Jim Haynes wrote
>>And not entirely on the SVRA event.
I raced with SCCA Volvo Historics this last weekend at W-G and had to
endure the wrath of several of the SCCA Scrutineers and officials over
vintage drivers. The were apalled at the carnage at the SVRA event the
week before. I was told 30 cars were damaged in incidents.
The big issue for them (many of whom have been officiating for over 30
years and remember the vintage cars when they were new) was why people
would drive such valuable, irreplaceable cars like an IT car! (If that
does not make sense, you should try to find an IT car without dents
-serious dents.) The second complaint was the ignoring of flags. The
third was poor driving, esp. overdriving the car or the conditions. The
"more money than sense" comment was made too, referring to the rows of
transporters with shiny vintage cars.
These guys, who work numerous pro races, are obviously not very
impressed with vintage events or drivers.
Now before you decide to kill the messenger (that's me), I think you
need to understand I did not question these guys, they vented to me as a
vintage driver unsolicited.(I do not know how many times I told them I
was not there the week before!) One guy was particularly upset at the
damage to the Lotus 17 in the esses incident- he was a big Lotus fan.
<I'm merely feeding back to the list that vintage has a serious image
problem with these guys.>
The problem that occured in the esses did change how they flagged
incidents. There were numerous full course yellows and a number of"
black flag all" sessions. I have never seen such conservative flagging.
They discussed the yellow, waving yellow and full course yellow at one
meeting. They said the lights were equal to a waving yellow. I asked
what the local rule was on red flags and it's come to a controlled stop
on the track and we'll send a pace car out for you when the track is
clear.
BTW, our Sunday race ran incident free and I finished in a pack of four
cars that passed and repassed seemingly dozens of times - then crossed
>>S/F three wide. Wild, but clean racing. <<
--
<<Jim Hayes Winchester, MA, USA
<<hayes@mediaone.net http://www.fotec.com/jim/jim.htm
<<jeh@fotec.com http://www.fotec.com/
There seems to be a pattern here. If you understand the pattern, you
understand why the SVRA Watkins Glen seemed to be out of control.
First, understand that RCA (Race Communications Association), the long time
Watkins Glen flagging group, was outbid by a splinter group for the annual
contract with WGI and the people in charge of flagging are not the same
people as the last few years. Next understand that SVRA had planned many
feature races for cars which are not often seen at SVRA events and therefore
have drivers who are new to SVRA in spite of their long standing "no rookie"
policy at the Glen. These included 911 variants, GTP cars, NASCAR Stock
Cars, Formula Juniors, an M-G only race, and "Group 10" (roughly translated
as "everything that is not legal in our other groups"). All these extra
groups took track time from the regular SVRA groups and put most regulars in
either a bad mood or a mood which says: "we have to run fast real soon". As
a matter of fact the most significant incident of the weekend (6 cars)
happened in a Friday Enduro with an unmanned flagging station at the blind
part of the Esses. I have never seen a race scheduled on a Friday (standard
worker shortage day) let alone an Enduro.
The "lowered barriers to entry" contributed to the greater potential for
incidents. Bud Merrill, SVRA's very capable veteran Chief Steward, was not
given the expected courtesy of setting the red flag procedure, in fact the
flaggers used their own local procedure while the drivers were instructed
contrarily. Bud was not even able to make the red flag calls, which mostly
were dictated by the new communication's leadership. This "workers take
charge" pattern first emerged at the HSR event (per Joe P), SVRA walked into
the aftermath, and you have seen the "conservative flagging" at the
following event.
Perhaps the presence of Speedvision had more than a few drivers in Earnhardt
mode. This was the first time in my 90 races with SVRA that we had national
coverage.
The "new SVRA" with their open door policy can be expected to be more like
HSR in the future. This might be good, or bad, depending on your point of
view. The point is It Is D i f f e r e n t so take note. That is the first
part of the pattern. The new flagging regime added a measure of confusion
and made the number of incidents seem like a deluge.
The total number of incidents was actually down slightly from last year's
Glen event (number of cars was up), but the full course yellows and red
flags happened in almost every session. I only got to drive on Thursday
(broken valve spring), but the overflagging was quite obvious and there was
a shortage of workers. The outrageous numbers of passes under yellow on
Saturday and Sunday might relate to overflagging or to the lack of track
time or to Speedvision. There is no excuse for passing under the
yellow....ever, but patterns emerge for a reason.
Pat Ryan
SVRA Member since 1988
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