racing room ??

[m glassburner]

What is your definition of racing room?

[Greg Amy]

The width of your car plus the thickness of a sheet of paper...?

[lateapex911]

On the outside, the width of the car,
on the inside...ummm.... depends on who's trying a pass, and for what position, and what lap it is...

In other words, if I'm leading (har har har!) and I got balked by traffic or something, and it's the last lap, last corner, I might be a little, shall we say, "not generous" about leaving room on the inside, as there are lots of cars that really don't need a whole car width of pavement!

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

[m glassburner]

so...would running someone off course fit that ? :P

[Knestis]

Sounds like you already think you have an answer to your own question.

K

[m glassburner]

Yes , I know what my definition is...what's yours ? My idea is giving all drivers enough room to stay on track reguardless of what lap it is...(In the intrest of saftey and fairness) .

[RSTPerformance]

Originally posted by m glassburner:
Yes , I know what my definition is...what's yours ? My idea is giving all drivers enough room to stay on track reguardless of what lap it is...(In the intrest of saftey and fairness) .

Racing Room is allowing enough space for a car to fit beside me. The side I leave the space is my decision and will not be in your benefit. If you get on the inside of me under braking or in a turn then I left you to much room before the turn and should have been giving you racing room on the outside long before we came to the braking zone. Therefor I am going to have to leave you that car space on the inside since I didn't think ahead and planned poorly. When you race with me you will always have room on the outside. Just make sure you go to the edge of the track and you don't squeeze me in, afterall I left you the space outthere so you shouldn't get to greedy

Stephen

[JeffYoung]

In club racing, where they give us wood plaques at the end of the day, the definition is do NOTHING to endanger someone else's car. Even if they are doing something stupid.

[m glassburner]

That's what I think....and totally agree with .

[Joe Harlan]

Racing room is giving only enough room to race. The key word is race. I am not obligated to give up the line because you choose to try to drive under me when you have no chance of getting there. It is also not just opening up a hole because you got up along side. If you want the position I am in your gonna work for it but I will RACE you clean. I will say even for a 7 dollar plaque I have had incidental body contact and my fair share of little dents. Club racing is not vintage and it's not PCA racing. I do this to race as close as any pro and as hard as any pro. At that level you are bound to get stuff happens from time to time.

Hell I have run close enough to Darin several times to rub my SCCA sticker off on his rear bumper....

[bldn10]

I started a thread on the topic of SCCA passing rules on the SCCA site that you might want to review (and revive). My premise was that our rules are far too vague, and this is a case in point - they state that everyone is entitled to "racing room" but fail/refuse to define the term. If you ask drivers across the board who "has the line" and who has to yield racing room and when, you will get myriad and inconsistent opinions. It is rather frightening to me to think that I and the guy next to me have entirely different understandings as to which one of us is going to have to back off. Randy Pobst stated it as I understand it in this month's SportsCar - if a guy can get up to your door alongside you before your turn-in, he's got it and you have to give way. Like Stephen said, you left the door open so you have to pay the price. But, regardless of what the rule is, I just want it clearly stated and understood by all of us (and SOM and COA). I advocate an examination and clarification, if not rewrite, of our rules.

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Bill Denton
87/89 ITS RX-7
02 Audi TT225QC
95 Tahoe
Memphis

[buldogge]

Hey Guys... Sorry for the OT.

Bill can you email me when you get a chance about the GIR video...

buldogge <at> sbcglobal <dot> net

Thanx!

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Mark Andrews
'92 ITS BMW 325is

[lateapex911]

Bill, that's the classic roadrace criteria.

In NASCAR, it's overlap of any amount. Unless you're pissed...but I digress.

The rule has changed recently to such a point that it seems to leave the officials with the leeway to place blame where they want to...or on both drivers.

The single issue with the half way alongside scenario is at what point in the corner do you need to acheive the 50% overlap to "earn" the corner? If you say at turn in, that makes it very hard on the passer in a lot of trail braking corners. And if you say the apex, well, that means the 'passee' can't move to the apex if a guy is on his inside, until the apex, and by then it's obviously way too late..he's got the corner!

As a 'passee' "closing the door" has it's drawbacks if done too early ...you are the guy who spins!

As the passer, if you ARE alongside, and he closes the door, you have a tough decision...hold your ground or try to back out of it? If you can't back out of it completely, you make contact, and the contact will likely spin him, BUT, the physical evidence will likely show that you were NOT along side, and the judgement goes against you! Which follows the 2nd rule of life, "No good deed goes unpunished"! LOL

Just some random thoughts...

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

[Matt Rowe]

My take has always been that the idea is for both drivers to do everything reasonable to avoid contact while still allowing for hard, honest racing. By putting a definite statement in place of when someone "has" the corner you give one person the "right" to cause contact. By keeping the rules open each drivers is potentially responsible and therefore has to act in a responsible manner. If you try and write a hard and fast rule you can not cover all situations. The current system allows the stewards to look at all available evidence and make the best call based on judgement.Perfect? No but you can cover all passing situations with any kind of simple, fair rule.

For example, say the rule is the overtaking car has the turn once his front bumper passes the overtaken cars front bumper. The imagine the overly ambitious driver diving in way late, getting along side but washing out and taking out both cars. But because the dents on both cars show his bumper was past yours the accident is your fault.

Again, I race with that attitude that if any contact is made I am partially at fault. Even if it's because I didn't completely anticipate how out of control the other guy was. That doesn't mean I'm going to give someone the whole track just to avoid something that MIGHT happen, but I'm also mature enough to admit that when something does happen I'm still responsible for avoiding contact, per 9.1.1.A.

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~Matt Rowe
ITA Shelby Charger
MARRS #96

[Bill Miller]

Hell I have run close enough to Darin several times to rub my SCCA sticker off on his rear bumper....

And I would have guessed it the other way around, for sure!

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MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI (sold) | MARRS #25 HProd Rabbit
SCCA 279608

[Racerlinn]

I discovered this weekend that when it comes to Wrec Miatas, it's where ever they want to be on the track, no matter if you happen to already be there...
(Just my luck that I build a middle of the pack ITA car that happens to run with the middle of the pack SM cars...)

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Steve Linn
'92 ITA Sentra SE-R
www.indyscca.org

[Eagle7]

Originally posted by Racerlinn:
I discovered this weekend that when it comes to Wrec Miatas, it's where ever they want to be on the track, no matter if you happen to already be there...
(Just my luck that I build a middle of the pack ITA car that happens to run with the middle of the pack SM cars...)

Don't I know it. My first ever race weekend a Pro SM wiped out my quarterpanel on the test day. Took me a month over the winter to cut it off and weld on a new one.

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Marty Doane
ITS RX-7 #13
CenDiv WMR

[RacerBill]

I race go-carts every week, and one of the guys I race against is a three time SCCA national champion. The track is very narrow with tire walls all around (indoors). When the carts and drivers are very evenly matched, the only way to get by is by taking away the line. But by the same token, we try to make the passes as clean as possible, and not put the other guy into the wall. Try to get up along side the guy, so he can see you and has time to change his line.

I agree with all those in this thread that say that passing just takes common sense. In the end, both drivers have the responsibility to avoid contact during a pass.

There are too many different circumstances that can happen to make up rules for each one.

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Bill Stevens
Mbr 103106
BnS Racing
83 ITA Shelby Dodge Charger

[Joe Harlan]

Originally posted by Bill Miller:

Hell I have run close enough to Darin several times to rub my SCCA sticker off on his rear bumper....

And I would have guessed it the other way around, for sure!

Nah, he is clearly the better driver, I
am just out there runnin people over...

[bldn10]

Matt: "By putting a definite statement in place of when someone "has" the corner you give one person the "right" to cause contact. By keeping the rules open each drivers is potentially responsible and therefore has to act in a responsible manner."

The way I see it, Matt, is that if I am trying to pass you and I know exactly where I need to get by a certain point, I can make the mental evaluation whether I can do it or not, and act acordingly. Or, as you said, responsibly. Conversely, you will know when you have to give it up. As I'm sure you know, if you get the rep of being the guy who always acts "responsibly" and avoids contact at all cost, you will be a sitting duck for the guys who will take advantage of your good intentions. They won't worry about a protest because there won't be any contact because you will have let them by. (As an aside, I think a rule violation is a violation whether or not contact occurs. I.e. if you lose a position because you gave way to someone making a banzai move to avoid contact, a successful protest should be in order.) On the other hand, if you do have a rule that gives you "the 'right' to cause contact," then the other guy knows he has put himself in a position where you can indeed take your line and he will have a pretty good notion that it will be he who gets penalized if contact occurs.

But the cruxt of the issue for me is that, although the rules are (perhaps intentionally) vague, that has not and does not stop all of us from having our own understanding of what the passing rules really are in practice. If what Pobst described in the SCCA's own publication (at least impliedly w/ SCCA's imprimatur) is wrong, it is a great diservice to all of us to even publish it, and it should be stated in the next issue that that is NOT the SCCA rule. If it is accurate at least in principle, then let's give it the official stamp of approval in the rules or at least so state in SportsCar or Fastrack.

I agree that no rule can be perfect in every situation, but that is not the question. The question is whether our rules be made better - leading to hard but safer racing and more predictable protest/appeal outcomes.

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Bill Denton
87/89 ITS RX-7
02 Audi TT225QC
95 Tahoe
Memphis