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jcmotorsports
05-10-2004, 09:51 AM
i just wanted to apologize to everyone in group 8. my incident was the final straw and cause the black flag to be thrown. an oil line blew and caused me to go into the tire barrier in west bend. just wanted to say sorry for my part in the carnage and the resulting early end to the race!!!!
john costello
ITS rx7 #87

benspeed
05-10-2004, 11:11 AM
Hang in there John, no harm no foul. I just hope lady luck shines her face on that car soon. You've had more than your share of gremlins holding you down. Keep at it and we'll see you at Pocono!

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BenSpeed
#33 ITS RX7
BigSpeed Racing
[email protected]
NNJR

RSTPerformance
05-10-2004, 11:29 AM
Was last weekend as bad as I here it was as far as carnage??? I wasn't at Lime Rock and I haven’t talked to my brother other than a voicemail where I found out that my car hates him as well... I thank all of you and him for leaving him out of the carnage, I inspected the car and did not see any new dents or altercations, other than some brand new tires!!! (I bet he takes them for his car though http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/frown.gif )

Anyway what I have heard from others was that this race day had lots of accidents and it seems to me that many people (including myself) might be worried going on this season that they may become part of an accident.

I was always taught that 10% of the cars will not drive home at the end of the day, either due to mechanical failure or crash damage. There are a lot of things that can effect this # but I have always found that number to be somewhat true. For multiple reasons I would suspect that larger run groups (such as IT) will make up a higher percentage than the smaller race groups. Lets keep our groupe at or below the 10% (thats no more than 4 cars between ITS/ITB).

I am interested in what the accidents were and what caused them when reflecting on a weekend. I remember my first season where half the field did not finish, due to people crashing into each other… we ran the first half the season with a full course yellow within 1 lap. I also remember a race 2 years ago (I think that was the only shortened ITB race in the Northeast in the last 4-5 years) where there were single car accidents in every turn on the track. The field was huge and everyone had that “accident” fear running through their heads on grid. The point about that day is everyone took themselves out, and did not take anyone else out with them.

I would like to know a couple things… what/who were the accidents from this past weekend and why did they happen. Were the cars un-drivable, did they have more than $1,000 crash damage, was it a single car accident or multicar accident, etc.?

I have seen some bashing occur here on the forums, and I hope that this information is posted to help educate our fellow racers and the bashing is not intended to point blame at an incident. Please when pointing out that someone made such and such a mistake also point out what you feel they could have done to prevent such and such a mistake. On the flip side, take what people say as an educational experience http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/wink.gif. We all need to work together if we want to race together.

On another note, looking forward and hummm… thinking of how we can prevent a repeat of last weekend (If it was as bad as everyone says it was), here are some of my feelings:

We all need to work together in a healthy competition to continue having fun. I think as a group we should all work together to achieve the best IT group. Having the best IT group means that we might have the largest field (we all want more competition right?), we all should be safe (for our selves and our cars), we all should be having fun (that is a must, and if you are not having fun don’t come your not welcome, this is regional racing, not a career), we all should trust each other (car legality and driving ability), we all should have respect for each other (on and off the track), we all should understand the goals that one another has, and we all should do the above to ensure we get our full race in without any “full course yellows” or “black flag alls”.

I think that as a group (we will be together for a long long time) we can give the rest of SCCA the “best and safest show.” We are one of the only fields in the northeast that has the capability to have a multitude of different drivers and car make/models win. I feel that we have some of the best drivers as well (although the other IT classes also have great drivers as well). It is our responsibility as a group to set a standard that each driver needs to meet. It is also our responsibility as a group to help each driver in our group meat OUR goals. IT is a place where we can learn to drive well and we can have fun. Because we all (every IT and SM class) have made IT and SM into the most popular classes only means that we have to work together harder to keep harmony. I hope that as this season grows, tensions don’t grow as well. I don’t want to have any of my races cut short, and I hate full course yellows.

We know that we are going to have 40+ cars fields all year and we know that IT and SM can not take over the entire day of racing (we have enduro’s for that http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/wink.gif )… What (given what has been given to us) can we all do to make things run smoother??? Look at things this way; we are given a race group (say #8) and we are given a max number of cars (40 or so). We need to expect that, and we as competitors need to make that work, as that is part of the goal, full fields means more money for SCCA and more competition for us!!!

Good luck to all, I hope to see you at Pocono…

Raymond Blethen

PS: Thanks again for leaving my bro out of the carnage!!! This week will be a long week, and if anyone has any ideas on why a car wont rev past 4,500 RPM without breaking up (sputtering) please send me an e-mail [email protected] , I am sick of this car!!!

jcmotorsports
05-10-2004, 01:14 PM
well my wreck was a single car initially. i know others must have gotten tangled up in the oil i dropped because could hear other spins on my video! hopefully no one else got banged up too bad. i have a good amount of body damage( cosmetic only). the car is drivable, but waiting for the verdict on the motor due to the oil line breaking. it happened suddenly, but i thought it was a coolant line because i had cooling problems earlier in the day. i fired the car after the crash and drove to the paddock(very low rpms). in hindsite i should have had a tow in. anyway, we'll see about pocono this weekend. everyone keep your fingers crossed!!!!.
on your problem toomuch fuel? or not enough spark? i am limited in mechanical knowledge.
john costello

lateapex911
05-10-2004, 07:48 PM
Well John, nice of you to take the blame, but man there was stuff everywhere! I doubt it was just you!

Sorry to hear of the damage, but glad it is superficial. Did you have oil pressure when you drove it? Do you have a low oil light?
I bet you will be fine, but check the filter for "stuff"!

(Are you glad they spent the time rebuilding the tire wall after Brian M mushed it? )

An historical note. I remember when that wall was a bunch of loose tires, sorta stacked, sorta thrown. I saw the bottom of an MR-2 as it went airborne, and spent the next second or three playing dodge the flying tire. And many more a car was written off there.

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Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]

[This message has been edited by lateapex911 (edited May 10, 2004).]

dominojd
05-10-2004, 08:24 PM
Originally posted by jcmotorsports:
i just wanted to apologize to everyone in group 8. my incident was the final straw and cause the black flag to be thrown. an oil line blew and caused me to go into the tire barrier in west bend. just wanted to say sorry for my part in the carnage and the resulting early end to the race!!!!
john costello
ITS rx7 #87
Johnny C what the hell are you hitting tire walls for? http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/wink.gif I feel your pain. Just don't take as long as I have to get the car back together. Hopefully I will be ready for Pocono. Hopefully you will be too. See ya there Maybe.



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Crazy Joe
#7 ITS pilot

7racing
05-12-2004, 10:55 AM
Originally posted by lateapex911:


(Are you glad they spent the time rebuilding the tire wall after Brian M mushed it? )



Heh. I like that name...Brian MushedIt.

bg43wex
05-12-2004, 11:55 AM
It's better than humpty dumpty..

does anybody have video or stills of my car on the wall?

brian Mushed it
#3 ITA

dickita15
05-12-2004, 04:33 PM
I like humpty dumpty. 2 fire trucks, 3 wrecker and a payloader, as well as all the kings men couldn't put hupty dumpty together again.

16v
05-12-2004, 11:21 PM
LOL! now this is comedy

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Doug :)
NER.org (http://ner.org)
the16v.com (http://the16v.com)
briansgarage.com (http://www.briansgarage.com)

jcmotorsports
05-13-2004, 10:32 AM
ok the motor does not sound right so rather than cause any more damage it is going to sas racing for a repair/rebuild. but don't worry i will be at pocono in the not so top secret speedworkz project nissan!!!!! the red car WILL BE AS PRETTY AS ALWAYS AND HOPEFULLY FASTER THAN EVER for the july race at the glen http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/biggrin.gif
john costello

benspeed
05-13-2004, 11:21 AM
Glad you're going to make it! You gotta get Marc to put some new Hossiers on that puppy for ya!