As far as that video goes, its a staple of the DE world.

Maybe if the guy would have been narrating less and not trying as hard to hang with the 911, he wouldnt have had to worry about slow hands in the first place. Maybe if he was talking less and concentrating more he wouldn't have turned in at least 10 feet too early, had way too early of an apex or gone off sideways.

Just my $.02.

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by JackOlsen:
<strong>
That Frank was 'trying to place his car' at all is a big part of the problem. It's NOT what you do when you're spinning on a track. How was the other car supposed to know what tricks he was using to control his movement?

Both feet in. It creates as predictable a path for an out-of-control car as can be hoped for. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Jack I completly agree. The best chance another driver has to avoid a spining car is to hope that you can predict where the car is going. If the driver of the other car is trying to "get out of your way" he is NOT being predictable.

 

Mark,
Fair question. I know Frank as well as I know you which is just through these forums. I am on the East Coast so I have never met Frank. I have followed this thread with interest because it brought up some compelling issues - initially about instructors driving a student's car. I am a DE instructor and rookie PCA club racer. I take responsibilty for my actions; I have been on both sides of an incident. In one case I was hit and in another case I hit. In both cases we resolved the issue as gentlemen with no further ado.

As for Frank's case I guess I'm just reacting to all the dog-piling. Granted he has done alot of foolish things with respect to his instructing practices and hopefully he will learn from this and stop badgering students to drive their cars for his pleasure and experiments.

But Frank has just been in a racing incident. I wonder if Frank can be fairly judged here after all the bruhaha that has gone on recently? Further, why judge him at all? If we are gentleman racers we should not feel the need or pleasure to discredit him further. Frank and Shawn should come to their own understanding of the incident and move on. Hopefully they can be on amicable terms.

 

I'm getting more and more frightened of Frank as I read his rants. Talk about a total lack of insight, humility, and dignity.

Track events (DE's or races) require a gentleman's approach from every participant if they are to remain safe and fun. There's simply no place for Frank's attitude on a racetrack. He's a disaster waiting to happen.

 

In my mind what I am concerned most about when on the track with others is not their skills, but their attitude.

Skills can be improved, Attitudes are MUCH harder.

Unfortantly Frank appears to have an overconfient "I am the greatest" attiude. To me that is dangerious for a student, dangerious for a racer and unacceptble for an instructor.

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by JC in NY:
<strong>&lt;snip&gt;
But Frank has just been in a racing incident. I wonder if Frank can be fairly judged here after all the bruhaha that has gone on recently? Further, why judge him at all? If we are gentleman racers we should not feel the need or pleasure to discredit him further. Frank and Shawn should come to their own understanding of the incident and move on. Hopefully they can be on amicable terms.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Thanks for the insight.

I don't think Frank needs to worry about being judged here. After his on track incident and then trying to blame Shawn, he should be worrying about the SM community. Contact is a way of life in many groups and SM is more agressive than most. Most real problems in these groups are solved with Frontier Justice.

I can tell you that if I were to rent a Silver SM, it would have a huge sign on the back saying I'm not Frank - Don't hit me." IMO, Frank just escalated this way past having mean things said about him on the Internet and if he goes back out there, he is going to learn some of the other significant differences between DE's and racing (at least in groups that don't have 13/13).

 

<a href="http://www.mike.lawton.clara.net/Homersweb/painful.wav" target="_blank">Maybe we should ease off</a>

I know he has brought this on himself, but Frank has helped us define what makes a good instructor. As the old expression goes . . . "It may be that your [Frank's] sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others."

 

<strong> ...if he goes back out there, he is going to learn some of the other significant differences between DE's and racing... </strong>

Good point. I wonder if he knows about that. It might be ugly...

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Radical Racer:
<strong>
Contact is a way of life in many groups and SM is more agressive than most. Most real problems in these groups are solved with Frontier Justice.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Uh... I think they're already forming a <a href="http://www.specmiata.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=000029" target="_blank">Posse.</a>

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Jaws911:
<strong>great (& sobering ) video - he seems to have good control of the car until just before the accident (early apex?). Anyway, as a relative DE newbie, i would be most interested in hearing Georges analysis of what he should have done as things started to go south - i hope to go to Lime Rock this year and would definitely like to avoid that type of incident.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Well, the first indication that things are going wrong is missing his marks (turn-in, apex, track-out) for two corners in a row. When I teach DE I tell students that if they are missing their marks for two or more corners in a row, they should back off a bit. It's an indication to me that the driver is losing control. I'm not saying not to push, but you have to do some soul searching when you cannot hit your marks - especially at most DEs where there are cones to indicate the marks. This is not racing, so backing off a bit is not only OK, it's smart in a situation like this. The driver actually realizes he's not getting it done when groans.

The next problem is target fixation. This is incredibly dangerous. I've not only watched drivers follow the car in front of them off the track, I've even done it myself early in my kart racing "career." Drive the track, not the car in front of you (of course don't run into the car in front of you). If you watch the video, you'll see that in the fateful corner, the 911 never moves from the center of the windscreen when it should move from left to right across it. Pure target fixation. Very bad. If you learn anything from this, this is number one. Don't fix on the car in front of you. Bad things can happen in such a big hurry without you even being aware of it.

As a result of the target fixation, he turns in 10-15 yards early. You can even see the turn-in cone.

OK, you've turned in early. Moment of choice.

You can simply cut power and continue in as straight a line as possible. In this case, a out would be to cut inside the corner (keep it straight) and back onto the track. Chances are, if done early enough, he wouldn't have had any problem worth mentioning.

OK, instead he tried to make the corner and pinched the apex. This caused the rear to begin to come around. Another moment of choice. Best bet now is "both feet in." This may have carried him into the barrier, but it almost certainly wouldn't put him on his roof. He might have even just slid off the track and missed everything if done early enough. When you put both feet in, you must lock all four corners. This will keep your car traveling in the same line it was before despite any yaw. It's predictable for the drivers behind you. This is also an important point since if you don't put both feet in, the car could find traction again and go someplace nobody could anticipate.

Theres more to the analysis than this, but I'm traveling for work at the moment and don't have the video on my notebook so I'm just going from memory. I'm sure other could contribute additional analysis and I can after I get home again.

I really want to emphasize I'm not dissing the Scooby driver. Everybody makes mistakes behind the wheel, and some of them can bite you. I'm strictly analyzing and not being critical. There but for the grace of God go I.

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by JackOlsen:
<strong>.

I just read his full description of the event. On the one hand, he says "Just about every school teaches, in a spin, both feet in." Yet he's just described the following: "My car was going backwards, towards outside (right side) of the track. I got on the brakes to slow the car down hoping it would not cross his path, but now he is moving the car to his left, I let up the brakes, by then my car had came close to a full stop and briefly I thought of jamming the gear into reverse to get out of the way but there was no time for that." He was coasting backwards while using the brake (intermittently) to try and predict where the oncoming car was going to go. Obviously, this didn't allow his car to move in a straight, predictable line (as it would have if he had put both feet in).

</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">I agree 100%. Last month during a club race at Willow Springs, on the first lap in a field of 31 cars, I spun going up the hill from turn three. I was in fifth or sixth place at the time and as you can imagine three turns into a race, everybody was bunched up very tight. When I spun, the rear came around to the right, and I was basically looking out the drivers window at the cars coming up the hill. Luckily, nobody hit me. I was basically sitting there waiting for somebody to drive right into my drivers door.

After the race I was told by several people they thought I was gonna be hit. I think because I was able to keep the car from rolling after the spin. 25 other people didn't have to guess where the car was gonna go. After watching several differant angles of the incident, I still cant beleive I didn't get it.

 

I have been watching the video over and over, trying to understand exactly what happened so I can avoid that situation. He does turn in way too early, and he probably is watching the car in front of him way too much but he looses it before the apex, not at the track-out which should have been the complication of his early apex. Did he lift the throttle? I can't hear it. Was he too jerky with the steering?

I hope we can get an accurate description of this by some of our seasoned veterans to help out us neophytes.

Thanks,

 

For those keeping score at home:

<a href="http://www.ghettoracer.com/cgi-bin/bbs/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=ghettoracer_guestbook&Number=11627&page=0&view=co llapsed&sb=5&part=" target="_blank">Frank's Place</a>

-DO

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Geo:
<strong>When you put both feet in, you must lock all four corners. This will keep your car traveling in the same line it was before despite any yaw. It's predictable for the drivers behind you. This is also an important point since if you don't put both feet in, the car could find traction again and go someplace nobody could anticipate.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">This is exactly where Frank screwed up. He talks about "both feet in", but never actually locks the brakes. Without locking the brakes, you aren't accomplishing anything good, and the car will go in unpredictable directions. That's why Shawn couldn't miss him, because he couldn't predict where Frank's going was going to go.

 

We tend to take an cerebral view of things, here at the Academy. It seemed appropriate to look for further motivations to Ghetto Racer's reasoning and actions. We'd exhausted some of the more mundane approaches, but actually found some fertile ground in one that we reserve for "special" cases, namely, ANAGRAMS.

Remember the first 'Alien' movie, where the nasty creature with big fangs etc. popped out of some poor cosmonaut's body, while he was eating kippered gerbil for breakfast ? Here at the Academy, we consider that a metaphor for 'life'. Somewhere deep inside you, there is hidden wierdness. No matter how hard you try to hide it, no matter how much of a goody-two-shoes you are, no matter how much *** you kiss, there is always, somewhere, a little 'pull-tab' that the rest of us can pull to release, and view, that ugly demon. With Frank, that 'pull-tab' is anagrams. You know anagrams, they're those words spelled by re-arranging all the original letters of words to form other words.

Anagrams of "Ghetto Racer":

'Car got ether' - Ether vapor in the car could explain Frank's on-track behaviorr, but not his post-event attitude.
"Go retract, eh ?" - Frank probably wishes he had retracted some of his earlier writings.
"Hero got cart" - somehow very prescient...
"Tether cargo" - I certainly will, if faced with Frank on track. I'll freakin tie everything down.
"O Regret chat" - I'll bet he does...
"Go tether car" - He'd be better off tethering his keyboard and/or mouth.

There are many other combinations that might shed light onto Frank's inner psyche, but there is one that truely speaks to the matter:

"Get Other Car". No ****, Sherlock.

Now...there are some that question our research methods here at the Academy, and I'll be the first to admit that the concept of an "anagram window to the soul" hasn't been fully peer-reviewed, but that doesn't mean that all of you unwashed unbelievers can dismiss it without a thought.

A closing Haiku -

Too much speed. I spin.
Losers use brakes, I need not.
Why did he hit me ?

Professor Helmüt Tester
Chairman, Dept. of Phrenology & Tautology