67FJ45

Mark,

It's good to hear that you made it through in one piece. I hope your neck feels better, but as others have said, you might want to have a professional take a look. And +1 on the autocross.

Your candor is really enlightening to me personally. Recently I developed a blood clot in one of my legs and am now taking warfarin, an anti-clotting drug. My doctor, a close friend, has strongly advised (read, forbidden) me to cease tracking my car until the clot clears and I'm off the warfarin. The possibility of a crash-related injury causing excessive bleeding is too great to risk my life. I hope to get back to the point that I can make the choice for myself, just as you have.

Best of luck to you.

Mike in Chi

As I said, I usually avoid the squabbles. Mirrored, in jest, or otherwise.

Without a doubt, there have been many "offensive moves" by many people on the racing board lately. In fact, that should be the subject of a seperate thread.

So, with all the offensive movements going down, why did I single you, and only you, out?

Because you, and only you, used "retard".

Sorry if you don't sit well being called out publicly on it. But I've found it has more lasting impact to do it publicly rather than privately.

There's no place on Rennlist for attacks, slurs and insults based on the misfortune of others. In fact, there shouldn't be the need for any kind of attack, slur or insult on the Racing Board, or anywhere on Rennlist. But again, that should be the subject of a seperate thread.

FWIW, I'll do the same on Rennlist in the future to anyone I encounter using that term or similar slurs. In fact, A,you may be surprised at who's already been called out on it.

Finally, you may want to rethink this line:

Brian P

I'm not so sure about this... The study (http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810837.PDF) seems to be from a sampling of filed police reports, so an accident is only counted if someone stops and files a police report. I would think this generally happens with a major accident, but minor ones involving multiple cars and probably many single car accidents are never reported. I would venture to guess that injuries are nearly always reported, so that statistic may be close to accurate.

My personal feeling is that the number of injuries is FAR lower than what would be predicted by highway statistics, and so is the number of fatalities.

uscarrera

Mark, was sorry to hear about your incident, I was there on Sat. with 2 students and running in my early 911, was Bobby your passenger/instructor? how is he doing?
Rich
Suncoast region PCA
Chief track instructor

mrbill_fl

The reason I started racing cars and not go kart racing, is: you pay with your body in karts. -not any safer IMHO.

Mark, Sorry you crashed out, and also sorry to hear you are getting out... its a personal decision.


The fact is the safety equipment did its job, as designed.


(sadly, the T16 walls on drivers right were moved back after the 12 hrs every year, until (I think) 2004... now they are there for good for more paddoc parking.)

Veloce Raptor

You too, puppy!

Veloce Raptor

Wow, sorry to hear!!!

Mussl Kar

OT but Wow! Sorry to hear this. It's called phlebitis. Mine started in my calf and went right up to within 1 cm of the top of my leg. Your doctor is spot on about the bleeding. You also need to watch your diet too because it has an infuence on the drug. Mine started in April of 07 and I was on cumadin until September 07. My leg finally cleared up enough so that laser surgery could be performed and that was done in April of this year. No track days for me. I started autox as an outlet in May 07 and quickly became a cone murderer, running them over like a lost cause. Autox is now something I am addicted to and I run at least once a weekend, this month most Saturdays and Sundays. It is also more challenging because the course is never the same two days in a row. I only got 3 DEs so far this year, and may do maybe 3 more in the Fall. I also got wifey involved with autox and she has also become an addict. Pay attention to this part Mark. I put her in the C2S and she came along with no idea about it at all. Her first run looked like she was looking for a parking spot at the mall. Her last run looked like she was in a hurry to find a parking spot. That was Sept last year. She tried it twice and bought her own helmet. This year is a lot different as she is faster than a lot of the other drivers, and I am starting to win my division once in a while. Saturday a BMW instructor called her a highly skilled and aggresive driver! She actually beat me last weekend!! I turned in a much faster time but killed a bunch of cones in the process, having a bad hair day. It really is good to both be hooked on this, and I love having her along. We each drive to the events and have two way radios to communicate with each other. And umm....we both get AARP junkmail, never to old to learn something new.

jdistefa

+1 bazillion

Mark Dreyer

Rich,

Bobby was sore but doing fine also, thank God. I gave him some of my advils and checked on him a couple times before leaving. I offered to reimburse his track registration cost because I felt so bad to have done this to him. He was a real gentleman about it and refused my offer. I have his email and will check up on him over the next few days. He is a REAL class act.

I've enjoyed your participation in the leadership of these DE events over the past few years I've been involved. If my wife doesn't come around about me tracking again, perhaps I'll come as a volunteer just to keep my "feet wet"

Mark Dreyer

Is there any good link I can send my wife that describes autocross? I think I'll start on her about this but want to have some info for her to read from an "expert" rather than hearing it from me, who she considers to be a daredevil with no concern over my life. :-))

Cool story about your wife's autocrossing evolution Musl Karr

MTosi

Just when I'm getting depressed about it being monday and having 5 more days of work, I read through a thread like this and it just brightens my day (not at your misfortune Mark, just the other bantering)....

I don't know how anyone after his 8,000+posts can take VR's initial post picture as anything but sarcastic, please he's just being humorous and lightning the mood.....


edit: here's the wiki Auto X link (not exactly expert)-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocross

Also if your looking to get into Auto X try to find a club that runs nice open courses, and that gets plenty of runs at. It's can get frustrating to run with a club that has 30 seconds courses where you only get 3-5 runs.

Mussl Kar

We have an autox forum here but mostly Q and A. I bet you will get a ton of feedback if you post your wifes questions there. Do a youtube search for Devens autocross. There are a lot of recent videos showing the sport because HMS was selling small video cams at that event. I never wanted to try it because why would I want to hang around all day for 8 runs of 70-120 seconds. I quickly became addicted. I ended up going every weekend with one club or another and really didn't look at my times a lot. There I was driving the snot out of my GT3 RS and getting hosed by just about every other driver and car there. I didn't care because I was having fun. It was my only outlet so I went and because of my leg condition I got put on gate duty all last summer, that kinda sucked but the clubs all accomodated me. It is an extreemly safe sport. I know because I used to spin so many times until I dumped the cup tires for A6s. Nothing to hit. Safe enough that a complete novice can go solo if they want.

mrbill_fl

-I have still not attended one of their events, but this looks perfect for you Mark.
run on a old air field, no telephone poles or anything else to hit (but cones), and its high speed.

http://www.gulfcoastautocrossers.com/

look up google earth on this address, good view of the course....
here: http://gulfcoastautocrossers.com/aerial.pdf#INDEX



(but AX is like kinda like quarter mile drags to me... a whole lot of down time for a little 'wheel' time.)

GL!

VERBOTN

Mark:
Get with Bert D. with FL Citrus he is big time into auto-x and hosts monthly events with Martin SCC handling the timing. I think he has a championship series and they have events concurent with DE's at Sebring and also at the Lake County Sheriffs training center. If the auto-x does not work out you may ask if you can use their live-fire range.........