Summit Race reports?

[Knestis]

Another PS to the Summit festivities: We were the first team at any club enduro I've attended to put safety helmets on all of our over-the-wall guys. We had some sweaty noggins (Lee particularly, since he spent HOURS out at the wall) but no complaints, using OTS "extreme sports" helmets from Triple 8. Our thinking is that, if someone is going to be the poster child for the rule requiring helmets some day, it won't be one of our guys.

K

[mgyip]

(I heard later that his actions caused quite a stir on the Worker net. After I drove away he apparently tossed his ripped-off rear bumper into his car, jumped into the car with no belts, window net, or other safety equipment, and drove the car back in. A steward told me "they had a long discussion." The guy never got back on the track and was listed as a DNF with only 8 laps. Classic.)[/b]

I wonder if the "long discussion" included words like "Please leave your license in the shredder, pack your s**t and GET OUT". Probably not but I'm trying to be positive. I wonder if JKB Tool.com team would care to elaborate on the actions of their driver? Fitting team name though...Tool...

Not all SM or SSM drivers are morons - a good majority of them are but not all. Most of the front runners can run a clean race although, just like every other driver, they can get over-excited and crash the car on the first lap or try to use a much larger (and damage inspiring) vehicle as an auxillary brake.

Out of curiosity, did y'all consider protesting this moron for unsportsmanlike conduct? Getting out of the car and banging on your roof is not only dangerous, it's stupid, childish, unsportsmanlike and just plain dumb. IMHO, the protest system works IF drivers have the testicles to USE it and the stewards have the testicles to ENFORCE it.

[gsbaker]

Good grief! We want you to buy the safety equipment, not use it!!

[Bill Miller]

I wonder if the "long discussion" included words like "Please leave your license in the shredder, pack your s**t and GET OUT". Probably not but I'm trying to be positive. I wonder if JKB Tool.com team would care to elaborate on the actions of their driver? Fitting team name though...Tool...

Not all SM or SSM drivers are morons - a good majority of them are but not all. Most of the front runners can run a clean race although, just like every other driver, they can get over-excited and crash the car on the first lap or try to use a much larger (and damage inspiring) vehicle as an auxillary brake.

Out of curiosity, did y'all consider protesting this moron for unsportsmanlike conduct? Getting out of the car and banging on your roof is not only dangerous, it's stupid, childish, unsportsmanlike and just plain dumb. IMHO, the protest system works IF drivers have the testicles to USE it and the stewards have the testicles to ENFORCE it.
[/b]

Yeah Matt, they should take a page from your book and learn that you only use smaller cars for auxillary brakes!!! (kidding bud )

Good point about the protest. I don't ever recall the topic ever comming up throughout the course of the race. I think we were all focused on getting the car fixed and fixed right, and seeing what, if anything, we could do to catch the #28 car. Any way to find out which driver started the race in that car?

[JamesB]

Other then asking Troxel and Team York, no idea. I think it was a two driver team of both Troxels, but I didnt not work that section of the pits to know for sure.

[Bill Miller]

Other then asking Troxel and Team York, no idea. I think it was a two driver team of both Troxels, but I didnt not work that section of the pits to know for sure.
[/b]

Not that team James, the #77 car that was involved w/ us on lap 8.

[JamesB]

oh, I don't know. I wonder if you can ask for the name from the incident report.

[mgyip]

Good point about the protest. I don't ever recall the topic ever comming up throughout the course of the race. I think we were all focused on getting the car fixed and fixed right, and seeing what, if anything, we could do to catch the #28 car. Any way to find out which driver started the race in that car?
[/b]

At this point, a protest is moot but it certainly is food for thought in the future. I'm not a huge fan of protesting every infraction BUT when it becomes evident that another driver is a hazard, it's time to remove said driver. We did this in ITA a few years ago only to have that driver switch regions (where they were more sympathetic to his driving style or lack thereof) - fortunately said driver was intelligent enough NOT to return to Summit Point where he felt he had been victimized (b/c he kept crashing into lap traffic and "racing" the leaders).

I certainly applaud your collective efforts in repairing the car - obviously fixing the car and getting it back on the track are paramount. However when someone is that blantantly STUPID, I'd advocate protesting since such action can sway a Steward who has a corner report but no input from the affected driver/team to further enhance his/her decisions. The only caveat is to be damn sure about the protest - a few years ago, a certain P-Car team tried to protest a certain MB Team for pitting when the pits were closed. Unfortunately numerous cars pitted as well but they weren't part of the protest and it was therefore disallowed b/c the protest was clearly aimed to keep the MB Team from winning rather than it was to make the race fair. Had the P-Car team protested THE ENTIRE RACE b/c of poor pit closure signs, that probably would have been a very different story but that's in another nightmare unto itself.

And Bill, you forget that I drive THE LARGEST (and probably the heaviest) vehicle in ITA - a Golf aka The Flying Pig.

[Bill Miller]

And Bill, you forget that I am THE LARGEST (and probably the heaviest) driver in ITA - aka The Flying Pig.
[/b]

:P

All kidding aside, I agree w/ you 110% Matt. If the driver was yelling and screaming at Greg, and beating on the car, then by all means, he was deserving of a protest. But being as he seemed to take care of endearing himself to the stewards all by himself, it would have probably been akin to gilding the lily.

BTW, in the six years that I crewed for a short-track asphalt team, I saw plenty of bone-headed moves, w/ significantly different results. I'm so glad that road racing is a more 'gentlemanly' sport! :P

[JamesB]

Oh the moment the full report hit the radio about his conduct I already knew race control, the steward and possibly the SOM was going to speak with him. I was actually shocked and I had a rookie pit marshal in the truck with me at turn 5 when the calls came out. I had to explain to him this is NOT normal which thankfully he believed.

[dave parker]

I wonder if the "long discussion" included words like "Please leave your license in the shredder, pack your s**t and GET OUT". Probably not but I'm trying to be positive. I wonder if JKB Tool.com team would care to elaborate on the actions of their driver? Fitting team name though...Tool...

Not all SM or SSM drivers are morons - a good majority of them are but not all. Most of the front runners can run a clean race although, just like every other driver, they can get over-excited and crash the car on the first lap or try to use a much larger (and damage inspiring) vehicle as an auxillary brake.

Out of curiosity, did y'all consider protesting this moron for unsportsmanlike conduct? Getting out of the car and banging on your roof is not only dangerous, it's stupid, childish, unsportsmanlike and just plain dumb. IMHO, the protest system works IF drivers have the testicles to USE it and the stewards have the testicles to ENFORCE it.
[/b]

The #77 car was paddocked right next to us. I did see two of the safety stewards have a discussion with the driver after the incident. I don't know what happened after the discussion, but the team did pack up and leave very quickly. Seems like a waste to me, all the money and effort to go to this race and crash out in the first half hour.

I too am glad that Brian Mushnick is ok. He crawled out of the upside down Golf and stood there making the perfect target of himself after the roll. Thankfully nobody collected him while he was greatly exposed. But I can imagine that his bell was ringing pretty hard from the multiple impacts.

Thanks to all who made this a great race as usual.

cheers
"dangerous" dave parker
I ONLY ROLL CARS FOR MONEY.

[erlrich]

Not all SM or SSM drivers are morons...[/b]

Yes, but judging by what I heard from our drivers most of those guys stayed home.

Or, as was the case with our team, they were guys who regularly drive in other classes, and just happened to get in a Miata for this weekend. I was crewing for Kirk Dohne and company (including drivers Pat Sharkitt and Runoffs FM champ Chris Schanzle), and seemingly every time one of them came in they would have a story of some stupidity on the part of another Miata driver. Unfortunately (or not) our guys had to miss most of the early race excitement, as brake failure going into 5 on the second lap put Kirk into the tires, and resulted in an hour and a half in the paddock replacing steering rack, tie rod ends, brake pieces, etc, in addition to pounding out sheet metal along the whole left side of the car. I don't know how far down we were by the time we got back out, but it must have been something like 70 - 75 laps. The rest of the day was uneventful by comparison, and between attrition on the part of other cars, and some solid driving on our guys part (fast lap in the 1:32's) we were able to pick up some 16 - 17 places by midnight.

All in all the weekend was an awesome experience. Kirk, Pat, and Chris managed to assemble a great bunch of guys (and girls) together for a crew - I was continually impressed by the enthusiasm and positive attitude shown by every member, even when faced with a twisted and broken race car only 5 minutes into the event. I can only hope to get the chance to get back out there next year.

Kirk K, it was nice to finally meet you and put a face to the name. Greg, I'm sorry I decided to stop by while you were out there terrorizing those poor Miata drivers , maybe I'll catch you (figuratively, not literally) at the Glen next month. Matt - I wish I had known you were there, I would have recruited you for the packing crew :P .

[Catch22]

Along the SM/Protest lines, I gotta share this...

Early last year at a SARRC (sprint) at Road Atlanta, one SM driver managed to do the following in one weekend...
- Hit me, under double yellow, during qualifying.
- Spin in the middle of turn 1 on the start.
- Turn an ITB car into the front straight wall on lap 2 as he tried to force his way back by from the back.
- He finally managed to crash his own car and take himself out of the endurance race on Sunday.

When I spoke with a steward about taking action, I was told "Oh, we already got alot of stuff on that guy." so having better things to do I decided to let it go.
Guess what... He was right there on grid for the next race.
I don't know if he ever got his pee pee spanked in any sort of way, but it certainly didn't seem that the penalty had any real meat to it.

The guys up front in SM tend to be pretty good. And the guys in the back tend to realize they aren't all that fast and are very courteous. In my experience, the vast majority of the asshats are in the middle. Guys that don't quite have the talent to get to the front, but try really really hard to get there anyway. Its no coincidence that you hear ITB and ITC guys HATING SM drivers because its these mid pack guys that they always have to deal with and usually get hit by.
I spent a couple of years watching these idiots not be able to cleanly get by me in my ITC car. I know of what Greg speaks, and its not any fun to be that frontrunner in ITB/C surrounded by the idiots in P18 through 25 in SM.

One of our divisions faster SM drivers had to start at the back of a big Road Atlanta race last year due to issues in qualifying. After the race his comment was something like "Man, it IS horrible back there."

[mgyip]

When I spoke with a steward about taking action, I was told "Oh, we already got alot of stuff on that guy." so having better things to do I decided to let it go.
Guess what... He was right there on grid for the next race.
I don't know if he ever got his pee pee spanked in any sort of way, but it certainly didn't seem that the penalty had any real meat to it.[/b]

Given most stewards' attempts to not "play God", your experience goes to show that filing a protest against a true hazard will help to provide the overwhelming evidence necessary for a Steward to go from making a "Well, I've heard alot of complaints" judgement to a "You need to take up a different hobby b/c you clearly don't know how to race" decision. Just b/c we see stupidity as drivers doesn't mean that the Stewards have all the facts at hand - corner reports are important BUT as was evidenced by an appeal that a local ITC driver won last year, in-car footage and clear, definitive FACTS by a driver carry significantly more weight.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

[.RJ]

(I heard later that his actions caused quite a stir on the Worker net. After I drove away he apparently tossed his ripped-off rear bumper into his car, jumped into the car with no belts, window net, or other safety equipment, and drove the car back in.
[/b]

They were pitted right next to us. The guy came speeding into the pits, way too fast, stopped in front of his pit box and immediately got out screaming "i'm gonna kill that muthafuckaaa!!!! where tha fuck is hee!1!!!". Totally unsportsmanlike. Then he stormed off to the enclosed trailer where the rest of his shit is, and threw his helmet and attached HANS from one end of the trailer to the other, into the wall. Good job destroying the equipment that is supposed to save your head, jackass.

As to the comment regarding my crew not being prepared and slow in the pits, we were able to gas the car (with stock fuel system) in the one minute allotment, and swap the driver in similiar time frame.
[/b]

Tom, its unfortunate that you had the DNF but the being slow in the pits is a simple observation that you seem to have taken some sort of personal offense to. We were pitted about 10 pit boxes down and kept an eye on your pit stops, as well as all the other ITA cars.

Your fueling was fine, with the stock fuel tank you cant do much to make up time really - with a dry break we were getting 22 gallons in in under 40 seconds, so that helps alot. What I noticed most was the tire changes, there just wasnt any coordination between the team members and they were just off the pace - there seemed to be poor communication among the team, and the guys were a bit clumsy getting the wheels back on - and the car falling off the jack and breaking lugnuts is really the result of not practicing your pit stops.

Take it as constructive criticism to improve for next year I suppose.

[Catch22]

Those weren't "his guys" doing slow tire changes and dropping the car RJ.
Just thought I'd save Blaney the typing. I know the answers by heart after a few years of it.

[mgyip]

They were pitted right next to us. The guy came speeding into the pits, way too fast, stopped in front of his pit box and immediately got out screaming "i'm gonna kill that muthafuckaaa!!!! where tha fuck is hee!1!!!". Totally unsportsmanlike. Then he stormed off to the enclosed trailer where the rest of his shit is, and threw his helmet and attached HANS from one end of the trailer to the other, into the wall. Good job destroying the equipment that is supposed to save your head, jackass.[/b]

It never ceases to amaze me that some idiot goes spinning off the track and gets collected by a hapless bystander at which time it becomes THE BYSTANDER'S FAULT that the spinning car was damaged. Hello? If the car hadn't spun off the track, it would have NEVER been collected. Too bad the stewards didn't see his display of sportsmanship. A few years ago, some driver threw his helmet on the ground after an incident and this was witnessed by the corner station. To almost quote the Steward "Please have Tech examine his helmet very carefully for damage". I get the impression that Mr. Rocket Scientist not only got to repair his damaged racecar (damaged by his own stupidity) but that he also got to purchase a new helmet for his troubles.

Speaking of speeding in the pits - I think the DC Region needs to purchase a Radar Gun (are you listening Lauren?). The Gun should be on a Pit marshall who should use it indiscriminately up and down the pit lane. This is what Grand Am does and it works - cars enter the pits at 45 mph and stick to that speed, period, end of discussion. All the talk of "This is amateur racing" doesn't cut it b/c regardless of the event, when a speeding car meets an unprotected human, the results are the same - SPLAT.

[JohnRW]

Maybe I have a skewed perception (two-driver team that's done every SP12...so that means I've been out there for 50% of all the SP12 racing), but it was a pretty clean race. This was our fourteenth (?) 12-ish hour race, and IMO it was pretty tame compared to the rest.

Yeah...I had a ring-side seat for Greg's Lap 8 mash, and it was a pretty stupid move by the aforementioned Miata (I went far enough to the outside to miss the wreck), but I didn't really see anything else that I'd describe as "egregiously stupid" out there. Some "oh boy, that's not smart" stuff, but not any "what a dumbazz fvckwitz" moves. Even "Stupid Hour" (11PM to midnight) was pretty clean, compared to previous years.

As usual, the biggest problems were from people 'racing' against cars in another class. Kiddies...by the 3 or 4 hour mark, if you're not leading overall, you're most likely battling for class position. In the daylight, I know what classes are in front of me and behind me on track 'cuz I can see them...and at night I can tell by how fast the headlights climb on me whether it's a fast car...and I don't "race" cars in other classes. A little courtesy goes a long way.

The overall winners (Wilson and Armstrong in the ITS RX7) were spectacular in managing traffic and running a clean and sportsman-like race.

It's also nice to see a real IT car take the overall win, rather than some tarted-up $100K+ racer that shows up to beat up on guys with $7000 club cars. I always wanted to 'door' that Ferrari or the whizbang 99-something Porsche that showed up in previous years....just one big door donut...please...

[Edwin Robinson]

Maybe I have a skewed perception (two-driver team that's done every SP12...so that means I've been out there for 50% of all the SP12 racing), but it was a pretty clean race. This was our fourteenth (?) 12-ish hour race, and IMO it was pretty tame compared to the rest.

[/b]

Amen. I also felt it was one of the cleanest events ever.

A big kudos to the stewards and workers that did (what I feel) was an incredible job of keeping the event green-flag as much as humanly possible.

I believe our car was 'nearly' incindent free and non-incindent-causing for 12 hours.
We only have one donut on the door- and well, the driver tells me it was a Miata- but honestly, if I didn't EXPECT this stuff to happen (and maybe much worse) then I'd just give up the sport entirely. I know I'm not perfect - no one else is either. I just don't go looking for trouble on purpose. Human error is to be expected on occasion.

To the competitors I saw in the other classes : Thank you for the deference that you extended our team during the 12 Hours. I hope we were able to return the favor for you when it made sense.

To our fellow competitors in ITA - thanks for a great race! Win or lose, it was great to have such good competition. I look forward to doing it again next year, and hope you do too.

Edwin Robinson.
#84 ITA

[DanElam]

...Grand Am Cup proactively is telling drivers to "cease and desist" or in the case of a certain CTS-V driver, to go home and never disgrace VIR again.
[/b]

I'm usually just a lurker, but I thought I would weigh in on this one. The VIR CTS-V driver happens to be a multiple National championship winner and a guy I have raced against before. I was crewing for a different team at the VIR Cup race when the CTS and BMW came together. While the Caddy certainly got hung out to dry to Speed, it wasn't quite that clear cut. The Caddy driver had gotten caught by the pace car for the full course yellow and ended up as the first car behind the pace car - but ahead of the leader. He made his jump trying to avoid going a lap down and was in front of the BMW when the cars made contact. Obviously no one likes contact or wants to take out the leader, but the BMW could have *easily* backed out of a turn he didn't have and (moreover) didn't need to win when the VIR straight is just seconds away. Part of winning races is knowing when to push and when not to. With all the rain and the cautions it was important to try to not go a lap down because you might easily get caught back up. He didn't drive into the BMW - he kept coming across the track on his line through the corner. Beat him up for driving a car a bit bigger than he might have been used to, but the guy has a long track record of beating professional drivers and racing clean. As an FYI, he was back at Lime Rock and Mid Ohio running the car.

Switching gears, what happened with the ITE 'inspection' that was supposed to happen. Did any of the ITE cars get inspected or DQ'd? What happened to the Porsche?