BostonDMD

So if you write a big enough check you become one of the "fast guys"?

Vonschmidt

First I am more than sorry for each person involved in this event and hope that we can all learn something from this. I'm more concerned though by what I hope is not a real ad placed right here on Rennlist.

https://rennlist.com/forums/racing-a...ay24-26-a.html

I mean it looks like a formula for diaster, hopefully they have one standards other than checkbook.

Julian Allen

Something to consider is that whoever was in that track left position at the start of the race would most likely have had the same incident. I'm just sayin'. . . . And the same result would happen to someone else in the track right position.
And yet, going by the quote attributed to Doc Bundy, we're still responsible because it was our driving that placed us in that spot on the grid.
I guess what I'm saying is any of us could have been in the same incident. With the same results.

winders

You make it sound like the event was inevitable and unavoidable. That is just wrong.....

Scott

paradisenb

Re: drivers meet and greet. Maybe 'the seats' at the first drivers meeting at each event could be arranged so drivers of each race group are seated together. That could be an ice breaker. Separate meet and greets are not likely to happen.

DrJupeman

Or as I like to say, "There are no virgins in a titty bar..."



Assuming I can take credit for being "jupermam" (not sure about the "mam", part ), I thought I'd say something about this "fast car/guy" stuff. I've raced PCA now in "slow" cars (SPBOX) and what I guess are "intermediate" cars (964 Cup, Turbo 3.6) and this season am trying my hand at a "fast" car (6Cup, though that may be quickly becoming an intermediate in these fields!). I'm pretty "scared" to race this thing. At this point I have a reasonable amount of experience, I think (you can judge me here), for PCA racing but I'm approaching this new car very cautiously. That said, I could still screw up and if I do what weenies will say "stupid Cup car driver"?

I can see myself making the same mistake this guy at Road Atlanta made. I hope my experience, and to a lesser degree my talent, would steer me clear of doing so, but I'm not cocky enough to think I couldn't screw up, too. Few, if any, of us are that perfect.

The experience level in PCA runs the gamut from "barely did 12 DE days" to real pros. This range of experience can be found in any class and race group. I know because I've been around all of them. I don't know how many of the "12 day" crowd are in the fast group, but it would be interesting if PCA considered a "super license" concept like many historic racing groups have to help ensure some aren't getting in over their head. Faster cars definitely require more experience, if not also talent.

Glen

Just to be fully disclosed...
My worst 13/26 was at Rd Atlanta... The 13 hurt but the 26k$... That also made an impression

ProCoach

My only serious accidents in two and a half decades of racing have been at RAtl...

analogmike

Nice post, Charlie.

I had an incident in Atlanta too, but no 13... but I almost quit racing as I was very upset. It was my first time in a GT3 cup (996) and coming out of the pits, I saw a car ahead of me crash right into the wall on the right! I couldn't believe someone was that stupid... then I gave the car a LITTLE gas and I spun into the opposite wall. A GT3 cup has about 300HP in the 1st inch of throttle, the last 4 inches don't add much. There was a little oil on the track so no penalty. If I were in my '73 911 I would not have had much of a spin.

There IS sort of an unofficial superlicense.... if you show up with something like a 997 RSR, the race officials will pay EXTRA attention to you, and if they don't think you can handle it, they may send you home. Saw it happen. But maybe it should be required to have so many incident-free races before you can run a wet cup....

KSV

What I know is that #69 showed his video, as I was told, no worker comment was reported to me.
Do not know who #69 apologized. After getting from car #69 blamed #222 for the wreck... etc said before.

Astroman

+1

Geneman

can someone tell me what a "13" is? thanks Frank

sbelles

13 months of probation for a first offense.

13 months of time out for a second incident during that 13 months.

ProCoach

The origin of the original 13/13 rule is attributed to Dewey Dellinger, an early organizer of historic race events and the founder of Victory Lane magazine and dates back to the early 1980's.

It was designed as a deterrent/tracking device for vintage competitors and has morphed into several different iterations, as many as there are organizations who rely and administer it today. My friend (and the founder of PCA Club Racing), Alan Friedman, took the rule as it was written from the organization he was racing with at the time, SVRA, Sportscar Vintage Racing Association, founded in 1978.

I am NOT familiar with the intracacies of the way PCA Club Racing administers the rule, but from the outside, it appears a more "pure" and faithful interpretation to the original screed.

AS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN, the 13/13 rule makes the premise that each driver is completely and utterly responsible for their actions, that a driver in a single car incident can be found to be "at fault," and that a majority of time, the overtaking car is at fault if there is a two-car accident during a passing maneuver. It requires that, unless there are extraordinary and obvious circumstances, that fault be found and the driver, for their first incident, is excused from that event, not eligible to participate in the next event and, if found at fault in a single or multiple car incident in the subsequent 13 months, that their competition privileges be suspended for 13 months.

Simple.

The reason why the term of 13 months exists is because in the early days, major events would be scheduled yearly, like the Kendall Vintage Grand Prix every year at Sebring, or the Mid Ohio Summer Meeting in June, and Dewey and the organizers wanted a way to really put some teeth into the rule so that people would still be "on watch" under probation at that event next year and wouldn't be allowed back the next year IF they blew it and suffered another incident within the probation period.

For decades, the 13/13 was adopted and administered on various organizations by a single person or more usually, a Drivers Committee, officials plus a rotating pool of experienced competitors designed to spread the load and eliminate stale thinking. I remember I was on the Committee for the SVRA finale in 1990, banging my fist on the table for stern, consistent punishment.

After my big accident in the Esses at the end of the final day, I remember being met in Medical by the Competition Director, Jeff Brooks, and being greeted by his leering face saying "now, what was that you were saying?" needless to say, I went on probation for 13 months, drove another 8 events over the next 13 months and went off probation...

Due to the frequency of my racing, my "aggressive" competition approach (I like to think of it more as "decisive" ) and the fact that I have always been on the pointy end of the grid in just about every car I've ever raced, I have been on probation several times in my competition career. Does that mean I'm a bad driver? No, it means I had brain farts and momentary errors in judgement any human being suffers from, thankfully only very, very periodically!

Over the last decade and a half, the original rule has been watered down in other groups so that there are shorter terms of probation and suspension for less egregious offences, but the primary reason for the rule was simply to put drivers on notice and MAKE THEM THINK more carefully during the time they were on probation so that the suspension would not kick in.

For the most part, it's been an extremely effective tool for groups running races to impute the proper mind-set and identify those who choose to put themselves in harms way unsuccessfully over a set period of time, identifying "serial" transgressors or pattern offenders. It's not always completely "fair" but it is the bedrock of the expectation that the organizations use to help their drivers hew to best behavior and the most thought. It works.

I wrote a long article about it that originally appeared in Grassroots Motorsports magazine in September/October 1997 and its on my "Track Wisdom" page on my site. It's something I have been teaching as Chief Instructor for SVRA for the last twenty years and as Lead Coach for Bobby Rahal's Legends of Motorsports, among others.

It's succinct, easy to understand and a very consistent, repeatable mechanism for driver discipline. The data would indicate that it works...

KaiB

This...thank you Charlie.