sbelles

He's also largely responsible for the blue bushes at the glen. I'm sure that they have saved some lives. They've also trashed a whole lot of cars.

GT3DE

I have only been once to MoSPort - last summer 2012 for DE. Ran in the RED instructor group (I am not an instructor). Butt clenching, stomach knotting, finger death gripping... what a blast.
Then I was watching some race there this year on TV and saw what they did to t2 and a few other spots. Hmmm. I am sure this will save a LOT of cars and maybe even a few lives.
But I am thinking a little of the thrill is gone for me.

My favorite tracks are the fast and "dangerous" (according to racers' lore). But not because I heard they are dangerous. I seldom knew of any track's particular reputation before I drove it. Usually any given track's story was of no interest to me until I had actually been there and driven it. Driving them is when I felt the "danger". And then later all the paddock/bar talk and online talk and commentator talk on tv - that is when I heard all the rumors and legends of the "danger".

It just so happens that I am a bit bored when I drive somewhere that is not "dangerous". What am I calling "dangerous"? The turns that scare me a little, the one I worry about if I were to fvck up. The ones I worry that I am going too slow because I am scared of crashing. I enjoy that nervousness and the thrill of walking on the edge.

Have I ever crashed at any of these turns? No. Maybe that is why I still like them.

Here is the list of turns that gets me heart pumping, in no particular order:
MoSport t4 - trying to not lift going over the blind hill.
VIR - trying to not lift (much) going up the esses.
WGI - trying not to lift from t1 through the esses.
Road America - trying not to lift before the kink.
Road Atlanta - t12 just trying not to end up in the grass or wall.

That's all I can think of now.

ninjabones

Summit point turn 4

gbuff

Agreed...I don't recall exactly when the Armco was installed but I'm guessing it was after his young teammate, Cevert, was decapitated prior to the 1973 GP.

chrisc

Cevert was killed when he hit the Armco & landed cockpit side down on top of the Armco. Koenig was killed the following year when he went off and submarined the Armco.

gbuff

Guessed wrong, then....as an aside, just read a nice reminiscience of Cevert by Peter Windsor in the latest F1Racing mag.

utkinpol

There was a post here or in gt3 forum about some 100+ mph crash on some european track right into the wall, and a picture of a car with practically no damage. Also there was a picture of what looked like a 10ft thick special material in between track and concrete wall. I would really like to ask those questions - why almost none of domestic tracks utilize modern safety features to prevent people from getting fatally hurt?

chrisc

Great comments in PCA Club Racing News re fixing the Tech Pro wall(s) at COTA. Cost to racer is $2400 but it is being reported that the reduced damage to the cars is worth the $2400 bucks.

Astroman

I agree. Haven't been to Mosport or VIR (yet), but these other signature corners at ATL, WG, and RA require the most "commitment"... They are the ones that, at least in my little car, are flat out if you have the courage and skill. Keeping the pedal to the metal is a very hard thing to do...

Flying Finn

Bishop Bend at Sebring is also kinda sketchy. I've had couple of moments there at 115 mph with pretty quick oversteer (there's video) where it could end pretty bad.
Love it though, what's life without challenges?

fatbillybob

I'm not the greatest driver but I really appreciated the mindfack a track like Cota plays. I was only able to racer there once but when I did all those painted areas in my mind were like cement walls. They demarcated the track well and I would keep telling myself I could have gone faster through there. For me that track plays mind games but it is the only modern track I have ever raced.

High on my wish list would be racer's voices loud enough to get tracks to just mitigate risks. Many tracks that are fine hitting a wall in an 85hp caged miata are not fine in a GT3. We lost Sean Edwards to a silly accident into a cement wall protected by 1 row of tires. We know the faster a car goes the more likely it skips over gravel traps. A simple tirewall before the current tirewall and perhaps Sean Edwards would still be alive today. Today with 650hp ZR1 vettes, gtr's and many flavors of porsche, tracks need to plan for amateurs in really fast cars. Even over the last 15 years cars are so much faster and fly off the track so much further. Last year in a NASA race we had a record flight of mustang which crashed through the access road block wall at WSIR a track built in 1953 still with many features of 1953 today.

TXE36

During last May's PCA CR at COTA I was standing on the T3 bridge watching the race with a lot of other people. Lot's of excited chatter on the bridge, until a yellow Porsche lost it under the bridge going an estimated 90 MPH. The whole bridge fell silent for the few seconds it took for the car to travel down it's now preordained path to the wall. It hit on the right rear so hard that it pushed the foam out the backside of the barrier onto the access road and I believe some small pieces of it made it to the public road.

That car was racing again the next day. The wall cost him 5 grand, but if that had been cement the car would have been written off and the driver could have been seriously hurt.

Impressive to say the least. On top of that, not much of the wall was damaged as it appeared only one block was caved in. A bunch of other blocks moved with it, but the track crew just put them back into place.

I can't believe I'm saying this about COTA, but the barriers there for the cost seem to be a pretty good value.

-Mike

TXE36

I wonder if that's the same stuff they use at COTA. I walked up to T1 and got a close look. The COTA barriers are two rows of blocks. The outer facing is continuous. On the inside there are air gaps so the inside row is not continuous. They are pretty deep. There are also cables strung through them IIRC.

On problem may be they have to be designed into the place. It looked like a lot of engineering, I'm not sure that one could just stack these up next to an existing wall.

-Mike

rstrahota

I would nominate the laces at WGI... Mechanical failure (brake failure or stuck throttle, for example) or two off at turn-in there would be (or has been) very nasty.
ds

DTMiller

+996