Oscar

Did someone just call me out?

Thanks Joe. As Joe said, this was my second race ever. Didn't you guys see the big X on my rear bumper? Remember when you had your X? Short of stopping on the track to let the three cars pass, I think I let em all by in a relative short period of time through a fast, busy section of the track. Stayed out in turn 2 to let the first car by on the inside. Stayed inside in turn 5 to let the other two by. JR944, you should have stayed wide and followed the other car through the corner instead of diving inside and having to check up.

Things happen quickly out there. Being a good driver is knowing when to make your move safely.

Sean F

If you used the stewards article in the most recent PCA club racing news as a reference, it would indicate that you were at fault. According to the article you need to be even at turn in and if you're not you need to back off (the overtaking car should back off). That's if I'm remembering the article correctly.

Mark in Baltimore

BTW, I thought Oscar raced very well at his first event.

Azikara

The guy is a rookie. There's a big X on his rear end. You are a seasoned driver. It's tough to expect a car with an X on it's rear end to behave as you might. They generally hold their line.

Disagree completely. Ever try and brake in the grass? The problem with this move is that if you project 79's intended line from where he was (defensive or not) to the apex you can easily see that there is not enough room for a 944 to fit. That means that one front will be on the grass. There's no way you can stop then.

It's easy to see how one can get frustrated. Especially when a 1979 F car pulls your E class factory race car off of the final turn and tugs a couple of car lengths on you! And then there was the move where Costa and 79 got inside you at 5. I think that this is where racing teaches us a lot: to still remain calm when we are frustrated and not to do anything unnatural. Unfortunately it didn't end right. I'm still learning.

It was, however, a GREAT and compelling race and I thank you for posting.

Hopefully you are back again this summer.

Azzy.

Mark in Baltimore

Does not compute at all. Joe drove back onto the track. Take another look at the video and watch his hands. As Joe tries to make the pass on Hupfer, you don't see his hands on the steering wheel. When he hits the grass, his hands make two conterclockwise moves to bring his car back onto the track. If he had kept the wheel turned to the right, he could very well have avoided contact. Look where Hupfer is when he's contacted; he's nowhere near the apex of the corner that he owns. Yes, I have braked on grass quite a few times and agree that it's tricky, but you can slow down. I see a clear move to go back onto the track and think Joe wanted back on the track to stay in the game, hoping that he could squeak by the silver car.

Regardless, Joe was not even with Hupfer when he went onto the grass, so Hupfer was not required to co-exist in the turn with him (despite the fact that I think Hupfer did try to make some room for the attempted pass).

JR944

Hey Oscar. I hope my post didn't come across as an attack. It certainly wasn't meant to be so. There was a whole lot going on with three of us in our own race coming through.

You did a very nice job of allowing me room to get by you on the left in T5 after Mark got through. Thanks very much for that!

Joe

JR944

Thanks for the comments guys. I do appreciate it. I'll post my explanation some time tomorrow. No big suprise, and I don't disagree with the fact that I got a 13/13 as a result. I did fail to safely complete the pass.

Jeff, I did not get tagged earlier in the race. I think what you hear is a bit of a gear graunch due to me letting the clutch out too quickly. I hope that after posting my thoughts tomorrow, you'll reconsider calling it a "bonehead" move. My opinion is it was an aggressive move, but not unsportsmanlike, or unexpected (particularly considering I had made the same move 2 other times earlier and he allowed coexistence those two times). The fact that our meeting at the black flag station after the incident was friendly and ended in a handshake helps me think that the other driver didn't consider it a terribly unreasonable move either. I'll share the specifics of our exchange tomorrow.

Hi Mark, we met that weekend and you drove very well and intelligently stayed just behind the fray! I'm sorry if I directly or indirectly caused an off for you. I hope and think that the early pass on Hupfer was a fair one and I allowed him reasonable room to coexist. If not, while I don't WANT to hear it, please let me know.

I'm giving a bit away here, but I think the video may be just a bit misleading as several people have mentioned that I should have stayed on the grass instead of trying to get back on the track to my left. When I was in the grass, I was at full braking (ABS) and just trying NOT to make any contact. I'll address why I was in the grass in the first place tomorrow, but suffice it to say that once there, I knew I had no prayer of succesfully completing the pass and could only hope that #79 would allow me space to go straight and regain control of the car. There's no doubt that I was sawing at the wheel at this point, but I did not make an attempt to get my car back to the left. (That would be pretty dumb, I think!) If I DID have steering control while in the grass (which I clearly did not) I would have obviously turned RIGHT which is the direction of the turn and away from potential contact. In the video, it appears that I move left, I think because the track is turning right at that point. If you watch the very front left of my car just before the impact, I beleive you can see that Mark turned right just before the impact. It is my opinion, that had he just stayed on the brakes a bit longer, he could have allowed me to re-enter the track, turn in behind my car, and maintain his lead over me. How's that for a long paragraph?

My car was pretty bad, but there's a good follow up story to it. Skip from here if you're easily bored.....
The fiberglass nose and splitter were badly broken, the fender was bad, and the door skin was dented around the internal door bar. The steering shaft was bent badly enough that the car would barely turn left (interestingly, the tie rod was fine), the driver side aluminum engine support was broken in two, but still sitting exactly in place.

Here's the long story:
On the Thursday preceding this race, we moved out of our home in St. Louis. Instead of driving straight to Denver, my wonderful wife encouraged me to first go race with my friends at Putnam.

On Sunday evening after the race, I drove to and stayed with friends in STL.

On Monday, I drove from STL to Denver where we were living in corporate housing (no garage space for the truck/trailer/car). In the truck, I called all my Denver PCA friends looking for body shop recommendations.

On Tuesday afternoon, I found a shop (Apex Auto Body in Lakewood) and dropped the car off. I asked them if it was at all possible to have it fixed by the following Tuesday as the next weekend was the Brainerd Club Race, an event I've not missed since I started racing in '97. They said it was possible if they could get the parts in time.

We found a good donor door locally, but could not find a fender. I already had a new splitter and nose from GT Racing on-hand as the old one was looking pretty ratty and I was going to replace it anyway. The shop removed the fender from the car and did an amazing job at hammering out the damage from the back side and used VERY little filler to refinish. WAY impressive!

The shop was almost done with the car when we arrived to pick it up the following Tuesday afternoon. They had not installed the new splitter and still had to finish the door/window assembly, but otherwise the car was great! We left the shop and Denver at about 6:45 headed North. Thanks again to my fabulous wife, who drove the truck for about 4 hours, we made it to some small town just West of Lincoln, NE.

Wednesday morning, we drove to Minneapolis, picked up hardware to mount the splitter, and arrived at a friends house by about 4:30. Wife and daughter went to in-laws house. The steering rack and splitter went pretty smoothly. We got some pizza, went to the garage to clean/wrap up and THEN discovered the broken engine support! The greatest part of this long story, IMO, is that this friend had parted out another car 2 years ago and still had a motor sitting not 5' from my car with the aluminum bracket still attached! Talk about karma!

Not related to the car, but a bit more drama.... During this time, aforementioned fantastic wife was trying unsuccesfully to call my cell phone as this was the evening of the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the bridge was on my most likely route to the in-laws. (In reality, there's no way I could have finished the car and been to the bridge by the time of the collapse, but wife didn't know that).

Finished the car, dropped the car and trailer behind Mike Courtney's shop and crashed at my brother's for the night. Dead tired, but excited that I was going to make the race and thankful for good racing buddies (particularly those with spare parts)! Courtney's guys did the allignment on Thursday and the car was ready to go.

Made it to the race, the car worked great! Set a new recorded class record (beating Justin Draper's old one, but not Ron Smith's un-recorded one), won the sprint and enduro over a friend from KC who was suprisingly quick for his first visit to Brainerd.

Joe

Azikara

Mark,

Your original statement was: You didn't say to go full right and try and exit the situation. That's different and I agree he could have tried this but he probably would have understeered right though the apex towards the same inevitable result. I don't care how often you've tried it but I don't know any race car on hot Hoosiers that can turn AND brake on the grass (and half on the track) and still remain under control given the tight constraints that are shown in the video.

Mark in Baltimore

Whether you or I want to call it staying on the grass or going full right, I just don't see the difference. Either action means not going back on track or, at least, trying not to go back on track.

FYI, after I went off track in the aforementioned incident, I did manage to slow down and turn right and did it where I wanted to. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of impatiently getting on the gas to not lose positions and ended up looping the car. Obviously, I had more area to slow the car down and turn than than Joe did, but I had decent traction. I do agree that Joe could have easily been in an understeering situation on the grass.

Joe, in no way do I blame you for me going off track. I enjoyed racing you immensely. Again, it was close racing and I was on your tail. Hupfer's quick slowing meant I was close to hitting him. Since I was nowhere near as close as, say, Chris Cervelli and his hit with the cup car at Daytona, I had just enough room to take evasive action.

Chaos

# 700 gave a very polite point by !

JR944

Hi Gregg:

Yes you did give a very polite point and did a good job of staying right and allowing all 3 cars through (dammit !) Just wish I had been able to sneak inside of you in T4. That's what gave Costa the run on me into T5.

I'm not blaming you, it's just sometimes an unlucky break to catch traffic at an inopportune section of track. Just "one of them racing things!"

Joe

lipamax

"...I saw your sprint race at Gingerman last Summer ... glass houses, my friend."

What's about?

"...I'm not trying to make this personal or anything..."

So, don't do it.

"...but I think we all have moments where we should have zigged when we zagged, right?"

Trust me, I've made enough bonehead moves in my career, probably like an everybody else or more. The key is to learn from mistakes.

I wasn't trying to insult the guy and probably should use a different words. So, Oscar in this case my apology to you.

Let's not blame on big "X" on the car. Been a rookie doesn't make a driver less responsible in his actions on the track.
IMO when driver takes his car on the race track, it's his obligation to be able to communicate with other drivers by been aware what's going on (by looking into the mirrors) and let other drivers know that you are aware of situation by pointing, waiving... what ever it takes. The racing is (besides driving skills) about thinking...

Speaking of that particular situation. The black car wasn't racing for position with other car/s, so when he saw the leader and two other cars coming up on him. He should of known (and you don't need to be experienced driver) that he's getting passed going into busy section of the track and should of make a decision how, when and where he will let them by with minimum loss to his momentum. I sad "them", because their battle was so close and all 3 were like 1 car. I don't think is right and hate when someone does it to me, to let one car by and close the door to another. All he had to do, just to stay along the track line on either side (would be very nice to point to them) instead of dancing from left to the right and almost causing an incident which could of been a 3 car (incl his) pile up.

I've been on the track with big boys GTA,GTC,GT1/2 in my little 2.2 liter GT-5 car where speed difference is a huge factor and had no problems to make sure that I'm not on the way. I'm sure that every time slower car moves out of the way it makes somebody appreciated and probably puts a smile on his face.

Last spring at Atlanta sprint race when Jakuboowski's Cayman was closing up on me going up under the bridge, I've moved to the left and when I crossed the hill ended up with two wheels off the track what made my car spinning down the hill. Luckily I saved it (just loosing a headlight cover going backwards down the hill) and ended up with Corner Workers Choice Award.

Last summer at the end of Gingerman sprint race, I was chasing my opponent (who was 3-4 cars in front of me) for the win in class. Going into last corner, leading to the main straight I purposely moved to inside line way early, to let the lapping car (who was cruising by himself) know that I'm going to make a move. Instead of taking a bit to the outside or lift for split sec., he tap me to lt qt.panel at the track out. It was a small contact (even corner workers didn't see it). He turned himself in blaming me for not giving him enough room. Instead of potential win I ended up with 13/13 for not "coexisting in the corner". The point I'm trying to make. It is racing and sometimes we need to sacrifice our speed for someone else.

Again Oscar please don't take it personally.

Sorry for long post.
Mike

joey bagadonuts

Thanks for the post and offline exchange, Mike.

John H

I need a seating chart for this one;

Oscar black 911 with the X who let them by
Gregg #700 with his arm out the window letting cars by
Joe driver of car with the camera
79 silver 911 driven by ?
Which car is Hupfer's? Is he 79?
Mark Lee driving the silver John Deere 993

Help! Anyway, Grass = bad.

Chaos

Will Block For Cash $$$