ProCoach

I've seen people suffer the same health hazards in DE as racing, albeit not quite in the same ratio to participant numbers.

You need to run Sebring in the summer, sometime. Might kill you...

hf1

I'll just repeat what I asked couple of weeks ago:

winders

But let's be very clear: DE is NOT racing. There are much higher stress levels racing than at a typical DE.

Mark Dreyer

Even with a cool suit. :-)

Manifold

Apparently, there have been fatalities in tennis and even ping pong (http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandoli...sk/sports.html), so ban them both immediately, anything more than zero risk can't be tolerated!

But seriously, I looked into this question of DE risks, made some estimates, and concluded that, per mile driven, the rates of injuries and fatalities are roughly the same in DE as on the road, on average, though the rate of crashes is much higher on the track than on the road (which also means that the rate of injury or fatality per crash is much lower on the track than on the road, presumably due to better safety equipment, better runoffs, cars all going the same direction, no intersections, run groups and monitoring of drivers, emergency services on stand-by, etc.). Of course, the actual risks depend on the tracks and roads one drives on, how one drives in both settings, day of week and time of day driving on the road, organizations one drives with on track, and many other factors.

So is there a DE safety "problem"? IMO, no. But we need to remain vigilant in order to prevent risks from increasing, while seeking smart ways to reduce risk without overly compromising the fun/learning goals of DE and without making DE fail financially due to excessive barriers or deterrents to entry.

ProCoach

This jibes with my information.

DTMiller

Ideas from a guy some of you know:

http://kinja.roadandtrack.com/how-ta...ove-1726964994

winders

I found this on Facebook. It is authored by Mark Hicks (Director of Chin Motorsports) in response to an article titled "The Compelling Case for Speed Limits at Track Days" by Jack Baruth interviewing Don Salisbury. Excuse the lack of formatting as Facebook is quite limited in this regard.

I am the director of one of the largest track day providers in the USA. More serious questions need to be asked by responsible people about implementing "speed limits" in the track setting. As an industry professional with a well-established relationship with Rd Atl mgmt , I have been debriefed on the recent incident by authorities, not by the internet. To start with, it was estimated that the incident car in the recent fatality at Road Atlanta was going less than 100mph before impact. So, a "speed limit" would have helped how? Using Road Atlanta as an example, collective data (not anecdotal opinion) conclusively shows that the most frequent incident locations are T7 and T5. How will having limits on straightaway speeds mitigate the incident frequency at those locations? There's no doubt that the overwhelming majority of on-track incidents are cornering related, usually at corner exit, in a speed range of 40-80mph. That's not a guess: I have one of the largest data sets in the country on this subject. Straightaway speed limits will reduce the severity of very rare, low-probability incidents that occur on straights, yes. But, they will have no effect on the majority of incidents, which are cornering related. The tone of the R/T article makes it sound as if there's been a rash of recent fatalities. Bull****. In the last 5 years, I'm aware of 4 fatalities nationwide in track day/HPDE events: 2 involved running-off into trees after loss of control in a corner at tracks with inadequate safety barriers. 1 was a crash at corner exit that resulted in an injury that was exacerbated by an undisclosed medical condition (a normally healthy driver would have likely survived). And, the incident most recently at Road Atlanta. Applying a straightaway speed limit cannot be demonstrated to have a mitigating affect on a single one of the incidents described above. Even though the nationwide numbers of participants has increased in recent years, there's not a sudden spike in fatalities. In fact, fatality probability, as a factor of track miles driven, is probably at an all-time low. I'm not at all cavalier about this, it's serious business. That's why we should be looking at the data. In the R/T editorial by Baruth and commentary by Salisbury, no data or cause/effect analysis is offered. It's strictly opinion based. The uproar is an emotional response without substantive foundation. So, slowing down is "Common Sense"?. Well, if one's car is starting to spin, common sense is to lift and brake. Hmm. Sometimes, the obvious response is not necessarily the correct one. It takes more effort to TEACH safety than to make a rule. But, teaching is the more effective solution. Is it possible for us (organizers) to simply make rules that rule out the risk? No. We can minimize risk, but, we cannot remove it. The only motorsports that is free of risk is when you watch it on TV. HPDE organizers should accept and embrace the responsibility they have to educate, and adopt greater transparency about the risk. The underdeveloped operators tend to ignore it. The most effective way to reduce incidents is to teach the driver to drive. The national organization that I lead has a long novice protocol and stringent check-out requirements. Once the driver has acquired and demonstrated the appropriate skill set, then, isn't it appropriate to tell the driver what they CAN do, rather than what they CAN'T? Track operators and track event providers definitely have responsibilities to fulfill. A primary one is to ensure that participating drivers are ALREADY AWARE OF and ACKNOWLEDGE and ACCEPT the inherent risk. If the driver KNOWS IT, and ACCEPTS IT, then the responsibility is on the driver. As it should be.
I loudly call on Baruth to support his hyperbolic rhetoric with metrics. The data to support his hysteria DOES NOT EXIST. Fatalities have not increased, relative to total driver days/track miles driven.
Chin Motorsports just completed a well-attended track event at Road Atlanta without a single incident resulting in damage, let alone injury. Dozens of instructors rode right seat for hundreds of cumulative laps. Aside from drivers getting better at driving and really enjoying themselves, nothing happened. Just luck?

My name is Mark Hicks, and I approved this message.

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ProCoach

Mark and Maria are good friends of mine, and I just sent a well-known RL'er to them so that we can work together in October. Their program works for me and many of the people I want to work with, but not sure it works for everyone. That's why it's great that we all have choices.

Volunteering as often as I can to present short briefings, seminars and track walks (well, the track walks can get pretty long ) at Chin, TrackDaze, DMTD and a few other selected PCA, Audi and BMWCCA HPDE events work well for me because I believe in the strength of many of their programs.

Yes, Jack is guilty of "clickbait" headlines, but the response to and conversation coming from Ross' SSW article, Don's interview and my (heavily edited for brevity, and not always in the best way to get the message across that I think the properly executed, current system works fine, NO speed limits, please) interview by Jack has been tremendous. It's a conversation that needs to continue and evolve, because there are a TON of great organizers and in-car instructors out there. We just need to be vigilant...

Mark is not accurate when he states he believes that Jack's articles are an indictment of the HPDE sport and industry, both club and for-profit (which Mark operates very well IMO), and I am hoping Jack will interview Mark Hicks, Mark Taylor, David Ray, Rob Schermerhorn, Jeff Caldwell and a few others that do this REALLY well for the most balanced conversation.

Again, there are a million different ways to structure the transfer, encouraging the assimilation of collective driving wisdom. I look at great programs like John and Melonie Sullivan's Audi Club, CVR-PCA (among many other Regions), Tarheel, Boston and Capitol Chapter BMWCCA (again, among many) DE programs and it makes me happy. The sport is SO much better than it was when I was just "turned loose," solo and in a Ferrari (?!?!) at Roebling Road and Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1983 and 1984...

We should always strive to do better. That's all.

Carrera51

Well said by Peter and Mark.

hf1

+1
Exactly my thoughts, except now also supported by some data.

Veloce Raptor

BINGO.

Nailed it.

Manifold

From my experience as a safety chair of a large PCA region, during a period in which about a half million DE driver miles were logged, I saw that it's fundamentally misguided to think that risks can be effectively managed simply by formulating and enforcing sets of rules to be applied on a national scale (eg, speed limits).

Each organization has its own particular drivers, instructors, checkout instructors, instructor development/vetting program, classroom sessions/instructors, run groups, promotion criteria, event formats, number of events per year, people in DE leadership and management positions, cars, tracks, etc., and most of these system components evolve over time. To a large extent, DE policies and practices need to be customized to these particularities of each organization, based on local on-the-ground experience of what has actually been happening, where risks may potentially be emerging, and what has actually been working or not working as far as risk management practices. Accomplishing this takes a lot of continuous effort, working effectively as a team with good communication. My region was able to measurably reduce its incident rate to an impressively low level with this kind of attentive, adaptive, and comprehensive approach, without introducing new 'rules'.

A corollary of this is that there's no one 'right' way to run a DE program safely. There are many possible right ways (just as there are many possible wrong ways), and organizations need latitude to make their own choices, based on their particular circumstances, goals, and preferences. Organizations which run excellent programs (eg, Chin) tend to do well, whereas organizations with weak programs tend to wither, so market forces do play a role in keeping things in check.

ProCoach

Agreed! Excellent post!