Mr. Bull is right.

eugene.

 

Jeez--this has happened more than once in recent months??????

 

I hate to differ (again), and all are entitled to their views, but frankly; I really would like to know what happened there and the outcome. I'm waiting for someone who knows to say something.

 

Excellent idea wilhelm. Discussing how to prevent the situation from happening on this forum would be an excellent discussion. There are many people, in organizations that have the authority to implement changes, do that right now.

Asking for details of the damage, looking for pictures, discussing the condition of the individuals involved (beyond hearing that they will be OK), etc.......and suggesting that drugs might have been involved , all have nothing to do with a discussion about prevention.

 

OK (already reported above), a driver was able to, and did, enter a hot track in the opposite direction from the direction being utilized by a DE. That did not work out well, as one might suspect.

 

I think a giant "One Way" and a "Do Not Enter" (or "Wrong Way") set of signs may be helpful.

 

Bob,

I agree. The fact is that for us to be able to continue to go out on the track, after seeing an injury or death, we need to do everything we can to put that out of our minds when on the track. We can not drive and think about those consequences at the same time. So "human nature" demands that we try to look at such an incident and rationalize why it is different than what we do and therefore can not really happen to us (on an emotional basis - we KNOW it can happen on an intellectual basis). We are, in most cases, digging for the reason to discount the incident as indicative of the real danger of what we do.

The only good that comes out of analysis is to try to learn what to do differently next time to avoid such an incident, and we really don't need much in the way of details.

I think that everyone who has been around this sport for very long and has been at the track with deaths and serious injury understands the mind games they play to 'pretend' the situation was different for the victim and 'it can't happen to me'. Without that mechanism, you can't go out and go fast.

 

Looking at the aerial photo and understanding that it is not a photo of the day in question. However, it looks simple enough to just extend the blend line of cones from the hot pits beyond the Pit Exit coming from the right. This way a driver leaving the pits to enter the track is led directly to the entrance and would literally have to double back making a uturn to enter the track from the wrong direction.

This setup would still allow cars returning from the hot track to either go into the pits or continue on back onto the track if that were their intention and keep cars entering/exiting separate.

Particularly if this has occurred in the past.

 

Perhaps some of those one way wheels spikes like you have at some parking lots for pit in and pit out are in order.

 

Well said, Mark, and for those reasons I study incidents, and read all the books, and want to know what happened and what's been done about it, and how to avoid it. I once suffered a really bad cycling accident in which I was knocked out and badly injured and what bothers me is that I'm not really sure what happened and so don't know really how to avoid it again.
Now, on this one, we know that a guy went in the wrong direction, which is a bit bizarre, but should be easy enough to prevent.

 

Clearly, that's not a feasible alternative. Particularly when track configurations and direction changes are made.

.

 

I've only been there (North Course) once but that is close to what NY Metro did. They did staging in two steps actually. Step one lined everyone up pretty much where the graphic shows 10 minutes early. When the checker flew they moved the line up about 250 feet. There were cones lining the entire path as I remember. No way anyone would get confused about direction...

 

From the multitudes of events I've done there, I think I would have said the same on the Thursday before the event. There is absolutely NOTHING before this accident that would have made me think that it was a possibility for someone to enter the track in the wrong direction.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm sure that we can collectively find some ways to dramatically decrease the likelihood of this occurring again.

For example, perhaps a separate pit-in entrance could be made using one of the access roads. Then, the right hand entrance to the infield could be completely blocked off with cones.

 

Exactly. Post incident discussions with the Flag Marshall and team, etc. had them all saying the same thing as the two statements above. Obviously, nobody said to themselves "somebody might be confused about direction, but probably won't". In this case, there was a "way".

 

Maybe it is time to shut this thread down and pick up "Track Safety" in a new thread.

The driver that was hurt more seriously is home and resting. Enough said.