Ritter v4.0

I raced for the first time with NASA at RA this past w/e.

I think except for the 3 hr Enduro, every session including race, practice and qual had at least one major accident and was cut short. I think one qual session after only 3 laps. One race had 3 or 4 wrecks- I stopped counting.
If I hadn't driven 2 of the 3 hrs of the enduro I would have been very pissed at the already minimal seat time cut short.

I've only raced with PBOC before and while some have disparaged them, the 3 events I've done don't rank with this one.

Is this just another NASA w/e?

mglobe

Not normal from what I've seen with NASA Texas. The GTS races look a lot like PCA races in terms of people giving each other room, and a general lack of significant incidences. The SM races are more of a pinball game, but that seems to be the norm with SM in general.

fjpdds

Not a racer, but my one NASA DE at RA was filled with flags, wrecks and the flatbeds running out. I have not seen another DE come close to this. I know it is popular organization, but seems like an extra risky scenario. Also, my car was dented by someone in the paddock, which sucked. As a newbie, it seemed a crazy crowd.

jrgordonsenior

I race with NASA So Cal and although there's occasionally some bozo with more HP than brains, mostly our races are pretty clean. I also race POC and PCA and haven't noticed much difference between the groups. It's usually just 1 moron out of control and ruining the day for others.....

Curious, was this your division's first event of the year? I've found that the first event is usually the worst as most drivers are chomping at the bit to get back out on track after a long winter of waiting....

Veloce Raptor

Dang, David, that sucks. Glad you didn't get caught up in it...

Z-man

I've only been to a handful of NASA HPDE's, but I haven't see anything in terms of number of wrecks that isn't comparable to PCA.

Just my $0.42,
-Z

Mahler9th

I am sure that experiences vary. I find NASA to be an extremely well-run organization, and the cars and drivers to be on top of things in general.

I race with the Porsche Racing Club in NorCal. We race under NASA sanction at select NorCal NASA region events. We get our own group. Only Porsches. Yes, our own group!!! We started doing this in 2002. Since then I have generally seen more incidents at the Club Races I have attended than in our group.

Some of our guys will run with other NASA groups in addition for more driving time. For example with GTS, or with an HPDE 4 or time trial group. Or in my case, my wife will occasionally run the same weekend in the TT group.

Several of our guys are NASA officials and act as stewards for just our group and for just our tech. Several of our wives and S/O's are now doing all timing and scoring for NASA NorCal events. This is a great situation/relationship for us. We can do the series of PRC events under NASA sanction, PCA races, for example with the PCA-Golden Gate Region, POC races... lots of opportunities within easy towing distances.

I have watched NASA evolve since the 90's and they continue to evolve and improve. I have seen their safety people out here deal with some pretty hairy stuff. They are top notch in my experience. I am sure that in other parts of the country they will achieve or have achieved the same types of consistent quality events we see here. Help them make it happen!

NASA NorCal put on great events... we have one coming up this weekend at Sears Point. PRC racing under NASA NorCal sanction. Come on out and watch the races and meet some of our folks if you are in the area.

magnetic1

I wouldnt call it typical. Ive done many NASA-SE races that have been incident free. Last NASA-MA event at VIR was almost incident free except for a brush fire.

Maybe it's just some people driving crazy because it's their first time out on track in a while.

Circuit Motorsports

Not what I've seen at regular NASA events.

Road Atlanta eats cars and does it in big ways. 12, 5, 1 are big time turns that when done wrong can really make a car look bad as you know.

I've seen nasty stuff with EVERY single major group.

PCA? Heck all I've heard about the last event (Sebring) has been about the crashfest that it was.
SCCA? I've seen disaster weekends on them. T1 start at the runoffs last year took out over half the field.
NASA? What you saw from what it sounds like.
Vintage? Group 6. Kohler a few years back.

Sean F

I've always seen more carnage at PCA races

911S3.6

I think it is probably regional, like PCA / BMWCCA - there are well run, good ones; and nightmare regions.
I ran a full race season in GTS with Midwest / Great Lakes NASA and as the season wore on, the gloves came off, more crashes, no restraint by the race directors, and by the Regional Championships, it was all yellow and black flags with countless wrecks. Mostly from over amped stupid f*cks thinking they were getting something for their efforts, besides cheap plastic trophies and "track records".

IMHO, the best candidate for NASA is: if you have an American Iron or some such car, where parts are expendable and cheap to replace i.e. junkyards etc- you don't feel the need to be restrained.
If you are driving a $80,000+ built 911/or M3 Race car, you are leery [or extremely rich, or incredibly stupid]

Obviously, there is a place for NASA~CAR racing. Some feel PCA CR is too stringent in the 13/13 rules etc- so those folks can cut loose at NASA. { no 13/13 has been issued in Midwest/ Great Lakes in over 3 years, despite 17 out of 24 GTS cars were crashed out at least once last season}

On the other hand, those that have nice cars they are trying to develop and use racing as their test bed, hooliganism prevails.

Something for everyone i reckon_

ukrbmw

David - I was there this past weekend.

One thing I will say - RA events are a bit more prone to accidents, because of the walls being so close anytime somebody goes off they find the wall and it's a mess. With that said I was racing in lightning and every single one of our accidents was caused by one of 2 Thunder Roadsters running with us and it was frustrating! We're even trying to get them moved out of our run group.

I was also running TT and we didn't have any problems until RX7 caught on fire (random issue kind of). Thunder races did have accidents - very unusual actually. 99% of the time it's lightning that has all the accidents with our low HP cars and close racing. Thunder has nice cars which folks just don't want to bend.

Sorry you had a bad experience. Jim Pantas puts on a great event and is very considerate to let people catch up. It's not uncommon for him to let the day run 30 minutes longer to allow people to get their money's worth. I hope you come out again and try another event - CMP or Charlotte.

Alex

Circuit Motorsports

I'm with Sean that I've seen lots of carnage at PCA events. I don't think the 13/13 really is effective in reducing incidents.

jrgordonsenior

You got me interested, but your forecast calls for 70% rain both days. Too far for those odds.....

Here's our first NASA race of the year a week ago at Cal Speedway. Its the ST grouping, I'm down on the left at the start. All you really need to watch is the first 45 seconds and the bozo in the white NASCAR Chevy....

http://www.youtube.com/user/americanmusl?feature=mhum

Veloce Raptor

He done ran outta talent!