Went back? I went back to Texas! I was still waiting for a response from being rear ended on friday.

 

All I know is that I had a great time racing. And Won. My name did not appear in the list of shame and neither did the 2nd or 3rd place car in GTS1. Perfectly clean ( Eric, Sorry if I was between you and Christian under the checker, but I was worried about Brant 2 seconds back)

Hard not to expect contact when a rain shower comes though and wets down two important corners of the track 5 minutes before we went out. I am sure that if you were to go back and look, at least 80% of the contact were in those two corners.

Who says they are going to be lenient. The official results are not out yet. I have a friend that got a DQ 2 weeks after an event for contact.


Oh yea, 65 cars on track at once. That is a lot to manage. Especially with about 1/4 of the field on wet setup making them especially slow. CMC and Factory Five had a total of like 25 cars on track.


Thanks

Ed Baus
Polizei 944 GTS1

 

Much like Ed, I too came home with an intact car and no new dents. And congrats to Ed for a great win and solid weekend.

On the contact front, for whatever reason, nationals brings out the testosterone in many as the regional events in great lakes, at MidOhio, are pretty clean. Chris summed it up pretty well.

On the race director front, the one thing I was disappointed with was the amount of passing under yellow with no consequences. I know both corner workers filed reports and evidence was submitted, but no action was taken. Maybe it gets corrected in a few weeks.

 

Boo for not knowing.

Yours truly started 3rd in grid behind John Graber and Brant Geire. At the start JP, next to me, had the jump on me and pressed Brant. I made it past JP in madness and John in 11 when Brant went for the apex moving John to the grass.

I eventually got by Brant, but John made a re-appearance in front of me when I missed a shift in the back straight. John slipped on one of the corners that had been wetted down by the rain and I was back by.

The race went about like that for me. I know that Brant and Paul Milligan had a great battle behind me, but I was too afraid to look back.

When the race was over, I prevailed, Brant was only 2 seconds back and Paul another 3 behind him. Closest race of any of the GTS fields.

Ed

 

BMW hit the 993 into the Keyhole 993 was done for the weekend with header damage. The BMW was moved to the back of the field for the race Sunday no 13/13.

 

Good race Ed. In the heat of the moment I was wondering why you werent going but then I remembered you were a 1 car. When I first saw you and that GTS4 car I thought it was my chance to make the pass on Christian. Just didnt turn out like I hoped. Didnt mean anything by the tap, sorry.

 

GTS 1 was THE race IMHO, we had a ball...of course I am a little biased!

 

I spoke with the driver in the 993. He was told the reason there was no 13 issued was because the damage did not meet the 50/50 rule in the CCR with regards to determining if damage occured.

Really? Pretty sure that video shows parts falling off the 993. And are we to assume that since headers are located under the car and therefore invisible from 50 feet, any damage to them does not constitute a serious offense?

 

There has been a lot of discussion/complaining about contact this year at NASA Nationals.
NASA GTS uses a MODIFIED 13/13 rule.
There are several key lines in the rule you should pay attention to.
They do not use PCA's 13/13 rule.

The argument has always been that there is the same amount of contact at a NASA and PCA race. Clearly that was not the case at NASA Nationals this year.
I am not saying it is right or wrong, but the that results are/were clearly different using a modified 13/13 rule.




2011 German Touring Series (GTS) Rules
December 13, 2010 V1.1
Copyright 2010, National Auto Sport Association, Inc.


2. Modified 13/13
To promote clean and competitive driving, in addition to NASA’s rules and suggested sanctions
in the CCR, the series will use a Modified 13/13 rule for on course conduct. The intent of the
Modified 13/13 rule is to provide some degree of deterrence against casual body damage and
contact by careless drivers but without excessive penalties for normal race driving. In multiple
car incidents all relevant evidence will be used to assess fault. Sanctions for drivers found to be
at fault will be imposed by officials on a sliding scale subject to the discretion of the officials.
Drivers in single car incidents will not be subject to sanction under the Modified 13/13 rule. The
Modified 13/13 rule can also be applied to a driver whose on track conduct causes damage to
another driver’s car even if there was no physical contact between the cars. Penalty decisions
will be heard by any combination of NASA Race Directors, GTS officials, and/or Incident
Review Boards (IRB’s) which may be formed and operated per the NASA CCR.
GTS Modified 13/13 penalties will not be applied when an incident occurs in a mixed race group
between a GTS driver and a driver in another class. In those instances, standard NASA CCR
penalties and procedures will apply.
The Modified 13/13 rule can be applied post event as it is not always possible to determine fault
at the track in a timely manner. No Modified 13/13 penalty can conflict with the findings of a
NASA Race Director and penalties can vary in length subject to the discretion of GTS officials.
Regardless of the length of the penalty, no penalty is over until the driver participates in at least
one GTS class race while subject to the penalty.

 

Are we really having a discussion about NASA and the 13/13 rule?

One of the reasons I race with NASA is that the 13/13 rule is not like it is with PCA. There is a sense of reason that goes along with it rather than with PCA that there is always someone at fault and there is always a 13/13 handed out for every incident.

My opinion is that the PCA 13/13 rule teaches drivers to be VERY agressive when they are sure that they will not get a 13 out of a contact rather than actually racing. Do you really want to trade incidents for incidents, then why do we not keep track of how many contacts happen at a PCA event and compare. How about SCCA.

Second statement. Is NASA a bit more like real racing and PCA more for gentlemen to run thier cars in a race enviroment ? I think so.

I would rather advocate removing the 13/13 rule from NASA and let incidents be handled the same way they do with every other racing class at NASA.

Ed

 

No, I am not having a discussion about the 13/13 rule but about the CCR and the 50/50 rule. NASA said they did not issue a 13 because the damage did not meet the criteria of the 50/50 rule in the CCR. I am OK with that, understand that, and have even enforced that rule as a GTS series director.

My question was, how did that damage not meet the 50/50 rule? I'm pretty sure I can see missing bumper parts traveling 50 mph from 50 yards, but I have 20/13 eyesight so am I just weird? And my question about the hidden damage of busted up headers is a serious question. Does hidden damage come into play or not when enforcing the 50/50 rule? Is the rule meant to be a guideline to help evaluate the seriousness of the hit or is it meant to be taken literally so only cosmetic damage counts?

What the rules end up being is far less important than consistently enforcing those rules. I'll race under PCAs 13/13 rule, NASAs 13/13 rule, or no 13 rule at all. But I do want to be certain that whatever the rule set is, it will be followed consistently and fairly. I have real questions after seeing all the video being posted.

 

Valid comments Rob.

 

Sorry about the poor job on results. I blasted down in my GT3 at 5:30 in the morning from home and left for home 15 minutes after the cars came off the track.

It was great to see my GTS buddies but I did notice the duct tape and dents on grid and heard the stories.

My job was to spot for my GTS 4 driver, I tried to keep up with the other classes. I did not realize that drivers had chosen rains for the race while I was spotting. It must have been a bitch.

 

Easy big fella.

 

Not a wack. Just seems to be a different feel about them.

I have raced SCCA PCA for 11 years and NASA since it has been in this area (maybe 7 or 8 years)

I am not saying it is not all really good racing and really good competitive in each and its own, but just a different feel.

As a for instance. PCA has no season points. It has only been the last 3 or 4 years that 1st, 2nd or 3rd place trophies have been handed out. When I asked why, the answer has been that they do not want to encourage the kind of competitiveness that leads to car damage.

I completely get that and that is fine. I still have a great time racing in PCA too, just the attitude is different.

BTW, the words about gentlemen racing are not my own, they were from the earlier days on the PCA website as describing the racing within PCA and the reason for the 13/13 rule.