I think the issue was that the same car weighed differently with no changes made to the car on different days. Several had the same issue at Sebring a couple years ago.

 

John,
Sorry if this is a bit off topic. I see you run an 87-89 Carrera too. This year PCA dropped the weight for the 84-86 cars but not ours. The G50 is no way 90 lbs. heavier than the 915, nor is the car. The only other difference is a 3hp gain. I currently have 130lbs of ballast in my car in order to make weight. I would like to see the rule changed so we can be the same weight as the earlier Carreras.

Please let me know if you know of anyone else who is running our year cars as I would like to get a petition together and submit it to PCA to get our weight changed. Last year Donna Amico sent around an e-mail asking for data on cars which are carrying more than 75lbs of ballast. I responded and told her how much I had but nothing came of it. Please feel free to PM me.

Cheers, James

 

This is a requirement for weights & measures used in commerce. But would it apply to these scales? I doubt it but wouldn't know without looking into it.

Stephen

 

Scales - always protest a scale DQ. Find out when they were last calibrated, find out if the Tech staff had done their daily calibration with a test-weight. You're talking about a BIG discrepancy...which can be caused by fuel load, tire/wheel weight, and lots of other hocus-pokus. Always protest. Always. Know your protest procedures.

Some road-race santioning bodies don't allow passing until you cross Start-Finish, even if the green is out and all the double-yellows have dropped. Know your rules. If you know that the whole track goes green on the green at S/F, then watch the corners stations like a hawk and start driving as soon as the yellows drop anywhere on the course. Radios are a blessing if you're Q'ed in Spudville.

Re: Slowpoke on the pace lap - Good reason to have a front bumper on your car. Some rulebooks allow you to pass a vehicle that can't/isn't keeping up with the pack on a pace lap. Now...it's a judgement call about what 'not keeping up with the pack' is...but if some idiot has dropped back 100+ yds., then it's pretty obvious. Again...time to know your rules.

Post-race, you should have sought-out whoever is in charge of the on-track shennanigans in PCA (Chief Steward, Pastry Chef, whoever) and asked them what you should have done...then you'd know how they would react.

I authored a list that we hand out at licensing schools...about 20 things that really **** off your fellow racers, and about 1/3rd of them are stoopid things people do on a pace lap or under Full Course Yellow. This is one of them. Race schools just aren't teaching the 'proper behavior on the track' stuff anymore.

 

Havig a test done would only help if the unit was setup and ready to go at the track. With that said I have weighed a car and then misalined the pad hights and reweighed it only to find that the total did not change at all.

It is not hard to test a setup the day it is being used. I use a local shops setup each year for the club race that I work. I stand on each pad during setup and check readings against my known weight and to see that all 4 are reading the same. This only tests the low end of the scale range but checkes for loose or diryt conectors. I also pull a street car that will not be touched during the day onto the scales in the a.m first thigh after setup and inital check and use it as a bench mark to retest later in the day. I retest during the day and also re zero the unit after each reading set is taken. I have not had a miss read of the bench car but once I did have a loose wet conector that distorted a weight of a drivers car. I had weighed this same car just before the run and it was off far enough for me to question the equpment. We cleaned all the conectors and retested and then reweighed the car and got a readig that was 110 # more than before. I now carry a can of electronic and lense cleaning compressed air to hit the conectors with. With the units I use at the track and my own shop set I have found that the readings are quite good if things are clean and tight.

I had a driver get bug eye, red face pi**ed off on me and verbaly vomit on us for his car testing light after qualifing and and copping a DQ. It was "all my crews and gears fault as he weighed in OK in a.m. and was only down 10 pounds of gas". After talking to him and his crew I figured out that he weighed in with heavy trailer mule rims and tires on in the a.m. and after the run with light rims and tires. He then blew a blood vessel on the crew...

 

How bout posting the list

 

The announcer tried to offer an explanation. It didn't make a lot of sense then either. Basically, they like everybody to be in a nice grid as they pas start/finish, and whoever was supposed to be alongside Bob was falling behind. Somehow, Bob was the one who got black flagged for the other guy not keeping up. I'm sure there was more to it than that, but that was my interpretation of the explanation.

 

Then don't throw the green. Bob got ripped off. They did the same to me last year. After I got in the lead in the wet race, somehow they unlatched my hood so they could black flag me. I also made it back up to 2nd place after the black flag, deja vu.

 

Hi John I do remember talking with you. I didn't take offense. Just unsure of you meaning. I think that the call wall made by the SCCA flagger @ the tower. I was responsible to keep an even pace until the green, when in fact I was accelerating too much. No problem here See you @ the Glen
Bob

 

Oh Bob wins enough races already. They were just giving him a little challenge.

 

I don't know either but with situation described its worth asking.

 

Does the PCA rule book specifically state that the track is green as soon as the yellows are dropped? If not, while it's being picky, you might want to be circumspect here. Read the rule book carefully. I'm 99.9% certain at the start of an SCCA race the track is NOT green until the green is flown. I'll have to double check this when I get home (so I don't mislead anyone), but you might want to double check the PCA rule book.

It's precisely situations like this that can lead to considerable confusion out there and it can get dangerous when people have differing views of the rules. We had a discussion on this point on the Improved Touring web site some months back. As I recall (subject to rechecking), it was clear the race did not begin until the green flew, but it was open to considerable discussion regarding restarts.

 

in PCA you start passing when the yellows drop at the flag stations. The rule book isn't too thick, I don't think it addresses it either way... but i've heard it stated at driver meetings

 

I just downloaded the GCR on-line and in the SCCA it is specific about passing before the green flag is flown. Since most rule books in the US have copied heavily from the SCCA rule book, it may be worth another look at the PCA rule book. I'm not saying either way what I think the PCA rule book says, but usually in situations like this a lot of people think they know and some are surprised.

 

The only thing I found in the rule book talks about double yellow. I think that the course is under double yellow until the green drops and if I am correct then you can not begin racing until the start finish line. See page 7 of club racing rule book. (Its been a while since I have been to the track but from what I remember that is how it works.)

Chris