Originally Posted by CFGT3

You are just rehashing something from a 25 page thread. In the instance you sited, the OP should have taken into account that the car he was passing was a rookie and MAY DO SOMETHING UNEXPECTED. The gray area was that the AREA of the track the OP tried to pass him was very dangerous and could have waited until the next corner. What no one has mentioned in 30 pages of discussion between the 2 threads is the actual account from the driver of the white 944. What if the 944 driver DID see the OP and figured that he would not be able to make that pass at that dangerous corner and to wait until after the corner?

Originally Posted by Paul Solk

Wow...


No question, current rules, they are the only ones that matter. I think maybe you are better suited to one of the top race series you continually reference as clearly the current rules for PCA that everyone else abides by do not seem to appeal to you. Honestly, if you feel you need to change the rules of a race series for it to fit your racing style then it probably isn't for you.

If the top racers have a secret "handshake" agreement it is because they have developed trust over many hours of running side by side and nose to tail with each other and as such there is also a level of predictability involved. That is earned, not given by the rules... Based on both of your videos from the other thread you would not meet the criteria of the handshake agreement to begin with.

Kind of sad that after all the feedback from the other thread rather than taking it all in and re-assessing you seem to be as steadfast as ever you did nothing wrong and it is the rules fault and as such they should change.

Originally Posted by Streak

This passing rule discussion has been going on forever. At least as long as I've been racing with PCA. Almost 10 years. That's a clear indication that a revision is warranted.

PCA's passing rule is unlike any other in club racing. Everyone keeps saying "this is club racing" It's still racing and those other series are clubs too so that argument doesn't hold a lot of water. Overlap is a critical component that is flatly ignored by the current rule. In fact the current rule lets the lead car essentially operate with reckless abandon if they chose. We've all seen it. We've all been on the receiving end of it. There are more than a few who use the rule as a weapon. I've had actual conversations with those that do.

Passing is dynamic. To establish who owns the corner at turn in while adamantly stating no one owns the corner is just silly. If we all really did observe that to the letter then the only passing in a PCA club race would be on a straight. Clearly that isn't true so why on Earth do we have a rule that basically states passing can only happen on a straight?

For all their perceived flaws, NASA has a pretty good section in their rules about passing. It has diagrams and everything that I think are a better tool for the stewards to establish blame when necessary. The NASA rules realize that the pass is dynamic and fault is established given the relative positions of the two cars at the point of contact. That's an important distinction and one PCA lacks. Fault is established by the PCA rules in some cases quite some distant prior to the contact.

In a nutshell PCA assumes that every passer is a dive bomber and rewards the chop.

Hard to reconcile that with close racing and close racing exists in every class.

That being said I think the proposed rule to vote on is not thorough enough. My vote is essentially against the current rule but not necessarily for the proposed rule without some modifications.

Originally Posted by mglobe

You did a good job of posing the question in the first thread. no one gave your grief, and I still maintain that the 944 shares a fair amount of the blame. Unfortunately, your continued flogging of the issue is not helping your case.

Originally Posted by bsztanko

Wow bud, way off base and incorrect. Maybe racing isnt for you.
What is so difficult about leaving racing room if there is overlap?

Originally Posted by CFGT3

You are just rehashing something from a 25 page thread. In the instance you sited, the OP should have taken into account that the car he was passing was a rookie and MAY DO SOMETHING UNEXPECTED. The gray area was that the AREA of the track the OP tried to pass him was very dangerous and could have waited until the next corner. What no one has mentioned in 30 pages of discussion between the 2 threads is the actual account from the driver of the white 944. What if the 944 driver DID see the OP and figured that he would not be able to make that pass at that dangerous corner and to wait until after the corner?

Originally Posted by GSM

Good governance requires that the precision of rules (for passing and otherwise) needs to be matched to the ability of drivers to execute. Since PCA includes many novice drivers, the rules need to stay sufficiently simple.

Originally Posted by Tom W

We spent a lot of time last year looking at passing rules and how to make it a bit more clear as the membership didn't like simply leaving all judgement to the stewards. Our rules: http://www.prc-racing.com/wp-content...dix_C_2017.pdf

Simply stated, if you leave the door open for an inside pass and the other person gets any overlap, you must leave room. If the passer is on the outside and has overlap, you must leave room at corner exit. We've seen significantly less car-to-car contact since we implemented these rules.

Originally Posted by hf1

Please, if you won't make any constructive contributions to the thread, may I suggest that you stop reading it and posting to it? Lucky for you, RL rules don't make reading and posting mandatory.

Originally Posted by Nizer

+1



While the PRC definition (below and 1st diagram) might work well for establishing overlap with experienced racers, it strikes me as a pretty low bar in an environment with new/novice racers. Much too easy to end up in a novice drivers blind spot and claim overlap when their mental bandwidth is dominated by braking, turn-in, and finding the apex.

Overlap IMO requires that the passing car presents itself clearly enough to the lead car by turn-in such that the lead car driver running a halo seat should be reasonably expected to be aware of the passing car's presence. In practice this means that you at least have to have your car at the lead car's door.

All the experienced PCA racers I've run with observe this protocol. We also all know that if we stick our cars inside an inexperienced driver or a driver we don't know (or one that we know to watch out for) and it goes wrong, then we own the outcome. Most PCA drivers figure this pretty quickly. Unfortunately, some seem to take longer...

I. Definitions:

Physical Overlap: Physical overlap is obtained when the front bumper of the trailing car passes the rear bumper of the lead car. If physical overlap occurs anywhere in the braking zone or at turn in then both the lead car and the passing car must leave racing room throughout the entire turn.

Originally Posted by Streak

Question: How would a rookie know where it's not advisable to pass? If a rookie has no responsibility in traffic does he have responsibility to know where its appropriate to pass? Should the driver's meeting for the fun race include a discussion of where it's really not advisable to pass? It probably should. If it's in the rule would that cause a rookie to ask those questions? Maybe it would.

As an example I remember before my first race at WG a fellow competitor admonished me repeatedly not to try to pass up the esses. I took that to heart so imagine my horror as rookie me found myself immediately 2 wide in the esses So he was pulling my leg but what did I know.

Originally Posted by bsztanko

Every corner is dangerous if you go fast enough.,,
If there is overlap, leave room!

Originally Posted by Paul Solk

How do you infer that you shouldn't leave racing room from what I wrote? Leaving racing room is inferred and assumed at all levels in my opinion. That however assumes the trailing car has successfully actually established themselves as overlapping... I don't subscribe to the Nico Rosberg mentality of it's my corner so I will do what I want.

That also assumes the trailing passing driver knows when it is appropriate to stick their nose in and when they should back off, regroup and try again a few corners or a few laps later which inevitably puts the responsibility back on the overtaking driver to initiate a safe pass that isn't going to endanger either car... It doesn't mean I late braked, dive bombed a corner, got half a nose in so now I am entitled to equal racing room. In that instance the responsibility is still on the trailing driver because if there is contact then it's on the trailing driver. So nothing has changed imho. It doesn't mean it's ok for the lead driver to intentionally chop a nose either, that's not what I am saying at all, I am saying if the lead car was already going to apex and on their line and all of a sudden there is a nose there you can't put that on the lead driver...

You made a pretty big leap from what I wrote to assuming I don't believe in racing room.

Originally Posted by CFGT3

And the OP took the corner in question, the most dangerous on that particular track, too fast for conditions (another car in front of him going at a slower pace). There was no overlap until very late, look at the video again. The OP's first instinct was correct insofar as he lifted. The red mist of trying to keep the car behind him was too strong and he went full throttle and got too deep on the outside of the most dangerous corner on track and one where you cannot go 2 wide at those speeds without risk. He could have dropped 2 wheels and "tried" to make it through, but did not.

I'll ask the question again, HAS ANYONE SPOKEN TO THE DRIVER OF THE WHITE 944 TO INQUIRE AS TO WHAT HE DID AND DIDN'T SEE? I think that would probably have saved a lot of bandwidth and some carpel tunnel issues!

Originally Posted by Nizer

While the PRC definition (below and 1st diagram) might work well for establishing overlap with experienced racers, it strikes me as a pretty low bar in an environment with new/novice racers. Much too easy to end up in a novice drivers blind spot and claim overlap when their mental bandwidth is dominated by braking, turn-in, and finding the apex.