kary993

Greg,
The issue I have with your statements is you don't have all the facts, but have decided to judge without the facts. I do not need to explain my actions to you nor do I need your misinformed statements about a situation you were not around even when you have been told you do not understand. You have made your position based upon limited knowledge of the situation. You do not know what I was doing as an instructor, you do not know what the student was trying to do. I was pointing out the difference between race cars and newbie DE drivers. They do not belong in the same group, period. You have made this out to be something I or the driver have done. Again, you are way off base. I am sorry I came into this discussion. I feel like I have been caught your rath around Argo.

This reminds me of the other thread floating around here, "What has become of this board?" People really ought to think about what they write before they post, at least have the facts or inquire about the facts before making such uninformed statements.

Randy M

See what I mean.....

kary993

Yes, I do....

Agro1

I'd like to take a stab at this one...It seems Greg's only argument is that he does not feel circumstances should be blamed for what happened and that the driver and instructor should have been able to control their surroundings. Yeah, maybe, if you're GOD.

So by that logic, every time there is a massive pileup in NASCAR on a big oval; the rookie driver cruising along, minding his own business in 24th position - that guys is to blame because he did not control the pileup that happened a split second and 8 cars ahead of him...Because it was his fault he got taken out, right Greg ? He had complete control over his surroundings and should not blame anyone but himself - is that what you're saying ?
I suggest you really don't know what your talking about. You were not in the car with Kary, and it's not Kary's responsibility to make sure you are "well informed with all the facts" to make a decision about what happened that day. Furthermore, the owner of the car I'm sure doesn't care for Kary to be discussing the details it in a public forum either. There were 2 people in the car that day, you weren't one of them so your opinion means SQUAT.

sbelles

I think that this is a great topic for discussion. As was mentioned in some of the previous posts, many, if not most of the off track incidents that occur in DEs are at least partially attributable to mental mistakes. I'm not a doctor and I don't even play one on tv but I have an idea that adrenalin, testosterone, and endorphans play a large role in our decision making while participating in motorsports. If we didn't love the endorphan high we wouldn't be doing it. You may see a number of offs in the lower run groups at any given event but they are rarely serious because the drivers have a healthy inhibition that prevents them from pushing the envelope. Drivers in the top run groups are more likely to be driving more custom, highly modified cars which can and do fail from time to time but they have enough experiance to alwqys be anticipating a problem and thinking of contingency plans. In my limited (4 years) experiance, the majority of the serious incidents that iive seen have been in the intermediate (solo) groups. Look up the definition of Sophomore.
I agree that safety at DEs is and should be be the drivers responsibility and hopefully threads like this will make all participants think about it a little more.

solsrch

JPS, I'm with you.
Dan from St. Louis - great summary of what I think the important take aways are from this thread.

As it stands, I'll put the High Speed Driving Clinic (DE prerequiste) on hold for a few years until I can decide between doing things to my car that I don't want to or purchasing an older 944/951 to use to get on the track.

I can't help but think that some of the sidebar discussions on this thread prove you don't have to go to the track to witness hormones and posturing in action.

Randy M

So what does one have to do to get banned? It's a question not sarcasm. I see that Agro has been banned so I'd like to know, as it doesn't happen very often.

Robert Henriksen

You have been *reading* his posts, right? I imagine there's probably additional objectionable content in some PMs to boot, but that's just speculation.

Randy M

Yes I have been *reading* his posts. I've also been reading others as well. What is the point of your asterisks? I hope you understand I'm not defending anyone over another. Have you read my other post Robert?

Robert Henriksen

I dunno, race cars are just... cars. If a person *driving* the racecar is behaving inappropriately, that's an attitude problem with the driver. And you can pit & tell the CDI that the person in car XYZ needs to be black flagged.

Robert Henriksen

Never mind.

Randy M

Robert your response is indicative of what I was trying to explain in my post "what has become of this board?" If you haven't read it can you give me the courtesy and post or pm your thoughts of the thread?

Matt Vaughan

My two cents regarding this... An instructor's responsibility is to take the student "under their wing" so to speak. This includes seeing to it that the student is in "check" and leaves his ego at the door. This is especially true when it's a new driver.

FWIW, I've got a good bit of safety gear in my car, in case the inevitable happens. I'm with Glen on getting all the safety equipment you can.

buzz993

Come on guys some of us just want to learn to handle our cars better and are not "want to be race car drivers" I for one just want to learn my car and have no intention of going any further. Learning to drive any car is a good thing ..........Want to be a "weekend" racer is another.

Anir

ceboyd,

LOL...On my fifth day at RA, I was thinking the same thing...and even expressed as much to Greg. He tried to talk some sense into me, and said that he always takes it a little easy through the Kink. To my knowledge, Greg has never had a serious off in several years of PCA endeavors.

As my times kept dropping, I couldn't help but think of a line I read that inexperienced drivers tend to take fast corners too slow and slow corners too fast. I thought, "You know, I'm really not using all the track through the Kink and could sure improve my overall times if I was 'more committed' through there."

I learned my lesson the hard way.

BTW, I have promised myself not to get back on a track until I buy a HANS. I had done most of the other popular safety mods - DAS bar, 6-point harnesses, two GT3 seats, fire extinguisher. After the wreck, I noticed a 15 inch long gash in the headliner leading from the area over my seat to the area between the front seats almost in the rear cabin. My left neck was pretty sore and I realized that my helmet had kept traveling for quite some distance when I hit right rear first. And, that was at only about 60-70 mph.

Isn't it great when life hands you opportunities to learn lessons at a relatively low price?

Dan, great thread!