My question to you is, can there EVER be an accident on the track even for the well prepared driver?, If the answer is yes, we are in agreement.

Jeeva

 

Take your pick of studies that indicate talking on the cell phone results in driver impairment greater than driving drunk. There's plenty of them.

Driving while talking on a handsfree cellphone also has been shown to result in a significant driver impairment.

Talking to a person requires attention. Driving a 3000lb or greater vehicle requires attention. Both require enough attention that one will suffer if you're doing both at the same time.

 

I hope you don't seriously believe these two statements.

 

Note I said "generally." A lightning bolt could strike the car, after all . I put "accident" in quotes because it is regularly used in a context like, "accidents are not anyone's fault." Given this sense of the word, I believe we are in agreement elsewhere.

Yes, but the latter connection I (obviously) do not agree with.

After an incident, organizing and sanctioning bodies have to ask themselves, how could this (and thus, future) accidents have been avoided? I've never heard, "the accident was unavoidable," without any recommendations.

With respect to safety equipment, I think organizers have a responsibility to meet some common denominator for safety equipment, and the rest is up to the individual (and if there is competition, the stewards).

My personal opinion is if one goes as fast as a racecar on a racetrack, then one's car and oneself should be equipped at least as is typical for that use. I don't force that on anyone, though (unless I have to ). I believe safety is a personal decision.

YMMV

 

I do believe a puncture does not mean a wreck an oil slicks can be seen.

I fully believe them. I seriously believe I never been involed in an off nor any "close" call that I could have not prevented in some way.

That is not to say that one will not be involved, but driver does play a huge role. 95% of time I have gone off it was driver error. A few times it was due to avoiding another driver's error. There has been only one time I went off and I might not have been able to prevent it. I blew-up my motor in the banking at 90 mph at PIR and spun on my oil. Thank fully I did not contact anything. However even this was my fault. Had I heeded the slight drag I felt exiting the corner before hand I would have slowed and pulled in to the pits before the rod exited the block.

So even that was "avoidable". There have been cases were drivers have spun in front of me and I we had made contact it would not have been my "fault", but I believe that 99% of the time the driver's (or both driver's) actions contribute to any off or collision.

On the tire issue... If a tire fails why? Was it old? Did you run off track? Did you run over debris? Did you "feel" something off and keep pushing too hard?

Hey at california speedway I had another racer drive me off track. He says he did not see me. I say he had to be blind. Well no harm not foul so to speak, but the incident could have been avoided if I had not assumed he would see me. If I had give him plenty of room... But in racing I CHOOSE not and therefore put myself in that situation. Clearly an avoidable incident I choose not to avoid unti I went off track to prevent contact.

See as I see it alot is driver by decision and action and the risks I am willing to take. I use safety gear to cover those time I misjudge those risk, over estimate my skills or just plane get it wrong. Really I am more concerned about some yahoo on the roads as most of the time track driving is very predicatable and the other drivers are reasonably skilled. At least more than some 16 year old on the phone or drunk.

 

Well lets see. Dale and Adams track schedule shows over 100 PCA DEs are being run in the Northeast this year. We'll assume they are all 2 day events and on average there are 100 participants. Now conservatively, if the speed average is 70 MPH and the time on track per day is 1 hour, the average participant covers 140 track miles. So 20,000 * 140 = 2.8 million track miles per year cover in the Northeast alone. My understanding is that there have been two deaths in the past 10 years or so. This is all very rough, of course, so lets assume that the number of DE's has remained static over the past 10 years and multiple by 4 regions per year to cover all the rest of the US. So thats 10 *2.8m * 4 / 2 . So on average thats 1 death per 58 million miles over the last ten years. In 2004 the US Highway date rate was 1.46 per 100 million miles.

Obviously this is a pretty loose estimate, but if you accept it as reasonable, it means that when I drove 1600 mile round trip to get to VIR to drive 300 miles on track, I was roughly 3-4 times more likely to die on the trip than I was at the track. You can bend the statistics anyway you want of course, but its pretty clear that dying in PCA DE event is a very unusual occurence and probably involves no more risk than driving to and from work for a week, with or without a cell phone in your hand.

 

I've experienced a tire blow out at 120 mph with no prior indication that put me into a concrete wall. I've had other tire failures I've felt and was able to limp into the pits with. I was the same "aware" driver each time...

I've seen many wrecks on oil where there was no prior indication of a problem.

 

Charlie,
There are always cases were it appears completely unavoidable. Most of the time you at least had control over the contributing factors. I can't say about your tire issue since I don't know any details. I am sure you did nothing that you though would have contributed to it. When my engine blew-up and I spun I was a passenger. That could have been consider unavoidable. I certainly was not prepared for nor anticiapting it. However I did do alot of thinking about what happened earlier and looking at my incar video. Studying that lead me to realizing that had I read the signed right I would not have blown the motor in the first place.

That said I am much more worred about the mistakes I make that cause and incident vs the "unavoidable" ones as you call them. I still feel that most incidents have driver involvement and there really very few that are "Completely unavoidable".

Personaly I feel if you call an incidente unavoidable you are giving up on learning from it and potential finding a way to prevent it. I hear all the time about racers who seem to have other folks hit them or almost run them off the road alot. Well while it always could be called the"other" guys fault if you become a magnet for trouble or bad luck then there is probably something your are doing wrong bring it your way. Unstanding this will give you the chance to learn. Simply calling it bad luck will just cause it to happen again.

This just my perspective on track driving and on alot of things that happen in my life.

 

All accidents have a cause. Therefore if you knew it would happen before hand you would address the cause and "avoid" it.

No actual accident is "avoidable" becasue if you could avoid it you would. Only accidents that could have happened and didn't are "avoidable"

I have spun the car many times because of driving decisions that I made consciously before hand that I knew at the time were probably a bad idea and I did them anyway. I did not make that decision because I wanted to spin... I made it for some other reason, and ended up spinning.

So was that "avoidable"?

 

Maybe "potential avoidable" or "could have been avoided" are better words.

 

Yup... but it still happened

 

Hey.. I could have bought Microsoft stock... that makes me "potentially rich?"....whoopee

 

Well, I agree with your first two statements, But even I have to say that the latter may be avoidable, depending on where you want to draw the line.

I cannot say to myself, "accidents by definition are not avoidable" and therfore, I am going to take this 35mph turn at 55 mph. and see whether I can make it and still not spin, and when the car spins and hits a wall, then say ooops, it was an "accident". Now, obviously we''ll both agree that it was'nt an accident.

Now, at the other extreme, I cannot stop the car at every blind turn to check for oil-slicks on the track , or crawl along the track so I don't get into a situation that I cannot control. I think everyone would agree that this will be nonsense as well.


It actually is very difficult to say whether any one accident was preventable as there is no gold standard of skills and prudance to gauge from,(For, example what speed do I take that 35 mph. turn next,...55 is obviously wrong, and everyone knows of the incremental improvements, and so I try it at 36mph, but guess what the pavement has changed, the turn is blind and that brand spanking new 997 spilled some oil and you spin and hit the wall,?????, is this avoidable, absoulutely...how?...how about placing a buddy with a two-way radio at every spot on the track, and he would have alerted you,....but is this the gold standard we want to achieve,...and how about a different situation with a different solution, it can be never ending and totally impractical) ....so true accidents can happen no matter how much was planned and even with a whole life-time of skills.

 

My point in this entire thread is that the you as driver by being cautious and aware can greatly reduce the risk of most incidents even the ones some folks call "unavoidable".

How you drive on a track and how you prepare your car are the BIGGEST factors in your chances of being in a incident.

 

I totally and completely agree with you, as I've already mentioned. You were not saying accidents can never happen....