aoysgelt

I believe car suspected of spilling oil was air/oil-cooled (meaning large oil capacity). That type of car was explicitly mentioned in driver's mtg as having potential to spill a lot of oil on track. I've seen tracks closed for a long time because air cooled Porsche would spill oil over a good chunk on it. Clearly this type of engine is known to cause issues to others.

To people familiar with this setup - is there a preventative measure that could avoid/minimize oil spills? Oil pressure sensor? Automatic ignition disconnect when oil pressure drops after engine starts?

(FWIW I was there and hit same oil spill and saw all things mentioned and spoke to driver of above-mentioned car)

jdistefa

^ Right. And water cooled cars by prevalence and incident frequency are much more likely to spill coolant (or indeed x-amount of oil) with similar potential catastrophic outcomes. Care to debate further with facts or long experience?

This thread needs to settle down.

RIP. Thx to others for organizing and posting donation link.

winders

acslater

Speaking of spreading misinformation.....

To be clear, there was a gap between when the RWB went through the corkscrew (one of the backmarkers still on the outlap) and when our group (i.e., the group that went through the oil) went through the corkscrew on our second lap. This isn't a case of the GT3 driver being DIRECTLY behind the RWB.

djb_rh

My bad. I should have gotten my facts straight or left that part out altogether (probably the latter) since it only detracts from major point: it's quite unlikely someone committed a criminal level of track-oiling here.

--Donnie

LuigiVampa

First they came for the air-cooled cars, but I said nothing, because I didn't drive an air-cooled car.

Then they came for the 944s, but I said nothing, because I didn't drive a 944.

...you know how it goes.

Bottom line is $hit happens at the track and we all have a duty to be heads up in our driving and maintenance to prevent tragedies like this.

jdistefa

On a less argumentative note - Manifold, I like where your head's at. Rarely is it the single act of a 'bad' person. We all have the capacity to take a shortcut (often unconscious), rationalize mediocre decisions, and of course - be selfish. All of these factors in the right context/system can result in an unintended outcome. "But I never meant to have x-happen".

Human imperfection, cognitive bias, system error models... openly recognizing these factors can mitigate risk without going crazy with policies and costs. Diligence re. anticipating the predictable nature of human behavior can go a long way but that requires at least one person in a leadership position at DE/race with a safety mindset and the ability to make (impose) good decisions.

James Reason:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117770/

And of course, worth reading anything by Tversky and/or Kahneman.

Coochas

Absolutely.
I lost a car years ago at the Glen when a water-cooled vehicle dumped its entire engine oil in the soul of the boot. I was very lucky but my car was destroyed. Things happen, sometimes extremely unpleasant things.

People at this event seem to want to hang the owner of the RWB. Maybe he did something wrong. You should let due process work its way through. One thing I am certain of is the owner of that car feels devastated. Imagine how YOU would feel if YOUR engine failure led to someone being maimed or killed. And don't kid yourselves, any of us could find themselves in this position even though the odds of it happening are extreme.
This online lynch mob mentality is very bad.

jdistefa

Yup. Emotional rather than thoughtful, patient, considered, rational response. Or, in short, human beings.

Apparently cats are better.

There by the grace of God go I.... I'm not a religious guy, but that phrase sure resonates with a situation like this.

Coochas

Indeed.

aryork

I agree...with today's technology why are we not using it for this very dangerous hobby/sport? I for one have wondered why we all don't buy UHF radios, monitor an emergency-only channel, and wear an ear bud. If there is an urgent event on course the corner worker picking up the radio pre-set on the emergency channel and saying "Oil on approach to turn 4" or "slow down before turn 4 - something on track!" seems to be an effective way to let drivers know RIGHT NOW there is a problem. Maybe there are good reasons not to do that, but if the track had the radios who would not spend $50 to also get one?

GVA-SFO

From the tragedy of Sunday, I’m still thinking deeply about the outcome of it.
Reading back again some of the posts, I think today that I was may be "too positive" about oil leaks.

Or :
a) It should be extremely clear that at any time, if you know that you have oil leaks, the place the car must be in the mechanic shop, ..and for sure, NOT at the track.
b) In the other end, ..anybody that has a car, well prepared to go on track, ..can still face a mechanical failure ..that could generate an oil spill and a tragedy.

In my above posts, I only considered the "b) case", thinking that (what I called "too positive" !) the "a) case" is simply not "possible".
Today, reading some of the above posts, it only makes me think that if these posts reflect the truth, we should all be more drastic on such case.
If, I mean, “Really IF” some of the post above are ending to be the truth, then :
I would be for the creation of a “black list”.

And, such list should not be at the Organizers level, but I think, as we mostly all use the same (great, very efficient) service, i.e.: Motorsportreg.com, I can only think that such list should be in the hands of this service.
I will CC this post to our friend Brian, as if what has been posted above on this thread is the real truth, frankly, I’m not sure that I want to be on track again (..btw, and in the same group !) with someone that knows that he is an “oil spiller”.

I just still hope that the “a) case” above is a wrong assumption and would love to remain a positive guy, that will learn later that the tragedy of Sunday was from an accidental oil spill.
Time should tell us the truth

winders

Have you ever owned an older car? How do you define "leak".

I think you need to stop with this.

sbelles

Cats would pull your oil plug if they had thumbs.

inverterman

My goodness I have to agree!