DrJupeman

On another thread Zman wrote this and I wanted to discuss it:

Zman, can you elaborate on the incidents you have witnessed? Please tell me how the track day tech would have caught and thus subsequently prevented the incident. What incidents stem from a root cause that would have been caught by my list below? I suspect none.

I ask for the details as I believe the morning-of tech serves as a 1 in 1000 safety net as best. The reason I believe this is that I do not observe the tech line routinely, particularly on the first day of an event, checking tire condition and brake pads - perhaps the two most significant safety items. It is also not practical to test tire pressure, but perhaps a visual tire check would suggest a problem. I know of a car that went through the tech line last weekend with 0 PSI pressure in one tire (yes, zero) and the tech line passed him.

Here are the items tech lines typically do check (Zman, tell me what I'm missing):

Battery secure - a good test but my wife has had the battery fly across the engine compartment (914) after the car has gone through morning tech so the effectiveness of this exercise I question from experience.

Throttle response - good if you find anything, but very rare (the 1 in 1000 case) that you do

Brake lights - good but rarely fails (1 in 1000 again)

Oil cap secure - good but rarely fails (1 in 1000 again)

Torque Wheels - very good and fails occassionally (1 in 100?). Of course there is no guarantee that the driver won't go change his wheels and forget to torque them later.

Adequate coolant on H20 cars - good but rarely fails

General hose condition - good but rarely helps identify that oil line that is just about to break

An important function of the tech line in our region is to hand out run group stickers and schedules...

Now I have a different feeling about pre-track techs. I think these can be very important. During these you are able check the brake pads, rotor condition, bearing condition, CV joints, tires, find big oil leaks, etc... What raises my ire about pre-track tech are the indepenent shops that do not take it seriously. On more than one occassion I've had my mechanic simply offer to "fill out the form for ya" rather than actually perform the inspection.

Now the "upper run group/instructor" incidents that I'm aware of would NOT have been found in either pre-track tech or morning-of tech. The incident I'm intimately aware of was a brake failure that was related to a failed pressure accumulator. How's the tech going to find/prevent that? They never will.

What I would like to see more of, and I will suggest this to NNJR's board, is for a focus on safety checks during both pre-track and morning-of techs. For example, I instructed in a car last weekend that had a nice roll bar but no rollbar padding. I couldn't help thinking as I circled the track that I was an idiot for riding in that car!

I have run with Tracquest many times. These group does not require a pre-event tech OR a morning-of tech. As someone who had "grown up" in the PCA system, this was initially shocking to me. In actuality I do not think there are any more incidents in Tracquest resulting from no tech.

I am not proposing any changes to the PCA system. I think catching a 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 case adds value. As stated, I also think the pre-event tech is very important. I am simply challenging Zman that the morning-of line is going to help prevent instructor group mechanical issues.

APKhaos

Without wanting to single out TrackQuest, because Todd runs a great event. I understand that Todd has good liability reasons not to require formal pre-track or morning-of tech. He does provide a detailed list of things that owners should have checked before they participate.

That said, and because it provides a good comparison with the PCA pre-track tech, I've seen a number of cars sidelined for simple things that could have been picked up IF the owner had done the suggested checks:
- Brake pads down to the bone in the first day. Few bring spare pads!
- Serious rotor caliper problems - cracked rotors, seized/leaky calipers
- Complete brake failure [on track] caused by ancient fluid that boiled within a few laps
- Wheel bearing failures

While there are clearly things that pre-track/morning-of will not pick up, there are certain things that it will pick up that can ensure the car runs the full weekend. Sitting on the sidelines because of these things in frustrating and preventable. FWIW, Potomac Tech is religios about pad and rotor inspection at morning-of tech.

Sanjeevan

I don't have enough experience to contribute to this thread, but it totally amazes and frustrates me that anyone can take the tech. inspection of their cars lightly, a totally deflated tire, come on , they are not only endangering themselves (atleast i can say natural selection is in action), but are putting others on the track in peril, aaarrrghhh.

If compliance is even 1/1000 of a problem, may be in-class sessions should emphasize it more, as it should eventually be an individual responsibility as track side tech. inspection can only do so much.

Also, I have a question, does brake failures caused by air in the brake line (lack of bleeding the brakes) warn you with a gradual fade, or does it appear with no warning, thanks.

RJay

Hmmm...wonder if the problem is that Porsches, even older ones, so rarely break. One of the reasons why I track a Porsche and not some other car. Maybe some of us get a little too complacent. Gotta say that if I was driving an Elise, for example, I'd probably have it rebuilt after every other session


The brake pad thing is interesting though. My track car was having problems right before I went to Tremblant in July so I took the street car. I had DE'ed it once before when I was in green. Anyhoo, ran it the two days on the original pads (car had 11,000 miles on them). Experienced a little fade toward the end of the session, but I was on street tires and some of that was clearly attributable to the tires overheating a bit.

Drove the car a few days later. Hit the brakes and nearly went right through a stop sign. Pads had glazed over. Still at least 3/4 of material left, possibly more. Wound up pulling everything apart, cleaning the discs and roughing up the pads. Noticed quite a bit of material in the drill holes. After all that they still stink. Pretty much cooked the pads. Surpirising as you'd have thunk that they would have been sufficiently bedded after so many miles. Point? Well I suspect if I had taken the car straight back to the track I would have had a serious problem. There was plenty of material, but very little friction and I doubt that would have been picked up in a standard pre-tech.

Jimbo951

Jupe,

I normally work tech w/ Z-man and I too question the value of most of the morning tech routines.

I think the real technical focus of the AM tech is for the newbie Green/Yellow driver who is not aware of what is required of him. I'm sure it's also a legal requirement of the club, and they try to be a through as possible for legal reasons.

I have probably teched over 1000 cars in the past 2 years. What I have personally found are:

Missing oil cap
Tools in engine compartment (I kid you not!)
Failed brakelights
Corded tire
Thin brakepads

Two stories:

A white driver at WG last year came through on Saturday and I thought his brake pads were very thin, but it was difficult to see them through the wheel. I didn't fail him, but I strongly suggested he pull the wheels and check them himself. Later in the day I followed up with the driver and he thanked me profusely for the finding the pad problem. Seems he had installed new calipers on the car and he used the pads that came with the calipers. They were overly soft and he wore right through them in one day. He would have probably off'd the car before the end of the first session.

It was my 2nd year of DE (driving white) and I was at VIR and I went off at T1. I came in and the chiefs never looked the car over, and I didn't either. For the rest of the day I kept hearing a "tap-tap-tap" while driving in the paddock. I assumed it was a rock stuck in my tire (VIR had large gravel for the paddock in 2002). Come Saturday, I fail tech because the tires were corded all the way arround about 1" wide, and the tap-tap-tap I was hearing was a flatspot down to steel.

This year, I spun at WG in T1. Afterwards I came in and pulled all the tires to see what was flatspotted or corded. I've learned my lesson.

Another thing I try to do is a AM tech on my car in the evening before I leave the track. That way if I have a problem with tires or brakes, I can fix it in the evening and not be paniced in the AM.

So, generally I think the AM tech does not have a lot of value, but it does catch something important on 1 out of 500 cars.

- Red Dogger

PS: One pet peeve of mine is when people come though Tech without valve caps on their wheels. The excuse I always hear is that it's too much effort to remove/replace the cap when they are checking tire pressures. I always think "When you hit a curb a little hard, and that $0.05 valve fails, don't come crying to me when your stuff the car in the next turn".

DrJupeman

Red Dogger, do you know of any instructor incidents that would have been prevented had they gone through morning tech?

RedlineMan

Hey Jupe;

I understand your point, but I'm not sure of your motivations? As a guess, do you really avoid liability if you don't tech, and/or do you by default truly accept it if you do?

Morning tech is mostly a formality. But if it helps with insurance, and it catches mistakes and problems occasionally, it is a good thing. I have been "looked up" numerous times to help some rookie redo his wheel bearings or change his brake pads because he did not consider these before hand.

I don't think that Instructors are necessarily any more mechanically proficient or aware than newbies. They SHOULD be of course, but complacency does tend to set in with a lot of old hands.

A lot of people come to take things for granted, including me. But... not everyone is as mechanically sensitive and aware, nor has been driving the same car for so long.

DrJupeman

My point is simply that I do not believe there have been any mechanical incidents, in NNJR because that's where Zman runs, that would have been prevented had the instructor gone through morning-of tech.

As I stated, I'm a believer in the pre-tech and morning-of tech, I just want to know what facts Zman based his comment on.

RedlineMan

I agree.

Tech is not going to catch a part that is about to fail in most cases. Sometimes, dissassembly reveals things, but in reality, only interval replacement solves those kinds of failures on a reasonably consistent basis.

Jimbo951

Well, I don't ususally get involved in post-incident reports, and most of the time I'm shunned by instructors.

On the otherside of the coin, I'm not sure that the things I did find WOULD have caused a problem. In my personal case, after I went off at VIR (due to corded-to-nylon tires), me and my father ran another 3 sessions on the same tires without incident. My guess is that we weren't going fast enough, or we had subconciously extended our braking zone to accomidate less grip on the tires.

Recently, I have been thinking that NNJR should have a more formal method of re-checking ALL drivers in the upper run groups. I'm invisioning they pull 10 drivers (White - Red) from a hat each event and they all need to get check rides. A look-see to make sure that everyone is in the right run group and they haven't developed any bad habits.

I don't see why we couldn't do the same with a tech inspection for 3 instructors each event. Again, just a check to make sure no bad habits are being developed.

- RedDogger

Alan Herod

As a Potomac instructor and long time (SCCA national licensed in early 80s) tech inspector I have argued for a different system. Personally, I don't like the standard morning tech at the event. Mostly we catch missing numbers and a black flag would fix that. I asked this question year before last on Rennlist Racing (email). I like the idea of buddy tech. I believe that buddy teching your student's car and buddy teching with other instructors is a better system. It is true that our tech does catch low pads and flat spotted tires, but we should train the students to check for these items. If the students (or instructors) want to cheat with this, they should not be on the track. At grid tech we never pull the BBS wheels to check the pads; but, we do suggest that the student pull the wheels and check his pads. I like the idea of instructor buddy tech, because the instructor will be putting himself in the passenger seat.

As far as failures go -- many of the upper run group failures occur because they are no longer bringing street cars to the track and generally the cars are far higher stressed and driven closer to design limits.

I really cannot recall an instructor group failure that would have been caught in grid tech. The fact that students are faced with grid tech may have the added benefit of encouraging others to take a harder look at their cars before bringing it to grid tech, but going over their car with their instructor may be more thorough.

Z-man

Jupeman:
First of all, the brake failure incident that you are intimately familiar with isn't one of the mechanicals that I would consider a result of not properly teching a car.

A few years back, there was a wheel that came apart (not the Fiske incident from MO this year). IIRC, that was on an uppoer run group car. There have been various liquids on the track that have resulted in spins / offs - perhaps this could have been avioded with a closer eye. I am sure I can think of more, but need to think back a little more....

There was an instructor at an event a couple of years ago who showed up without a pre-event tech form, and was rather annoyed that we didn't take his word that his car was solid. After getting the ok from the track chair, I went with him and looked over his car. But he was annoyed that I couldn't get to his car right away (Had to finish up the regular tech line). Honestly, he was really arrogant and felt what I was doing was a waste of time. He missed his first run (red run group.) So, I went ahead and got approval to send him out in the Black run group. Huffy, he accepted that and went storming out. He never made it to the first corner - leaving the pits on cold tires, he spun out and whacked his car against the guardrail. Was that a mechanical incident? Not really, but I suppose his attitude towards tech, and his annoyance with me has painted a negative view in my mind about what instructors feel tech is about.

I am not trying to pick on instructors / upper run group drivers - perhaps my initial post was too forward in that regard. I do not think all instructors are negligent in terms of checking their car over before going out there! But I have spoken with enough instructrors to know that some of them really don't see the importance of checking their car over. Heck: I've had instructors checking in the morning of the event at tech, and when I ask them for their tech form, they say, they pre-teched it by themselves! (Note: while some instructors are mechanics, some that have said this aren't, yet they still feel they don't need a pre-event tech!)

As Redline said, not all instructors are mechaically savy, but some think they are! I think the casual attitude that many insturctors have for tech is scary and not right.

A couple of stories of my own:
1. At a pre-event tech: we had a 951 up on the lift, and I noticed a black oily spray up on the chassis of the car above the rear transaxle. Turned out that the CV joints were finger tight - a few more miles and the car would have lost steering control.
2. At a track side tech: a diferent 951 was going through the line, and I noticed a funny oil/gas like smell. I called over the track tech chair (I was just a scrub at the time) and he had the driver turn the motor off immediately. Turns out his pressurized fuel rail was leaking gas onto the header!
3. AT a track side tech: A guy in an older 911 had a metal bracket holding down his battery - but instead of putting the bracket between the (+) and (-) posts, he put it parellel to them, and very close to the terminals. That could have easily resulted in a short and possibly a fire in his car!

Jupe: you mention the 'regular' stuff we check over on the tech line. And, like you state, it is very rare that something out of the ordinary is found. HOWEVER: we do catch things like loose lugnuts,
loose caps, worn brake pads...etc. Sometimes we even catch things that can result in catastrophic failures. Often, the stuff that really saves a car from disaster is something that we're not supposed to be checking over!

Another important aspect of tech is that a different set of eyes are looking over the car. Different eyes will spot different things that the owner of the car can't see. Even as the 'track-tech co-chair' I will NOT tech my own car. I feel that I have an eye for details, but when it comes to my own car, somehow those details are more easily seen by someone else.

I am sorry if my original statement offended you, and that it came across too strongly. But I still feel that many instructors take their tech inspection too lightly. This is not good.

-Zoltan.

a4944

I run in a group where there is an annual major tech that's requires a shop or the organization performs it. They have a day or two at the beginning of the season. You get a sticker that is good for the season. The instructors grid tech students cars and hands in the grid tech form when gridding for the first run session. I like this.

The major tech could be bi-annual but I don't like the idea of an independent shop pre tech before every event. You can pretty much do all of the checks yourself which I do. The shops tend to go through them fast.

The event grid tech is valuable for beginners. They can learn the basic things they should check so that they can do it on their own later. They should do this a couple of times a day if not before every run session. I don't think you need it for intermediate nor advanced. The driver should be given a checklist that he needs to go through and to turn it at the first run.

To me the key is educating the drivers on what to look for so that they can do a thorough job themselves. Formal grid techs tend to be no more than a casual glance at a few things. I hope people don't rely on them.

Mark

Jimbo951

And I'm not so sure we would have caught the tire that shreaded at 2003 P2 either.

Z, just to re-itterate Jupe's comments, he's a believer in the pre-tech, he's just questioning the AM tech, and specifically instructors self teching.

FYI, you should try event's with other clubs. Metro (NYC) is almost exactly like NNJR. Potomac (and Zone 2) were nearly obsessive with tires & brakes. They checked all 4 every day, even on the first day of the event.

NNJR seems to have an aversion to classrooms. I wonder if it would be a good idea for a classroom-type session to show Green-Blue drivers what we do at the AM tech. I try to do a AM tech before I leave the track each day so I don't have an unexpected problem the next AM. I don't think most Green-Blue drivers do the same because they haven't been burned with an unexpected failure at the AM tech and because most of them are not 100% mechanically comfortable with their car.

- RedDogger

Z-man

IMHO, that type of tech is worse than no tech at all! Having one big tech before the season starts can lull participants into a false sense of security. When we're out on the track, we are pushing our limits as well as the car's limits. Wear and tear items wear much faster on the track than with regular driving. I truly think our cars should be checked over before each DE event.
For our techs, the shops are required to put the cars up on a lift and check major suspension and brake components. Without raising a car (or crawling underneath one) you cannot really see what's going on under the car.

I think the key is to educate all DE participants (students, instructors, EVERYONE) to the importance of making sure our cars are solid and ready for the track. A trackside tech isn't a substitute for being aware of your own car and what's going on, but it can help catch something that may prevent disaster.

-Z.