Bob Rouleau

Chris to touch on the original question, we do not discuss incidents at DE because we hope that the guy who crashed might collect from his insurance if applicable. Speculation that so and so was way over his/her head could be used to deny claims.

Rennsport also wants 996 oil caps to be secured. We have seen cars lose the caps and leak oil. No fires, although I can see how that could happen.

I can't comment on the 30 MPH hook up and crash. I will say that after gong at high speed on a track, it is hard to judge speeds. Sixty may feel like it is very slow. I had an odd experience a few years back We were doing high speed demo rides for Pirelli on the gov't high speed test track. I was running about 170 MPH, the corners are 37 degrees banked and taken flat out. When I slowed to let my passenger out, she tried to open the door at about 60 MPH .. it did feel like we were nearly stopped.

Best,

TD in DC

Unless you make a gross and immediately obvious error, it can be extraordinarily difficult to know with certainty exactly what happened during a wreck or spin. Your mind lies to you. You can have every good intention in the world, be humble as all get out, and honestly believe you know exactly what happened. The same phenomena is why witnesses to crimes sometimes get it absolutely wrong. The fact is that our sensory perception is not always very reliable. Great drivers will probably recognize the primary cause of the accident, but they may not remember all of the other contributing factors. Moreover, most of us are not great drivers (yet).

With respect to my wreck, I always knew it was my fault in one way or another. I always knew that I got behind the car. Although I had a good idea of some of the things that I should have done differently (remember most of my denial initially was a terminology problem -- I didn't understand what people meant by the phrase "pinching the wheel" and erroneously thought they meant increasing steering input, which I did not do, rather than merely failing to open the wheel soon enough, which is exactly what I failed to do, and sadly intentionally based upon a mistaken belief that doing nothing would be less upsetting during a neutral skid ), I learned much more upon reflection. In any event, the important issue was to determine, to the extent possible, the exact reason why. If you don't know the correct reason, then you very well could learn the wrong lesson from the "off," which greatly increases the chance that you will repeat the error.

From the moment of turn in during my wreck to the moment I was sitting in the middle of the track after having been bounced violently by the tire wall was a total of less than 8 seconds. The crucial errors took place in a space of less than probably 1 1/2 seconds. During that time period, I was focused so intently on what I wanted to happen (i.e., correct the oversteer and drive down the track) that I could not realistically be expected to be focused upon what was going wrong (i.e., you don't want to be thinking about your errors and looking at the wall you are about to hit while you are still "in the moment").

This is why I think video, and to a lesser extent, data, is so important to the development of drivers like me who are combination learners. I can go back and pour over my video and see where I failed to do what I wanted to do and what I thought I had done.

I agree about the learning possibilities that arise from a wreck/spin. I learned far more from my wreck than I had in 100 clean/uneventful laps. That said, given the hassle I am currently going through to try to get the car fixed in time for the club race, I can do with a little less learning right now thank you very much.

I have always quizzed drivers who wrecked in an effort to learn vicariously through them. The only reason I bared my sole was to give others a chance to learn from my personal misfortune. It could have been a whole lot worse . . .

The hardest thing I am going through now is to get my mojo back. I am almost there. Before the wreck, I was running 1:30-1:31 with an occasional -- very occasional -- 1:29 at Summit Point on RA1s. Now I am running 1:32-1:34s on Hoosiers. The problem is, ironically, that I am focusing a little too much on turn in points rather than looking through the turns like I used to and relying on peripheral vision to take care of things like turn in points. This causes me to overbrake ever so slightly, but if you overbrake slightly at every corner, it is extraordinarily easy to lose a couple of seconds. I will get back to my previous level soon, and I will be better than I was before, hopefully . . . .

TD in DC

This is much better done on an informal basis. The reporting of accidents is fairly informal, and the accident reports will be only as accurate as the driver's perception/honesty. Although I think that Chris's idea is a good one and based on the right intentions, I am not sure it would turn out so well in practice, and it could create incentives for people to lie in order to protect their fragile egos.

bobt993

Novice and pro drivers have distorted views of accidents all the time. How many replays on Speedvision have shown an entirely different perspective than the driver's opinion on "what happened". We see two car collisions where both drivers go at each other thinking 100% they were not at fault. I had a student spin at one event prior to my instructing with no idea as to "why?" it happened. I figured out his/her tick "wheel holding" and we worked on it by leaning on the car and releasing steering. He/she got it, but it took 3 sessions. "oh, now I get it". Some never do. T10 at SP owns alot of metal and it is obvious as to why.

bobt993

TD, you must be overbraking to loose time on Hoosiers. I logged straight 1;25s first time out on R5s at SP vs high 1:26s on mpscs. The initial grip on Hoosiers is so much better, but you can easily overbrake if you focus too much on start braking points and not stop braking points. Check your pressures too.

TD in DC

Yeah . . . my problem is definitely mental. Part of it is also that I am playing around with LFB, which also tends to cause you to overbrake a little at first. If anything, my turn-ins in many places are probably a touch late now (surprise surprise), and the distance between turn in points results in longer braking and later full throttle application (I am full on gas immediately upon turn in, even if I realize that I am too hot and subsequently need to breath off the throttle a bit). Also, all this talk about how badly my car is setup also has me spooked a little. Tonk K and Matt Marks drove my car and confirmed that it both oversteers and understeers, and takes a lot of work to drive (frequently understeering on entry and oversteering on exit). Although it shouldn't bother me any more than before since I had been driving around those tendencies anyway, "knowing" it slows me down. In any event, tires are not my problem.

SundayDriver

BIG stuff gets missed. I remember a very experienced racer who descirbed a crash with another car (it was part of a protest). Perfectly described how they hit each other, how he made one move and the other car passed on the left side and turned into him, etc, etc. Left side of his car was perfect. The right side was destroyed. His recollection was so far off what happened it was kind of funny. Oh, and the other driver's description was about as wrong based on the physical evidence and damage locations.

Phokaioglaukos

Good stuff here, but let me repeat my questions:

What does your PCA region do about publicizing accident facts and using them to teach? What should it do?

Bob hits the issue closest: "we do not discuss incidents at DE because we hope that the guy who crashed might collect from his insurance if applicable. Speculation that so and so was way over his/her head could be used to deny claims." Perhaps I'm not getting this. If the driver tells his carrier that he was doing DE, what is the issue with a public discussion? If the driver pretends the incident occurred off the track (I'm not an insurance lawyer, but that smells like fraud to me), then a public discussion could well queer his chances, but is that really wrong?

My view is that the regions SHOULD publicize the facts of an accident so that we can learn from it. Maybe it should be done without names, but I think it should be done.

I agree that the driver may not understand the cause of an accident. I agree that more physical evidence from video or DAS would make the determination of what occurred and the interpretation of why it occurred easier and more accurate. But just because it's hard to analyze accidents and the data are spotty does it mean that we should not try? There are some real physical facts of every accident. Starting from those facts we should be able to add eye witness accounts that are consistent with the physical evidence and create something we can learn from.

(BTW, this winter I plan to install DAS to be used next year with video. I think that will help me understand what I am really doing, as it has helped Todd and all of us who read his thread on his T10 accident at WGI.)

So, again, What does your PCA region do about publicizing accident facts and using them to teach? What should it do?

Jimbo951

I think there's something missing here. Everyone's focused how accident information can/should be released to other drivers so they can learn from it. As already stated by other, I'm not sure of the value in this. In most cases driver's aren't immediately aware of the root cause of an accident.

However, I'm more interested in big picture. I'd think PCA would want to know which regions are safe and which are unsafe. Or which tracks have the most incidents. I think it would be pretty easy to break this information down by regions or track into incidents per driver-days. Everyone says "This track is safe (or unsafe)", but does any of us really KNOW that?

It would also be nice to know the "reason" for an accident. I can foresee a quick questionaire:

Reason for Accident:

I don't know
Mechanical
Loss of Control - Dry Track
Loss of Control - Wet Track
Insuffecient or Late Braking
Other

Again, if a region had excessive number of mechanical related accidents, they should know that so they can improve.

kurt M

Public hashing of incomplete information might only produce incomplete conclusions and misinformation. PCA has a safety committee that should be looking at the information at hand and improving the information gathering methods used. In my region here is a report filled out for each wreck now. I think this is required bt PCA national. What is done with the information I don't know. My hope is that a small group of learned experts look at all the information and see if there is a system weakness or if there are patterns that can be identified and acted on. Using partial information and knowledge tends to produce reactions rather than planned actions. The last thing we need are more knee jerk reactions. Open forums might be a good place to gather and disseminate general information.
I am working on just such a small project now. I regards one aspect of instructor and student training. I will be asking for information here when I have more data from other sources. I tried a post on another small local bbs in my area. There was a small amount info gathered but overall it just turned into a mess. The learning was mine alone on that one.

Bob Rouleau

Jimbo - PCA regions are required to file an incident report for any accident causing damage.

Chris, as seen from the posts in this thread, the cause of an accident is often not accurately known. On the other hand lots of people will speculate. If an insurance company gets hold of opinions stating that the driver was way over his head, it will be used against the claim. Are those opinions valid? Almost never. Better to leave it alone.

Policy in my region is to send the driver who has had a spin or incident (assuming the car is still in condition to drive) out with an instructor to correct any inherent driving errors which might have led to the spin/incident.

Rennsport is proud of its safety record. We average one (dammit) incident per season which is 15 track days and about 140 cars per day. Our track helps, it is a modern facility with run off and gravel traps. Much safer than say, the Glen with its walls. On the other hand other events run at our track manage to crash more cars in a day then we have in 5 years.

As to analysis, without video it is pretty much speculation. Witnesses can be useful but not always - see TD's post above.

Best,

Larry Herman

I still am not sure that I see the point of this thread. If a spin stops after 50 feet, then everyone laughs about it, but if that spin goes 60 feet (and the tire wall is at 55) then it is a crisis. Is dented metal the only determinate factor in this?

RedlineMan

Hmmm...

Being only human, perhaps I'm a victim too, to some extent. Partly, a victim of too little data. I've only been off-track twice in my "career." Perhaps a victim of wishful thinking. Probably a vicitm of knee-jerk as well. Perhaps...

Thinking back, I can remember EXACTLY why I went off the first time, in the Left Hander at Lime Rock. A combination of things. A series of anomalies. Following a car closely, criss-crossing our way from Big Bend to the Left. Got visually distracted and missed my "marks." Braked as the left front crossed the center seam in the pavement, which was patched. Tire skipped and locked momentarily. Released the brake a bit when I didn't really want to. A bit too deep and heading for the grass. Arguably not a definite off, but I chose not to make it worse and drove off into the grass. I was thankful that all I got was a rad screen full of grass... and a little lesson.

Thinking back again... I now remember it was some time before what I did - or didn't do - in South Bend at VIR caused - or contributed to - my off there. It wasn't too long, but it was not immediate. It was all me. Striking similarity to Turn 10 at the Glen in terms of what I need to do... but I didn't that time. I didn't set the car with my little "controlled jerk" of the wheel. I floated past the apex and toward the trackout. Again, I got near track out, didn't like the setup, and chose to straighten and go off instead of risking a hook spin. Again, just a chat with the steward and some grass on the screen.

Yep... to little data, not that I'll be looking to create more of my own, you understand. Methinks I must be more careful in jerking my knee!

TD in DC

Larry,

Of course you are absolutely right. I have been catching a ton of crap about my wreck (in good nature of course) from people who spin all the time. I have been saying to them that the only real difference between most spins and a wreck is luck (e.g., location of the immovable object) and the subsequent repair bill.

People should take their own spins more seriously than many seem to, but that is not to say that there is anything necessarily wrong with spinning. IMHO, not all spins are created equal. Some are the result of stupidity and poor judgment . . . while others are the result of pushing the car and making understandable mistakes. OK, sure, we could talk about the judgment of pushing the car in the first place, but we all want to get better and it is difficult to get better if you do not push your own boundaries, the crossing of which I bet leads to more spins/wrecks than crossing the boundaries of the car itself (which I bet few actually do).

TD

Phokaioglaukos

Larry, whether a spin ends in the wall or the grass without damage it's still an accident--the car out of control. I'm interested in both types of events, the cause and the lesson. It may be that accidents that include a collision would be easier to analyze because there is a PCA report and it attracts more attention, but the issue that interests me is the same whether there is a collision or not.

Everyone, it is indeed hard to know what the cause or causes of an accident are. The driver will have incentive to assign blame elsewhere, either consciously to preserve a better insurance claim or unconsciously to feel better about his or her driving. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. BUT, there is physical evidence, including the approximate path the car took, the position it came to rest in and sheet metal damage if a collision occurred. From that alone some data can be teased out. The impressions of the driver, instructor (if one is in the car), and other drivers and instructors, to the extent they are congruent and consistent with the physical evidence can tell more. Video and DAS data can also help.

I do not suggest that every spin could get a full-blown NTSB-style analysis, but it still seems to me that the more data, incomplete and inconclusive as it may be, would be better in more hands than otherwise. It would be great if an academic would make a rigorous study of a great number of accidents, maybe something along the lines of the Hurt study of fatal motorcycle accidents done back in the '70s that lead to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's curriculum for basic rider safety instruction (teaching swerves, turns and stops). Even without that, though, there are things that we as drivers, instructors and region officials could learn.

What bothers me a bit is that the sensibility I think I detect in our region, and that I read in parts of this thread, is that we are better off with NO information on accidents than with incomplete and inconclusive information. Speculation is not as good as proven fact, but as many threads in this forum demonstrate to me, reasoned speculation based on whatever facts can be known can be very educational. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I do believe that reasoned analysis will prevail over unreasoned beliefs in a public forum, at least within the DE community.