Veloce Raptor

You guys need to get a grip. A marriage is TWO ways, not ONE way.

I have been married nearly 18 years. You know my hobbies, and some of my occupations. She has her concerns, has verbalized them, and I have considered them in deciding my future paths.

'Nuff said.

LVDell

Good for you VR. To each his own.

But in the meantime, try to show some class. You seem to have a very egocentric way of the world. Believe it or not, others do not share the same approach to marriage you do.

jrgordonsenior

You're talking about the sheep right?....

Veloce Raptor

And vice versa.

I am not sure where I have not shown class in this thread. I am sorry you seem so thin skinned about it...

Veloce Raptor

Oh, ****. I JUST SAW THEM. Thanks for pointing them out to me--I had never noticed them before.

Hahahahahahaaaa!!

jrgordonsenior

I don't know any of you guys but for God's sake lighten up....
They're just women. If they didn't have a bleep there'd be a bounty on em.....

Veloce Raptor

I think some of these boys are on a

DrJupeman

I'm not trying to downplay the inherent risk in this sport, but you just hit a wall at 50mph+ and walked away with just a sore neck. Is this hobby dangerous? Injuries in DEs, best I can surmise, are EXTREMELY rare.

dblapex

There is a saying in this sport, there are two different kinds of drivers. Those that have the wall and those that are going to. You did, now put it past you and learn from it. The other saying is what is the difference between a spin and a crash? THE WALL.

Yes there are inherent dangers in this sport. But it is still safer driving on the track than it is driving to the track.

I can almost bet when you came out of 16 and went wide and the car started to spin you looked at the wall. Your hands will always go where your eyes are. The trick in this situation is to be able to look where you want to go (escape route) and not to look at what you dont want to hit,or you will.

Did I meet you at Sebring just after you bought the car a few months ago?

The best hobby I can think of for you, a person that is obviously a car guy is to volunteer with you local club that does track events. Run tech or registration. The 48 hours is coming up, work in timing and scoring or be a pit lane marshall. There are so many great ways to stay involved in this sport that can still be very rewarding, some of the people I have met in the past 10 years will be life long friends. Excpet for Bluemaxx and BrokeAss, those guys are just jerks

K964

+964

Mark Dreyer

Oh yea, I met you a few months ago at a Sebring event. I still have your card and was planning on calling you for some coaching once I got the mechanical bugs worked out of this car. The car was finally running like a swiss watch today until it encountered "operator error"

jrgordonsenior

And that's without a Hans. What organization was this that allows DE participants (amateurs) to take a friend in the car with them on a track like Sebring? He obviously needed an instructor not some friend in the car......

On that note let me add that I wonder how much of his wife's negativity projected through to his driving. If you're thinking about crashing, and worrying about what your wife's will say if you do crash, then I agree you're better off taking up golf....

Mark Dreyer

That's exactly what I told my wife. She wasn't impressed with my logic

Seriously, I saw my life flash before my eyes when I saw how fast I was going to impact that concrete barrier. I am VERY impressed not only with the build quality of the car (no engine intrusion into the passenger area) and with the effectiveness of the restraint system.

I wonder if any studies have been done comparing injuries/passenger mile on public roads vs. race tracks? I'm betting if such studies were done the tracks would be shown to be way more safe.

Mark Dreyer

I should have clarified. He was a "new friend". However he happened to be an instructor also.

We got to talking because we each had spec E30 BMW's. I am solo but he volunteered to take me out to check out my car's brake system and also give me some tips. (I've not been solo that long and still value instruction)

SundayDriver

No formal studies exist especially since there are so many organizations that run DE's. As far as driving on the track being safer, that is wishful thinking.

You can look up accident stats and apply them to DE's. If we assume that a DE generates 15,000 miles driven per day then if we had the same stats as highway driving we should expect (2006 highway data):

1 accident for every 30 DE days.
1 injury for every 63 DE days.
1 fatality for every 4,728 DE days.

I have been to a lot of DEs and asked a lot of instructors and there are way more than one accident per 30 days. Injuries and deaths are rare enough so that I am sure any measure is not statistically significant, but based on personal experience, I think the injury rate is pretty close to highway but the fatality rate seems higher.

Bottom line is that this IS a dangerous sport (DE or racing).