming road closures are publicized, posted in the paper and are usually pretty hard to miss. It's not easy to get a road closed down. One my wife's souvenirs of the Nike Half Marathon is one of the street closure signs, and it was up several days before the race.
There was a pickup truck decided to leave home during the Targa Newfoundland a few years ago. The other car on my team met him going the other way. Thankfully it was during the lower speed Grand Touring class and not the balls-out Targa class.
In reply to hhaase:
Mind if we share your video on our Facebook page?
Keith Tanner wrote:foxtrapper wrote: Mild counterpoint is the closing of the road I live on for various racing events, without notification to those of us who live on the road. A few times a year we can not get out of our homes, or back to them if we were already out. The various clubs and police that do this just shrug because they don't give a damn.If this is true, it's highly unusual. Upcoming road closures are publicized, posted in the paper and are usually pretty hard to miss. It's not easy to get a road closed down. One my wife's souvenirs of the Nike Half Marathon is one of the street closure signs, and it was up several days before the race.
The what now...?
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