M758

plus "closing the pits" can mean cars run out of fuel on track. That is bad too. Really the thing to do is reduce the number of FCY. Fewer FCY the less chance there is to foul the race order.

Still ALMS is looking at the issue, but I am not sure they can solve it without just trading one probelm for another problem.

Professor Helmüt Tester

"There is no free lunch".

Every iteration of a "FCY" rule will have consequences, and there will be winners and losers in every one of those circumstances. To simply think "Well, they shouldn't do that" denies the fact that, by not waving cars past the Safety Car to pick up the leader, you create a different scenario where someone else is advantaged or disadvantaged.

Der Professor has significant experience in endurance racing, has spend a whole lot of time trundling around behind a Safety Car while some ugly mess was cleaned up, and has both gained and lost track position due to it.

Rules-writing for endurance racing is a whole lot more complicated than sprint races. "Haves" and "have-nots" are always created, although at the time of writing, you have no idea who you're screwing or benefitting in the future. To criticize those rules based on once particular set of circumstances (i.e. RA last weekend) without understanding the full implications of different rules ("they should have done it XXXXX-way") is unenlightened.

Der Professor is off this weekend to piloté for half of a 12 hour race. Likely FCYs will screw somebody, and help somebody else. Part of the game. There is no way...no possible set of rules...that avoids that.

I just hope I'm a screwer and not a screwee this weekend.

DanJK

Just another iteration of "you just don't get it - its racing." Sorry I'm too stupid - or unenlightened to understand.

Bryan Watts

Feel free to throw out a "solution" to the problem that doesn't also have the potential to aid or hurt other cars.

Professor Helmüt Tester

...and let us know when & where you find that free lunch.

MJR911

Good luck at Nelson.

mglobe

It seems to me like most times fcy's in single class series (IRL, F1, NASCAR,...) aid cars that are behind. Not perfect I suppose, but it does makes things more interesting for fans, and afterall, racing is an entertainment business. I'd rather see rules that tend to cause closer racing than ones that hand the race to someone early on and negates the remainder of the race. The current rules took what should have been the best GT2 race ever, and turned it into a non-event.

SundayDriver

I'll even go one better and offer a couple of suggestions. They will be fairer overall, but may not work out. Two problems to solve; 1) With multiple classes, if the leader has split a close race in another class, then one car gets almost a full lap on the other (what we say happen), 2) FCY allows cars to make up as much as a full lap from their 'fair' track position.

Here is proposal #1 - close the pits to sort out the order. Move all the fastest class cars to a group in the front, followed by the other classes - each segregated. So we have four groups of cars in current ALMS races. Now we have messed up P2 cars who might be going for the overall win, and many cars still get a huge advantage by closing the gap, but the close races are preserved.

Sound pretty doable, yes? Oh, now let's consider how that would really work. T&S only knows the positions at S/F so we have to go back to the order at the end of the previous lap. So sorry if you finally were able to make that killer pass during the lap - you give it back. Now all we have to do is communicate the correct order to the officials. Now how do we tell the cars what order to assume? Oh, and we can only see the current order each time the field comes by S/F. We can't expect the corners to police the order - they neither have the information in front of them nor any way to correct the problem. BTW - This is much like what SCCA goes through with a Black Flag All situation. Solution - bring all the cars in the pits, park them, get the new grid sheet and rearrange. 15 minutes is usually adequate to get that sorted out.

So now every time we have a FCY, instead of a couple of laps of yellow, we now stop the race for 15 minutes. Too bad if your race car overheats when parked - that is the luck of the draw in our new, fair FCY procedure.

Proposal #2 - No bunching - keep everyone spaced as they were. All we need is a bunch of pace cars that can all enter, pick up their part of the field, motor around at the same speed AND all leave at the same time for the green flag. Of course we are screwed if the first group does not get the green, then everyone bunches up. Anyone care to sort out how this is going to work?

You get my point? There appears to be no way to make the FCY process more fair without making it less fair somewhere else. But I would love to hear well thought out suggestions on how this could be done.

Bryan Watts

Good point, I hadn't even thought of that scenario. Not to mention a GT2 car that has worked REALLY hard to put a slower GT1 car between itself and it's competition only to have a FCY allow that GT1 car to jump back ahead where it may end up botching a corner for the lead GT2 car after all of the work it had done to get by.

I too would love to hear proposals for a more fair system.

ECS

Actually, Sunday Drivers #1 scenario is a good one with one adjustment. In this age of electronics, RFIDs, etc. there is absolutely a way to know where everyone was at the exact moment of the FCY. This could easily be tracked at T/S. Example; you know exactly when the FCY comes out, this triggers the immediate position via in car RFIDs and bingo, you radio each car where to line up in the class. Sure it brings everyone closer but that is a great thing. Lapped traffic can stay lapped. For P1s vs P2s they could be clumped in one group.

race911

OK, for the dense here, and in practical terms, ALMS has two running orders. (Tell me where the GT1 car is that the GT2 leader has trouble passing..........) You have prototypes. As I calculated at Road America, they are up to 20 seconds a lap faster than the GT2 cars. Where is the GT2 car getting held up by ANY prototype, save me showing up with my Radical? So you've got a grid of a dozen prototypes. How hard is it to let them all shuffle ahead and restart ahead of the GT2 cars?

Radio scenario:

DFL Prototype Crew Chief: "Go ahead of ALL GT cars. Take your restart position ahead of ALL GT cars. Queue behind P2 car XX."

DFL Prototype Driver: "You sure? I can't even see ahead of them all."

DFL Prototype Crew Chief: "There are SEVEN ahead of you. Count as you pass each one. Then you will come up behind a P2 car. NOT a Porsche, Corvette, BMW, Panoz or any other GT car. We've got faith that you can do it! Push! Push!"

What scenario could make this more difficult? The GT cars have to do absolutely nothing except look for (likely) fewer than 5 or 6 P1/P2 cars passing gingerly under yellow.

(Note this scenario answers the question at hand--ALMS yellow flag rules. You can speculate all you want about amateur racing and the consequences, but the question asked about ALMS and its lightly entered field with huge disparities in lap times that allow the leaders to lap the GT field every 6-8 laps.)