Geneman

Well.... you KNOW there is a problem when Matt and Peter are agreeing on something .... jus sayin....

Matt Romanowski

There is certainly a wide range of rules and cars throughout the country. When one of the vintage groups owns the track all weekend, those events have a different vibe than when there is a vintage group and any other group.

38D

many DE venues used to have a 2 spin/off rule. Spin or go off once, get yelled at by the CI. 2nd time, get sent home. Not sure those rules still exist, but it certainly used to work.

ProCoach

Absolutely.

ProCoach

Just to add a few examples of different vintage only versus shared events, let’s look at the new style SVRA, which has not run any vintage only events for many years.

SVRA (Sportscar Vintage Racing Association) “owns” the track for the days before and weekends two dozen times a year. Tony, the owner of SVRA, owns other non-vintage groups (Trans Am, F4) and contracts with still other non-vintage groups (IGT, Mazda Heritage) and some vintage groups (Vintage Trans Am, Masters Racing) to fill the weekend schedule. Earlier this month, I attended VIR, which had only two or three groups of traditional SVRA vintage cars and the other two thirds to three quarters were other groups. Policing was not strict.

VRG and VSCCA, two vintage only groups in the Northeast, combine to organize the Lime Rock Labor Day Historic Festival on behalf of the track itself, with a couple newer cars added at the insistence of the track and allowed to come historically. The ONLY place you can see a pretty full field of pre-World War II Bugattis, Alfas, junk-formula Indy cars and Morgan Trikes (yes, several!) as well as a 1997 Lola-Buick Indy Lights car.

Lime Rock Labor Day is vintage only and a lot more civilized, yet the racing is no less competitive. One of the largest vintage spectator races in the country, it’s very similar to the VRG/Summit Point vintage only (several PCA Club Racing Vintage and 911Cups are regular attendees) Jefferson 500 event in May, with almost three hundred entries in recent years.

The last combination in your post is something that has worked really well for a pure vintage group, VDCA, sharing track time evenly with BMWCCA Club Racing at VIR in the spring and Roebling Road in December.

Two separate programs but similar stated culture. Policing is very strict in VDCA and about the same as the PCA Club races I’ve observed over the last twelve years in BMWCCA CR. A fair number of BFA’s and clean up after their sessions. A lot of the vintage drivers enjoy watching the fifty BMW Spec E46 cars race and the BMW racers enjoy mingling with the vintage drivers in the paddock, but the drivers meetings, social events and operations are separate. Economically, it works for both groups but hasn’t caused any dilution of the VDCA driver deportment culture.

It would be great to have folks that volunteer and run various vintage and marque club racing programs (goes for DE, too) visit and work some other, different events, ones outside their comfort zone.

Together, we might be able to adopt SOPs that would improve event safety, reduce single car and multi car contact and increase the number of people who could drive their trophy, their not-quite-as-shiny, less-a-little-brake-pad-and-tire-wear but undamaged car, back onto their trailers at the end of the weekend.

That’s the bottom line. Or should be…

T&T Racing

Hi Peter,
Bingo....Please define "Policy was not strict." How do you know it when you see it?
Cheers,
Tom

ProCoach

Pretty easy. All you have to do is listen to the radio chatter on the Control (steward/worker/emergency vehicle dispatch/track maintenance/Black Flag station worker) net. After thirty-five years, you can sense trends!

Number of BFA's.
Number of red flags.
Percentage of short sessions.
Schedule slipping, during the day and at the end of the day.
Delays between sessions for cleanup/wall rebuilds.
Number of dispatches of emergency vehicles.
Number of dispatches of tow vehicles, both conventional and rollback, indicating extent of damage.
Number of cars known to sustain damage in incidents at that event, that are seen on the grid or on track during the weekend.

While this is not necessarily indicative of policing, the "more strict" vintage/historic and marque racing clubs, as well as DE groups, don't allow wiggle room.

If the car is damaged, the driver is parked. The more that happens, the more the desirable culture is reinforced and the more margin most drivers tend to leave, generally.

I haven't considered SVRA a vintage club in almost a decade, having been a member since 1984 and an official from 1992 until 2018 (still listed on the website as CI). Fun, but not vintage or even historic.

Just saying there are a lot of different flavors of 13/13, driver deportment rules and ways that organizations apply the rules they publish... Vintage/Historic no longer necessarily mean "no contact" or even "strive for no contact."

In my experience, it is a relatively recent phenomena (in the last ten years) that DE's, both at the club level and professionally organized, have in general moved away from the two-spin, then the three-strike rule, to excuse drivers who don't get it.

It's now not uncommon for drivers sustaining damage to their cars at a DE to be encouraged to fix it and go out again. Not sure that sends the right message...

And all arenas are seeing greater damage since March 2020, for sure. Just ask the folks in the track cover insurance business.

Just my .02

T&T Racing

Peter, I appreciate you expanding on "the policing" aspect. I have experienced more delays and shorten sessions over most of the last decade in SVRA. The majority of the delays and/or shortened sessions were caused by major oil leaks and crashes. This year at WGI, I was on track during a session where oil was deposited on the track in the braking zone at about the 300 board of turn #1 the car spin in it's oil, the car trailing spun in the oil and both cars spun backwards across the track into the ditch before apex if turn #1. I was passed in turn #10 on the right side as my car was transitioning from apex to exit (overtaking car had all 4 wheels off beyond the kerbing). As I exited turn #11, the debris flag held in steady position was displayed at the start-finish line. I am not sure when the debris flag was displayed. The car overtaking me spun in the oil and crashed backwards into the 2 cars in the ditch.

The oiling of the track is a major issue. To me, it Ii indication of poor preventive maintenance. The oil can be deposited for several turns. The delays are now longer, my one session was delayed 30 minutes.
Cheers, Tom

ProCoach

There are some large “destination” events (HSR Mitty, WeatherTech International Challenge in July, SVRA Glen in September) that are magnets for people that only run once or twice a year. These three events seem to have a plethora of fluids down and mechanical failures.

In the years I staffed or raced at SVRA Glen event, there were usually far more contact and accidents proportional to the numbers of entries, typically no fewer than two dozen damaged cars from contact and one of the few SVRA events I’ve been to over decades where the helicopter was called in to take a driver to the hospital.

Be careful out there!

T&T Racing

I agree 👍

dgrobs

Back to the original thread title, just got done towing 5 hours home from a wonderful 3 days at Summit with Potomac, and if you based the health of the sport on the attendance at this event, or the other 3 Potomac events I did this season, the sport IS NOT in trouble. Thanks for having me guys. Great time with what seemed like almost 200 registered drivers. What a great 3 days. No trouble with Potomacs driver participation. None whatsoever. Says a lot about that region I would think. Good behavior on track as well, even with that many cars and not a very long track. Well done.
Night night…..

Bman

B, thank you for the kind words and for helping us out! Potomac hosts 12 events a year plus a club race; it’s a lot! Our biggest problem and most frequent complaint is our waitlist. It’s a nice problem to have but it’s a real problem for us because our driver retention rate is very high which leads to a strong volunteer base. We are very fortunate to have a large number of highly motivated and loyal volunteers which is absolutely the reason for our continued strong attendance. So if new drivers need to go to other options because they can’t get into our events, we risk losing them. Our waitlists are rarely due to instructor shortages but due to track loading which we resist increasing because we want the best learning environment for the drivers. And we take safety seriously and expect our drivers to keep it on track.

We are not perfect and face the same challenges that all driver programs deal with but we stay committed to treating all our attendees as club members, not paying customers, which has been the key to gaining loyalty and participation towards our region’s success.

dgrobs

And there ya have it kids....

Manifold

Interesting discussion.

The pandemic, the response to it, and the aftermath inevitably have disrupted DE programs and attendance. It may take a year or more to reach a normal equilibrium.

If we're in a period of inflation and heading into recession, that could affect overall participation in DE, but I don't think DE is ever going to go away, the 'weaker' DE programs will just be weeded out, just as weaker businesses generally get weeded out during economic declines. And some organizations may need to do less events each year, so that the average attendance by their 'regulars' is increased at each event.

One thing that should NEVER be compromised is safety. Cars at DEs are continuing to get faster on average, and many people are into doing things to make their cars faster even in the student stage, so we need to prevent crashes. That means proper tech inspections (no reliance on self-tech), training drivers to drive within their limits and developing good car control and situational awareness, proper safety gear, and focusing on having fun rather than being obsessed with dropping lap times (I'm not in favor of data analysis for non-advanced drivers). DE is a recreational activity, not generally a training ground for pro racing, and all that really matters is having fun.

LuigiVampa

I never understand why people continue to drive their car when it is billowing smoke, either from oil, coolant, or both. Your engine is in trouble - SHUT IT DOWN!

Some drivers just plow ahead, on line, trying to make it back to the pits. Why would you do that to your own car and why would you do that to your fellow drivers?

Crashes caused by ignorant people affect everyone.

Another thing not mentioned is people who run out of fuel on track during a DE. Track time costs a lot of money. If you run out of fuel on track and cause everyone a delay you are getting parked for the day.