Drew_K

The main issue I had with throwing red flags (except in case of a dire event) is that they instructed us to pull to the RIGHT side of the track, rather than OFF LINE. On a counter clockwise track, stopping on the right side of the track is typically on the driving line, which is really dangerous.

I followed the instructions, but only after confirming that no one was coming up behind me. If I saw someone at speed behind me, sorry but I was going to pull off line or drive past the red flag to avoid getting creamed. I didn't need to do that, but common sense needs to dictate over rules sometimes.

But COTA finally went away from the red flag for stopped car procedure on Sunday, and the event overall ran very well. It's going to be a learning process for all involved, so I still give the event a major thumbs up.

TrackToyz

This and this. Awesome to put names with faces, though many turned out to be nothing like what I had envisioned (e.g. KYRocks looked more like what I had envisioned The Greek to be). Also cool to share a meal and drinks with some of the inner circle of the DE Cup regulars.

Including one that oiled down part of the track and half the paddock. No, I'm not kidding. That long trail of oil may have been the final straw for a return visit. They were working on it constantly for two days, which says a lot for how important it was for it to go away.

Twice I got red flagged at the end of the backstraight...pulling off to the right by the flag stand seemed like a sitting duck.

And then in the last session on Sunday when they started using waving yellow instead, I saw yellow at 11, accelerated down the back straight watching for trouble and saw the stranded SRF pulled over on the right side. No harm, no foul, so I kept up my speed and saw NO FLAG at 12 (end of straight), turned in and did my usual through the double 180's and triple apex, accelerating up to 100 or so coming out of 18 and then, "HOLY CRAP!!!" Up ahead is a black flag and five cars all over the road in a drunken conga line headed towards the pits. WTF!?!? I am all loaded up on the suspension and I see this. Somehow I got it whoahed down, but it was not pretty. I gave up on the session after that. Drove around the paddock for five minutes to cool off my brakes.


FYI, Grand-Am teams testing today and tomorrow. Mostly Conti GS cars, as I recall. I wonder what flags they throw for these guys?

sstjohn

Yes, I have video of Black to Green flag switch (how does that happen??)with DD blowing the doors off everyone on the back straight. Couldn't catch back up to him in that session.

Run what you brung: Randy, Steve, Nick, Jenks?, DD. In that Order. Don't think Rad disqualifies for driving someone elses car.

Jenks, did you post the ride you took me on coming out of turn two at TWS?

jenk12m

Steve, I need to look back thru and see if the camera was on. 4forme, said he actually had it on video from behind. I was waiting to see it from his angle

jenk12m

And I heard RUMORS that some people high up at COTA weren't happy about the DE. So time will tell if there are any more DE events after this one

Nugget

I'm unsurprised. Overall I think the event didn't reflect well on the general HPDE community. Lots of crashes, confusion, and unpredictable driver behavior. It's unfortunate, and I hope this weekend didn't close the door on future events at the track. I guess we've got BMWCCA in a few months to establish whether the MVP event was the outlier or the Driver's Edge event was.

Veloce Raptor

PCA is there May 10-12

deputydog95

That was fun tearing off went it went from standing black straight to green. He barely had the green unfurled and me and the guy in the 996 cup wanna be had smoking tires



On the run what you brung thing... Ummmm yeah. Trying to pull a Greek?

Two classes. Those running with Hoosiers. Those without. Cars are close enough for gov't work. Night and day between tire choices. Especially there.

In the Nitto/Toyo Class, it went like this: Nick, DD, Randy, Jenks, and then Steve.

In the Hoosier class of 2, it went Randy. And once again, then Steve

I think Randy took overall out of all the RL's there in Steve's car on Hoosiers with a 27.1 or something like that.

deputydog95

I don't see why? I thought everyone was fairly well behaved. Didn't see any damage in the paddock. From what I saw all the attendees appeared to be respectful to the staff. The only buffoonery was the people running the track itself with their crazy flagging. Talk about confusing. Probably spent at least 10% of this weekend sitting on the side of the track near a corner worker.

Seemed like a typical DE to me. There's always at least one car getting munched. And there's always people running in groups that they shouldn't be in doing things that they're not supposed to. Even PBOC super solo, which is hand picked invite only has it's fair share of shenanigans.

jenk12m

Yea, there wasn't anything that happened that doesn't happen at any other DE.

I hope people they give people the chance to at last experience the track and the facilities

The crew on the grounds working there were awesome. My favorite was the lady waving everybody in at the front gate. Rolling in at 630am everyday and she had the same energy everyday

Veloce Raptor

Andrew, you have to realize that no one in COTA management has any motorsports experience, so to them anything but F1 probably looks like a bunch of yay-hoos with mullets. Thus, they can't even spell DE, much less have any experience with the DE world.

deputydog95

She moonwalked me in through the gate on Sunday morning. Brought a smile to otherwise very tired face.

deputydog95

Hopefully the state, who contributed a large sum of money to help with that, will put their foot down.

Forget the the track revenue, that's nothing compared what the state will collect on hotel and alcohol taxes The govt would be crazy not to demand that COTA allow every event that's willing to show up within reason. I know it would be a huge much needed financial shot in the arm for the surrounding businesses in the area.

Nugget

Interesting feedback. I guess from now on I'll just be a little more appreciative of the events I've been attending where there seems to be a lot less of that going on.

jenk12m

yea that lady got me going when i saw her on sunday morning. i was a zombie coming in that morning after hanging with nick, miguel, and steve at the W in downtown Austin. Austin was a really fun town. it was good to have a track close to a big city

and talk about cities, it felt like i saw every major college town on the way there and back. i rolled through alabama, texas, baylor, texas a & m, and many more schools