Hmmm...

I don't pretend to know what the insurers have to say. That certainly could be a factor. PCA in general has largely taken a conservative stand on what is a straight and what is a corner. In the last couple of years, Zone 1 allows passing everywhere it is straight for all groups at the 48 Hours at WGI. Some very few PCA regions (2 that I know of, and they're both in a different country!) have a more "liberal" or "finite" interpretation of what constitutes a corner for the their advanced drivers, i.e. as long as there is side-daylight between two cars exactly AT the apex.

 

John - a group that allows passing everywhere except at the apex is in the North East. Again, confusing DE with racing IMO.

PCA is using "strongly suggested". Zone 1 "mandatory".

Which rules do we follow? National?

From a liability perspective, it would be wiser for PCA to suggest proper safety equipment without trying to specify further since as you have pointed out, there is no solid evidence about what works or not.

The whole harness bar issue can be resolved by insisting that drivers using a harness with regular seats wear the OEM seat belt under the harness. From a liability perspective one cannot be faulted by insisting that drivers use the DOT approved safety equipment provided by the manufacturer.

I would also strongly suggest that PCA standardize on rules for DE and discourage passes without a point by and passing in corners (with or without a signal).

Save that sort of stuff for lapping days not covered by DE insurance.

Best,

 

If a person has changed the seats to a one piece shell type seat how is using 3 point belts effective unless they are disassembled and routed through the side seat cutouts?
Jack

 

All you have to do is unbolt the outer lower attachment point of the belt to route the belt through the seat cutout. The rest can make it through without any modification usually.

 

Great thread John! Why would one size fit all? Why cages for all or 5/6pt for all? Why not safety gear requirements based on laptimes and other physics. I'm pretty simple minded but I think KE=MV*2 so if you gotta 3500lb ZO6 vette on street tires your capability of having a big wreck/ speed capacity is greater than a mid 60's stock engined 2000lb porsche even if you do have slicks. Also, 95% of DE'ers are dual use streetcars and if they have cages they bolt in. Streetcars oem designers spend huge dollars and engineering to make streetcars safe for the majority of compromises. So why not take the bolt in cages out for the 99% of street driving that is done? All it takes is time. I don't think one can be both safe and lazy.

 

John,

I would like to take this statement of yours to a new thread "gas tanks and crumple zones"

"Anything in front of or behind the suspension points should be left to crumple as it was intended to.
__________________
John Hajny
Central NY Region PCA Chief Instructor - PCA National Instructor/Mentor
REDLINE Rennsport Services Performance Driving Preparation & Education"

 

To be honest;

I'm not too concerned with how the OE belt is configured. I think it should be worn outside the race seat as it was previously on the stock seat for two main reasons. 1) You will be projecting out of the seat a fair distance with a 3-point, so the seat will not be much of a factor. 2) Given that, running the belt through a seat hole stands to create a shear point, and I don't like that idea given the relative flimsiness of OE belts.

I do completely feel that wearing both belt systems together mitigates the belt dumping phenomenon, and I utterly reject the notion that we shouldn't embrace this because no one has tested it. Given what we know the performance of both systems to be seperately, I'll take the chance.

 

I'm with Bob here;

I think it is up to the sanctioning body to maintain the proper perspective on what our purpose is. Keeping passing zones restricted and drivers fully aware that it is not a free-for-all is the best way to keep things from going wrong. Bob should know, after all, as Rennsport Region is about as clean as it gets.

Where I feel we are lacking is in complete and well founded information offered to the membership. I am also completely with Bob in that I do not like to tell people what they have to do from an equipment standpoint. We certainly have to have standards so that what people do is not dangerous in terms of shoddy or ill-conceived construction, but to tell someone they must have a harness, a race seat, or a roll bar/cage steps beyond our bounds.

I feel wee need to offer plenty of detailed inofrmation so that people can make their own risk assessments, and govern themselves - both in their driving and their upgrades - accordingly.

So, if a guy wants to go out in his Z06 and drive like the wind with a completely stock car, that's fine by me. As soon as he starts to push his personal limits and appears to be running out of talent, only then will we step in and tell him to back it down a bit, and perhaps to consider some upgrades... or a different organization.

 

Another perspective on Safety devices vs. Safe events.

You can't regulate stupid. What I mean is, if someone 'wants' to drive beyond their capaibility, we can't stop them. It doesn't really matter what kind of saftey equipment they have. However, we CAN keep them from huritng others. Personnaly, I would leave an event if they were allowing passing anywhere but 'at the apex.' This is incredibly dangerous and I can't see the educational benefit except for racers in training. Again, if your events have cars contacting each other, except in really crazy cases, the event is not being run as a DE. It's race training.

Here's another thought. I know this will be considered heresy in some regions but, PCA recommends up to 20 cars per mile on track at any given time. On most tracks in the US, that equates to about 40 cars. That's a NASCAR field. add to that significant speed differences and I see why passing is such an issue. If the overall goal is to make events safer, not necessarily cars safer, then why not reduce the number of cars on track; fewer cars, fewer chances of accidents. Or, what about banning single seat cars? That would really put the pinch on race cars coming to DE's.

I totally agree with the concept of dialing back the definition of Driver's Education Programs. Other clubs call them what they are; track days. PCA needs to be introspective on what these days have become and 1) call them what they are and manage them as such, or, 2) put restricitons on the type of car (street legal) and DOT tires, with restricitve passing. WRT DOT tires, most hoosiers and khumos are cheaper than the Contact II's I run on the street. I run them because of budget, not times; although that is an adding benefit.

I don't want to be the spolier of fun. I very much enjoy my time at the track. I actually enjoy teaching more than getting that last 1/10th from my own car. However, I see track events growing so fast in popularity that the clubs can't keep up with the changing landscape.

If we want to talk SYSTEMS, let's talk about the SYSTEM of the event. I, personally would rather be at a well run event with a controlled environment with restrictive passing and normal, non-caged, street legal cars with the goal of learning and enjoying the car than I would having multiple Cup Style cars driven by less than capable people trying to 'one up' each other. There are many ways to skin this safety cat. I applaud NASCAR and other bodies that have worked very hard to make the TRACK safer (SAFER Barriers) at the same time of making the CAR safer. So if we can't spend millions to make the track safer, then we need to control the environment by managing the cars on the track better.

What is our objective? Is it to drive faster safely? or, Drive safely, faster?

It's been my observations over the years that the "powers that be' get too insulated with experience. I have great admiration for Pete Tremper and the things he has done for our club. He has taken on a task that no one really wanted. However, most of these guys have been doing DE for 20+ years. His national instructor's course is great and any instructor should attend. WRT safety though, they may have lost a little perspective on the entry level, brand new guy. It's our responsibility to give these new folks a safe environment and we can't really do that by just regulating safety gear inside the car.

 

I agree there should be more emphasis on making the event safer. In that spirit, I have always had concerns about the number of cars on track and how that factors into the likelyhood of an incident, and the overall safety of the event. In our region, and I suspect others, the general practice is to advance drivers up to the next group level as they progress in skill as determined by an instructor and check out ride by that group's head instructor. The result is by the second day, some groups have added many drivers that have been "graduated" up, therefore exceeding the original appropriate number of cars for the track, and overcrowding that run group, making an already crowded situation even worse. Why not "graduate" these drivers effective the NEXT event, so the group sizes remain as originally formulated and appropriate?

 

Hmmm...

Other than 1 point, I agree with you 968, in principle. I do indeed think we can easily regulate stupid. If you can't regulate their performance, you simply disinvite them.

However, I don't think what we are doing is failing to any great degree, in terms of how events are run. By and large the events I attend are well run and nearly incident free. I wouldn't say that I'm willing to live with x number of incidents, necessarily, but I feel most of them are due to people not recognizing when they are running out of talent. I'd attribute it to a lack of experience more than a lack of self limitation or just utter stupidity. Of course there will always be those who simply don't get it, but it's not that hard to deal with them if one has the collective will to do so.

Being able to closely regulate driving takes tweo things; 1) positive, cconcrete feedback from those in the run group, and the willingness of the stewards to FIX the problem. 2) Highly skilled flaggers to help us in spotting those who are reaching their skill limit. Having experienced eyes watching the kids at play is the best way to know what is really happening.

I do have some concern that even an entry level Porsche is a relative rocket compared to my old bucket. Keeping those folks out of the rubbarb and giving them a solid driving foundation is my main concern. If you want to improve DE's, give your sign off group more instruction. THAT will reap the biggest rewards. Many of them that I've ridden with still need an instructor!

 

I'm with you John. Yes, we have regulated stupid a few times at our events. I also agree that sign off is a VERY subjective thing.

Injury accidents are what we are trying to avoid. I would venture to guess (there I go again without imperical data) that more people get injured when more than one car is involved. Cars are actually quite predicable when they are by themselves. It's when multiple trajectories get involved that things get dicey. Truth is, rollovers are quite rare in DEs.

Another thought. PCA requires a report to be made for any accident at a DE regardless of injury. Breakdowns don't count. I forget the exact wording. I would suspect, they have the makings of a pretty good database of accidents. I beleive they would also be VERY reluctant to share that data with anyone outside the leadership of PCA. Think about it; a nation wide look at all accidnets on many types of tracks, different demographics, and with a little help from the regions, that could be linked to numbers of participants, weather, photos.

We need data!!! Anoyone have any ideas?

Pete! Are you listening?

 

James, there is one thing that is missing from the DE in Montana that most every other DE has and one of the usual suspects in many of the big DE accidents and that is walls. There is nothing to hit at the Lewistown facility and that is HUGE. At Road America the only incidents that I have seen first hand (albeit only a few) have been incidents because there was a wall to hit. In the last 3 years at Road America, I haven't seen a car to car incident with any of the clubs (that doesn't mean there weren't any, just none that I've seen.

I remember one time going down the back straight (before you were in MT) at Lewistown and the brake pedal in the 928 went to the floor. Thanks to the massive runout at the end of the straight and about 10 pedal pumps I got the car slowed down, and came into the pits with flames coming over the freshly painted fenders (oops). At Road America I think I would have been buying a new car for my father, or just ran away from home and joined the circus.

So going back to what you are saying about a database of tracks and incidents, I'd make a good bet that the most incidents happen at the tracks where there is little to no runout. I haven't raced any of the NE tracks yet but a couple of those come to mind here.

 

+ eleventy billion

 

Interesting thread. I do agree that these type of blanket rules can be dangerous from a liability point of view. However, I also think something needs to be done to improve safety, as the cars at DEs today are far faster and more capable than they were just 10 years ago. If it were me, I would want every car in the higher run groups to meet the PCA club racing safety standards.


You've clearly never done such an event. If the car in front gives a signal, then it's no more dangerous than passing on the straight.