This isn't an argument I'd make to have a course clean up areas off the course.

Ski areas don't maintain off trail areas.

 

The waivers signed at the track ecuse even negligence. In most jurisdictions however, you cannot waive "gross negligence". Lawyers are systematically attacking the definition of groos negligence - making it narrower.

If someone is killed or injured due to the condition of the run-off area at WSIR and the track owner being aware of the situation, does not act reasonably to correct the situation, he might find himself is deep trouble when the next accident occurs.

 

Different situations. In the normal course of participating in skiing you are not really expected to go off trail. There is plenty of room on the trail and if things go wrong and you were reasonable you will stay in bounds. If you like to explore the off trail area you are on your own. On a racetrack you must use every inch of the paved surface to properly participate (i.e. high performance driving). Why do you think many tracks pave run off areas now? They have a pretty high expectation that mistakes will cause the cars to go there. FIA rules are dealing precisely with this issue.

Anything up to the fencing is the maintained area of a race track (within some reasonable distance limit). That doesn't mean you must eliminate every single danger. That's impossible.

 

Just as an aside, given that most tracks were designed and built when there was much less interest in DEs than today, when there was less HP than today, and when there were lower property values (read taxes) than today, one could argue that a track owner would not have the inclination nor resources for serious modifications to satisfy amateurs who are not racing.

Granted, from several perspectives that approach is way off, and seriously behind the curve, but it would be interesting to hear the story from a track owner's viewpoint.

 

While I can see and would like to hear from multiple track owners, in the end it is all about financial risk. No one in the past ever really questioned track owners about these issues other than racing bodies like the FIA for example. That is why Laguna Seca now has tremendous run off areas. It was all about the money, big events, big money.

So for us weekend warriors, who by the way actually race wheel to wheel, not just DE/TT, it could be and is approaching money again. Not from sponsors or big events, not from what the tracks get paid to rent their tracks, it will be about the lawyers getting in on these accidents. Recall the two deaths at the California Speedway a few years back, that was settled and the track was paying out as well due to negligence around the "K" rail placement. Anyone recall the motorcycle death at California Speedway when the guy was struck by another motorcycle that crossed the burm over a rail? Speedway put up fences...not sure if lawyers were involved with that one.

My point is track owners cannot afford not to make safety improvements and they clearly are at these tracks, because the lawyers will eat them up even with the smell of slight negilence even if it is not. To say that track owners are not used to DE/TT size these days is negilent in and of itself. In my opinion WSIR is way behind all other tracks, even Buttonwillow who regularly takes tractors out and smooths out run off areas when they are wet and dry. Never seen that at WSIR.

 

Waivers mean nothing. The cal speed /Ferrari/carrera GT crash proved that. You see evne if you are a lawyer you can waive rights unless you are represented by a lawyer knowledgable in that "art". Then the track has to have a lawyer to explain the waiver not just a guy with a clipboard. Si if we made waivers legally binding we would all need to show up with our lawyer and it would take 1 hour per person to get through the front gate!

We all think it is cheap and easy to smooth out the bumps off road at WSIR but we still have no science or perhaps even equiped to hand out empirical science. Perhaps the dirt gullys at the track edge are better hard as they are rather than filling those areas with dirt that can't be well compacted, maybe even encouraging wheels to dig in and roll you. I don't know the science of runoff areas. I think Smooth dirt would be better. I think grass would be bad = slippery. I think pavement would be best but then do drivers just use more road and unpredicatably move the danger zone to somewhere else? It is a complex problem but no expensive relative to the number of paying drivers on track.

 

Not sure what you are trying to say other then there is never a perfect solution....agreed. The fact is WSIR has plenty of room to improve in terms of track safety and nothing of any significant has occurred and I think we are seeing the paying public say enough is enough. I simply stopped going to that track because the amenties are terrible, the rocks are terrible (broken windshield almost every event), and I have seen plenty of dangerous high speed adventures in turn 2, 3, 8, and 9 that could have been reduced to an off rather than a high risk adventure.

Sign the petition because if we never ask WSIR will certainly never do anything.

 

I don't want to sound like a hard ***, but it seems pretty clear that everyone knows the track has poor runoff areas, so the deciison to run removes the track from blame in my eyes. Now I know that logic has nothing to do w/ the U.S. court sytem (I own a P.I. firm and we do tons of work for lawyers), but it's not a highway you're forced to drive on, it's voluntary. If we don't feel it's safe... don't go. I hate this culture where we willingly take on a risk and then sue someone if it goes wrong. There are tracks around me w/ limited runoff and guardrails that I choose not to go to until I am more confident with my driver/car combo. For now I'll stick to the ones with more room for "error", my choice that's all.

With that said, the track should clean up those areas to make it more accomodating for drivers. It sounds like they would really jump up a few notches in the drivers eyes if the made some changes. Of course as soon as they fix it some lawyer with a case pending will use the fact that they repaired it as evidence that something was wrong to begin with and an admission of guilt. Nice system we have.

Personally I am surprised that the tracks haven't all been sued into oblivion...that day may come. This entire "waivers mean nothing", "my client wasn't informed" , "my client didn't have the expertise to...blah..blah"....let's find a reason to sue stuff disgusts me. We're adults who decided to engage in high risk behavior (relative to say golf ot tennis), if I go to track with obvious risks...so be it. RANT OFF

 

Only takes a few minutes, His goal was to get as much support as possible on it so that it can go to a next level. I know the creator of the thread personally and he is the type of guy who wants improve things for everyone.

 

Thanks Kary, JC, FatBilly and others for encouraging folks to sign onto the petition. I just discovered the TrackHQ site requires registration to vote and that has limited the voting process to folks who don't normally go there.

The petition and the comments made on the other thread are consistent with all the comments here. Nobody is saying going to the track doesn't have risks, we are just asking WSIR to make a few investments to make it safer. It is costing drivers vastly more in car repairs, life and limb to drive that track because prudent remediations are not getting done.

Only if we speak out vocally and in numbers will this get changed. We represent the revenue stream for WSIR. They can ignore us at their own peril. We have advised them of the risk, WSIR and their insurance firm can ignore that at their own liability.

I predict Turn 9 is improved by year-end, but only if we get solidarity.

 

This guy with the poll needs to post it elsewhere, like here, rather than limiting it to that one forum, and only frequent posters.

 

Hi Todd:

I considered posting on mutliple forums, but I wanted to be able to aggregate the responses in one place to use as a discussion point with the track.

I did not realize that the poll required registration. Perhaps I could go to a third party to do that, but at this point I think I would beg of you who are concerned to register, vote and post a supporting comment and constructive track improvement ideas.

What do you think Todd?

PS. I will be running with many of you tomorrow at POCs Short Track Series tomorrow. It would be great to talk. I will be in the yellow #22 blunt instrument.

 

Doesn't this forum have more action than the other forum? There are a LOT of users, all active, and we don't have to register then make some posts, then vote...

 

It takes 2 minutes to register on the tack site. If this is too hard to do then perhaps we do not want this that badly???

 

Todd,
This whole thing just started so I don't see it being limited to there, but the reason I think it started there is that most of the users are from LA area since that is where it started and drive all sorts of cars with every organization.