Favorite excuses given to corner workers

[NutDriverRighty]

Just got home from the Petit. Was with Scott Sharp after he pounded the wall at T11. Can't print what he told me, but it made me wonder what the more interesting excuses you've given or heard that led you to speak to a corner worker or steward might be.

[Knestis]

... Can't print what he told me, but it made me wonder what the more interesting excuses you've given or heard that led you to speak to a corner worker or steward might be.

What, client privilege? C'mon.

I think it was something like "I'm a big dork and was counting on traction control to drive the car for me..."

K

[NutDriverRighty]

Actually, that's pretty close. I can't give you an exact quote as I was a bit jacked-up on adrenaline myself. To the best of my recollection, after he waved me away and then I got him to come back to a safer area, he said "I didn't do a ______ thing" with a bewildered look on his face. We were picking pieces of the spokes from the LR wheel off of the track. I picked-up a nearly complete headlight assembly from the LF. There were carbon fiber shards EVERYWHERE. He tried to continue twice, but the car wasn't going anywhere without the assistance of a rollback. With the blind crest at T11, it was a very bad spot for anyone to be, even with waving yellows. Hate that they weren't able to continue. Anyhow, back to our regularly scheduled programming..........

[dave parker]

When the wife and I worked at Turn 8 at a WDCR drivers school a RX7 pilot pounded the outside tire wall in a rented car. His statement upon exiting the wreck (he was OK) and looking at all four corners bent up was " Well, Bret dePedro was looking to sell this car anyway." It was all I could do to not laugh out loud.

Several years later after being a driver's school instructor in the miata group it became very common to congratulate the owner of a rental car that got wrecked on the "sale of their racecar".

cheers
Dave Parker

[NutDriverRighty]

I guess that the same could be said for someone who hits the wall, spills oil or anti-freeze, or messes-up the grass at Barber. "Thanks for your purchase of __________"

[dickita15]

Years ago a friend of mine was racing his Prod Spitfire pos. it developed an oil leak resulting smoke in the cockpit. The steward ordered a meatball. He ignored the flag for two or three laps before pitting (he wanted half way for a finish). When the steward asked why he ignored the flag he said “smoke got in my eyes”

[benspeed]

My best was at Summit last year. The throttle pedal in my stock car is actually a plastic wheel, not a pedal. Above the wheel is a "t" bar where you can reach through the window and rev the motor or pull it with your foot in case the throttle sticks.

So I go into turn one at summit and realize my shoelace has tangled witht the the "t" in the pedal, I shake my foot to try and get the laces loose and accidentally rev the shit out of the motor and do a spactacular double 360. Nobody believed me when I said my laces got stuck. I now make sure the laces are carefully tucked under the velcro strap on the driving shoes. (Lucky everybody missed me - thanks big bore Summit guys!)

[CaptainWho]

Not really the same, but I found McNish's radio transmissions about tell them to get the blue flags out at the end of the Petit le Mans to be pretty mealy mouthed. Maybe someone needs to remind Alan that blue flags in IMSA are advisory, not command, flags, and that the other classes have their races going, too. Well, except for GT1 where only the 'Vettes were entered.

[VinnyV81]

Well I had a scary moment a few weeks ago at the double SARRC event at Barber. We were working 12 (right before the esses' I believe) and the Formula guys were running hard on the last lap. Two Formula vee's were racing for position going into 12, when a Formula Ford that was behind them clipped one of the vee's which got the other guy loose and ran him into the other guy. They basically t-boned each other right there and the Ford guy raced away. What was scarry about it was that 1. it was my first time working a race and first accident to work and 2. Afterwards, the two racers just sat there and looked at each other. This went on for what seemed like an eternity until they finally took off the wheels and proceeded to exit the cars. Because it was such a boring race before hand, I didn't even know what had happened until after we talked to the drivers. I definately learned alot that day...

-Vincent

[NutDriverRighty]

At the ARRC a few years ago, I was at T10 when a Vette came through T9 with a 20+ foot trail of fire, at least 5 feet tall. He straight-lined the chicane and drove (much to my chagrin) all the way to the bridge, driver's right (as far away from help as he could get). After running my fat, hypertensive, redneck @$$ all the way up there, I noticed that the car was still burning and the driver was still in the seat. When I got to him, I excitedly told him to get out of the car (insert expletives here). He asked why (??!!). I more excitedly told him that the car was still on fire! He said, "but I pulled the handle for the fire system".
After getting him out of the car and with me having only a 10# bottle, he wanted to go immediately to the front and raise the hood. I discouraged this and convinced him that we should wait on the folks with the REAL fire stuff to get there before we did this.

[Chris Wire]

Not really the same, but I found McNish's radio transmissions about tell them to get the blue flags out at the end of the Petit le Mans to be pretty mealy mouthed. Maybe someone needs to remind Alan that blue flags in IMSA are advisory, not command, flags, and that the other classes have their races going, too. Well, except for GT1 where only the 'Vettes were entered.

I don't think it's mealy-mouthed at all, considering the day that McNish had up to that point. He nearly single-handedly brought that Audi back from a 2-lap deficit after wrecking the car hard on the formation lap. So here he was 12 hours after his lowest low about to reach one of his highest highs, and he was thinking about anything that could keep that from happening. Not to mention he had just pulled off a spectacular pass on the Peugeot going into T6, and had gapped Klein a bit with traffic. Then another FCY deflates his 5 sec lead and he's back to square one against a car that the knows is faster than his. We'd all do the exact same thing given the circumstances.

McNish is THE MAN!

[Mazmarc63]

Chris,

When was the last time a blue flag was waved at you??

[RacerBill]

Back to favorite excuses, etc. Ferrari driver who had just punched in the right side of the car using the wall on the outside of the back straight at Mid-Ohio - 'My father's going to kill me!'

[Z3_GoCar]

Not really the same, but I found McNish's radio transmissions about tell them to get the blue flags out at the end of the Petit le Mans to be pretty mealy mouthed. Maybe someone needs to remind Alan that blue flags in IMSA are advisory, not command, flags, and that the other classes have their races going, too. Well, except for GT1 where only the 'Vettes were entered.

Sorry to be off topic, but I've got a different reason to think McNish's has a personallity issue and maybe should go back to F-1:

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...ons-happy-home

at the end of page 1 there's this telling tid-bit,

“We really enjoy the competition with Intersport and are pretty close with those guys. They’ve made a huge performance gain this year with their new Lola and the E85 fuel so we’re hoping to close the gap with our own Lola on E85!. The Audi guys all seem like nice guys but there’s little contact with them unless its on the track…literally. In practice at Sebring this year, McNish hit us while we were stationary on the track during a yellow flag. It wound up doing quite a bit of damage to our car and we missed a day or two because of it. It was a mistake and we all make them, but I wish he had come down and said something. A couple of his engineers came by and said it wasn’t his fault which I found odd, but c’est la vie…”

Sort of back on topic, the question I have is did you know about the 10 meter rule? If so why couldn't Scott have stood behind the wall next to the car?

[ITA_honda]

I am a rookie this year, and at the WOR games @ Nelson Ledges...it happened to show. I passed under yellow not once, but twice! The funny thing is I didnt even remember I passed under yellow. I got the black flag and came down pit road..steward comes up to my car..."you know what you did?" and of course I didnt know at the moment "you passed under yellow 2 times." OHH GREAT....I had to stop and recall the incidents. and I did remember. oh, was I embarresed!! I said "I'm sorry" ....like what else was I going to say. they erased all my qualifying times of the session but there was like 5 more minutes left in the session. I clocked off a time good enough for 3rd in class.
After I went and apologized to the head F&C person. He said the first time he could understand, but the second time...he was PISSED. and I can understand that, completely.
They were all joking and saying "watch out for that damn #4 Honda!!"

what a rookie mistake!

[NutDriverRighty]

To be completely honest, I was the one who tried to stay with Scott after the accident. He got out of the car to driver's right, which was right into harm's way. All who have run Road Atlanta know how blind it is coming under the bridge at T11. I was able to convince him to come towards the wall driver's left, right next to the communication station/corner hut. When I touched his arm and asked if he was ok, he pulled away and raised his arms, indicating to me to leave him alone. Personally, I'm not going to wrestle someone to the wall who doesn't want me to mess with him (unless, of course, they're about to put themselves or another at risk). He wandered about 10-15' down the hill before he came back. He looked at me in bewilderment and said, "I didn't do a _______ thing!". Since he was at the wall, conscious, ambulatory, and the IMSA pros were there, I set about helping the T11 crew clean up the pieces. It was the IMSA folks that sent him to the ambulance/safety car/whatever. If he didn't know the 10 meter rule, the IMSA folks should have. This isn't the first time it's been an issue at an ALMS/ACO santioned race. IIRC, there was a driver/team disqualified in the last 5 years for violating this rule at the 25 hours of LeMans.
Just my $0.02 worth

Scott

[NutDriverRighty]

24 hours of LeMans (sorry, finger slipped). Also, the T11 station was well within the 10 meters stipulated and is MUCH safer than being on the surface. There, now I'm done.

[EV]

Working a vintage race an elderly driver spun and backed his formula car into the wall. I was second on scene in the wrecker, getting there just in time to see the rescue worker cut the steering wheel off at the shaft. The driver bent it down into his lap when he backed into the wall. He was a melodramatically moaning "get my son.." and "DON'T CUT THE CAR ANYMORE!"

After having to unbolt parts of the car to get him out we finally found his son. We walked him to the ambulance to his uninjured father. The son says to his dad, "well, you wrecked my car..." dad said "ya, sorry" to which the son replied "This is coming out of your allowance..."

I had to laugh..

[betamotorsports]

Running at Spring Mountain Motorsports park for the first time I was unfamiliar with configuration we were running. I ended up making an early right turn off the backstraight and cam up behind a corner worker who wasn't expecting a car at speed on the cutoff road. I stopped quickly and shouted, "Hey, where's Disneyland?" He doubled over laughing and I was able to sneak back on course during the practice. No official said a word and I never got a black flag, although my co-driver radioed and asked where the hell I was. I replied that I was touring the facilities.

[raffaelli]

Running at Spring Mountain Motorsports park for the first time I was unfamiliar with configuration we were running. I ended up making an early right turn off the backstraight and cam up behind a corner worker who wasn't expecting a car at speed on the cutoff road. I stopped quickly and shouted, "Hey, where's Disneyland?" He doubled over laughing and I was able to sneak back on course during the practice. No official said a word and I never got a black flag, although my co-driver radioed and asked where the hell I was. I replied that I was touring the facilities.