DrJupeman

Scott, please do not take what I am about to say as me being a jerk, but given the number of spun cars hit this weekend I am compelled to say....

Imo from that video, you showed anti-Schumacher reflexes. You had a LOT of time to slow down and not make that as close as it was. You were clearly racing closely and do not appear to back out or slow down at all for that spinning car. You came very close to t-boning that guy in the driver's door. That could easily have killed him. I watch that video and I'm shocked you're accelerating up the hill late in the video when it is clearly obvious you see should see him.

Greg Smith

You've got to look further ahead.

Mark in Baltimore

Hmmm. 1) The winkie smiley that Scott used seems to indicate that his reference to Schumacher was tongue-in-cheek; 2) Scott did not hit the spinning car; 3) although he did not appear to slow down, he did use his steering wheel to avoid contact; 4) if he had slowed down, perhaps he would have hit the 944.

It's easy to bench race after the game, but the bottom line is that Scott avoided trouble that clearly came in his path.

Brian P

The fact that he avoided the trouble does not mean that he chose correctly. It just means that he got EXTREMELY lucky. Speeding up to a car that is almost surely going to bounce off the wall to an unpredictable trajectory is just stupid. If you were the guy who hit the wall and looked downtrack to the traffic coming out of the boot, I can bet that you would like to see that traffic slowing down rather than speeding up.

The only excuse for this in my mind is that he didn't see the car hit the wall. If he did, he had plenty of time to come to a complete stop with 0% chance of hitting that car.

good hands

Being a rookie I appreciate any and all constructive criticism from experienced racers. I can tell you for sure it certainly happened much faster than it appeared on video. As you can also see I had a car on my inside that I was trying to keep an eye on as I rounded the toe and I remember looking in my side view to make sure I wasn't cutting him off. I did not see him hit the wall and my first thought was that he had spun and was stationary. It really happened so quickly it seemed like a blurr at the time.

Mark in Baltimore

Okay, how about it's really easy to Monday evening quarterback? Could he have backed out of the throttle? Yes, perhaps. Would that have resulted in the white 911 or red 944 hitting him? Yes, perhaps. Would they have not hit him if he had backed out of the throttle? Yes, perhaps. The only thing that we know definitively is that Scott's actions did not result in any contact. A good part of this sport is luck, not to say that Scott doesn't have some good food for thought However, his post was not hey-look-how awesome-I-am but more of a wow-that-was-a-close-call.

AndyT

I have to say, and mind you I do not have the experience that Jupe and Brian have, that as a rookie you are trying to figure out who has a turn and when to either take it or back off. it's questionable but i always back off when it looks hairy. I don't want the 13 13 or an incident. OK so back to Scott. IMHO he probably was happy to get through the toe in one piece and was aiming ahead. The spin happened and he just wanted to get past it. Yes it was not the best choice and yes he could have done many other things. However you don't learn this stuff in a book and now he may have some insight for next time. I am with mark here but am not disagreeing with Charlie or Brian.

Brian P

At 19 seconds into the video, it appears that you have the apex (it looks like there is a little less than half a car width between you and the curbing). As soon as you realize that the other car can't fit there and you aren't going through the corner side by side, you need to look far ahead up track so that you are better prepared for this stuff.

At 20 seconds into the video (this is very clear if you download the full resolution copy of the video), it's obvious that this car is in trouble as it has at least a 20 degree slip angle.

At 21 seconds, the car has spun and is about to hit the wall.

The question is when did you actually see him? The sooner you saw him, the better choices you had available to you and the more likely it was that you could avoid contact. The later you saw him, the more likely it was that you were just a participant and physics took its course.

Also, the toe of the boot eats up lots of cars. I'm always trying to look around that corner as soon as I can so that I know if I have to take evasive action. NEVER rely on the flagger being the one to warn you - sometimes you'll be the first car there.

Brian P

One other thing... You don't pass the car until 24 seconds into the video. So, even with accelerating, you had 4 seconds of time to plan and react if you realized that the car was going to spin at the 20 second mark.

If your plan was to back out of it (rather than accelerate) I'm willing to guess that you may have been able to stretch that to about 6 or 7 seconds.

Again, it's all a matter of when you actually saw the car. If you didn't realize that you would need to take evasive action until it bounced off the wall and started coming back on track (which was at the 23 second mark), then you probably did the right thing by staying full throttle.

arrivederci

Looks like you were on a tear Mike...shame that they split D and E too. Glad to hear that Bill is ok.

chas911

Charlie, did I hurt your chances for a win.

Sorry, I spun on exit of turn 8 trying to hold off an H and J car.

Charlie

Bull

Hey, watch it! I know Dave and we are contemporaries from back in the day when he was amassing a string of National Championships. When he drove his '65 ex-rally 911 to my house back in '05, we both agreed that we remain quite young...with a few years left before hitting 100!

Larry Herman

See, I knew you were older than me. I knew it, I knew it, and now you admitted it.

Bull

I may have "a few years left before hitting 100", but it is definitely a few more than YOU! I'm told they are already planning your centennial party.

Streak

Wow, tough room here. As a fellow rookie we are always trying to learn and with more race experience Scott may have done something differently. Armchair quarterbacking a video is far different from being in the car and have the perspective beyond the camera lens.

Having said that, as rookies we get loads of new information almost hourly in a race weekend and after as it's discussed on the interwebs. Much of the info we absorb is contradictory. A case in point is the Nasa enduro that I'm posting a link to. I did exactly as suggested above as a car spun in front of me. I came to a near halt. As a result I lost several positions and the universal reaction was that I should have taken advantage and kept my foot in it. The opposite of what's being advised in Scott's video. Every one said "nice safe reaction but it cost you." Safe is always good, I'm not arguing that. In time our little rookie brains will be able to evaluate "safe vs opportunity" I suppose. But on the heels of the spin at the Nasa race where the "take advantage" attitude is strong I completely understand Scott staying on the gas and steering out of harms way rather than stopping with a field of cars behind him ready to stack up on his whale tail.

We'll get better at this race thing.

goto the 3:30 mark:

http://www.vimeo.com/4364668