Pirelli World Challenge Rounds 3 & 4: St. Petersburg

[Lagunaseca_4life]

Pwc HAS ALWAYS been like this,great to ok racing when green but always half or more time wasted under yellow.it just seems worse now because there's more pro drivers,and more serious race cars,with a lot more people watching now who never watched pwc before and expect BES.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Lagunaseca_4life

Pwc HAS ALWAYS been like this,great to ok racing when green but always half or more time wasted under yellow.it just seems worse now because there's more pro drivers,and more serious race cars,with a lot more people watching now who never watched pwc before and expect BES.

Did you mean BSS?

I get the feeling that enough people within PWC want to hold onto standing starts because they think it's an important differentiator to other GT series. As much as I hope that is not the case it seems silly that nothing has been done about it yet now that more attention (and therefore scrutiny) is being put on the series.

[TRspitfirefan]

Pretty good race today, I thought. The long caution was unfortunate but the green flag racing that we did get was a lot of fun to watch.

[TRspitfirefan]

Originally Posted by Lagunaseca_4life

Pwc HAS ALWAYS been like this,great to ok racing when green but always half or more time wasted under yellow.it just seems worse now because there's more pro drivers,and more serious race cars,with a lot more people watching now who never watched pwc before and expect BES.

The accident in todays race was more just the nature of street circuit racing.
Any series with that number of cars on the grid at a track like St. Petersburg is likely to have one or two (or three) of such incidents.

Originally Posted by FLGTFAN

So, we're STILL waiting to clean up the GTA R8?

I do wish that the track crews could be a bit quicker with the clean ups. Part of the problem is the limited number of tow trucks available.
I don't really want to slam the guys operating the tow trucks, but I'm always a little surprised when watching racing, at how much time it takes to load a stranded car onto the truck.

[Rcz]

Well that's too bad, the race got marred by that caution.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by J Jay

I get the feeling that enough people within PWC want to hold onto standing starts because they think it's an important differentiator to other GT series. As much as I hope that is not the case it seems silly that nothing has been done about it yet now that more attention (and therefore scrutiny) is being put on the series.

Originally Posted by TRspitfirefan

The accident in todays race was more just the nature of street circuit racing. Any series with that number of cars on the grid at a track like St. Petersburg is likely to have one or two (or three) of such incidents.

No, neither the standing start or the number of cars and track lay out had anything to do with the mess in race 2, it can solely be put down to 'driver brain fade'!

The blame is fully and solely on the driver of the first Cup Porsche (#18) to arrive at the scene at full speed and committed to the normal racing as if it was green - mind you, that was several seconds (>5) after 4 more GT cars managed to go around the two stricken cars almost immediately after the Mercedes came to a stop barely an inch from the spun Viper...!

[J Jay]

I wasn't talking about the particulars of today's crash (I haven't even seen the race so I can't say anything about it yet). I was thinking more generally of how PWC's standing starts account for a significant number of laps lost to yellow.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by TRspitfirefan

The accident in todays race was more just the nature of street circuit racing.
Any series with that number of cars on the grid at a track like St. Petersburg is likely to have one or two (or three) of such incidents.

I do wish that the track crews could be a bit quicker with the clean ups. Part of the problem is the limited number of tow trucks available.
I don't really want to slam the guys operating the tow trucks, but I'm always a little surprised when watching racing, at how much time it takes to load a stranded car onto the truck.

I can almost guarantee the tow truck operators can get those cars up way quicker...they just don't wanna be yelled at for "creating more damage."

[Bob Baldwin]

So WHO is going to YELL at the TOW TRUCK DRIVERS ?

[Matt]

Team OWNERS who don't LIKE their already DAMAGED cars GETTING damaged MORE.

I say screw'em, your cars already stuffed, just yank it up on the truck and get it back to the pits.

[ttdriver2009]

The two races for GT were a disaster. There was so little green flag racing. SCCA needs to do something. They go to Long Beach and I can see that race being another 30 minutes of caution.

I thought IMSA cautions were long but SCCA needs figure something out because it seems like they just take their dear old time out there cleaning up the carnage. It looks like they are just experimenting. For Example: The second race had the Spec Porsche class take off later and thus plowed into some GT cars. What were they thinking? Is SCCA like those over at IMSA where they won't make a change to provide top notch racing?

Maybe SCCA needs to put the GTA and Porsche guys in their own race so they can provide the parade under a full course yellow. Let the pro guys do it right and give us what we all want. The best racing in North America with the most exciting cars. Just do it under green, not yellow.

I'm glad I didn't spend my money going to St. Pete. I'd like to hear from the rest of you who were there at the track, what were your thoughts?

[Rodger Davies]

You realise that in any previous year that would have been like a 4 or 5 car grid, right?

Also, in both races pro drivers got into tangles that, if it had been in a different turn or time of the race, caused spins that could have brought out yellows (Catsburg in race 1, Davison in race 2).

[Mechanic Z]

Disappointing set of races, though it is interesting to note that the Indycar race was also heavily yellow.
I also have to echo TR about the tow trucks. Seems like they worked very slowly.
It's a shame that the cautions shortened both races, when the racing was green it was fantastic.

And speaking of fantastic, Sportscar 365 has a photo gallery for St. Pete, with plenty of PWC's awesome cars.

http://sportscar365.com/world-challe...ekend-gallery/

[Matt]

The Indycar race was heavily yellowed because for the most part, bits of aerokit were strewn about the track. Not **** poor driving.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by Matt

The Indycar race was heavily yellowed because for the most part, bits of aerokit were strewn about the track. Not **** poor driving.

Lots and lots of damage and debris - mainly caused by "**** poor driving" - if you want examples watch the replay!

The Indycars were in good company though - World Challenge and F1 were hardly any different.

The Rubbin' is Racing disease is spreading...

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

Lots and lots of damage and debris - mainly caused by "**** poor driving" - if you want examples watch the replay!

The Indycars were in good company though - World Challenge and F1 were hardly any different.

The Rubbin' is Racing disease is spreading...

I watched it live.

The only instance of truly bad driving was when Simona pitched Jakes into the grass and when Munoz hit Simona.

The rest was just spatial awareness with the new aero bits.

[Coach Ep]

You just exactly confirmed my point, there was a lot of avoidable contact which - in my book - is poor driving.

But I guess that has become the accepted norm nowadays, not only from fans but also stewards and race directors. Sad development.

[Bob Baldwin]

POOR DRIVING AKA : STUPID MOVE , BRAIN FADE , or DELIBERATE

[Matt]

No need to yell there, buddy.

[nasportscar]

Total Driver Performance standings updated from St Pete

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by J Jay

I get the feeling that enough people within PWC want to hold onto standing starts because they think it's an important differentiator to other GT series.

Yes, they need to be differentiated from series which actually race for more than half of the posted race duration.

[nasportscar]

Originally Posted by nasportscar

Total Driver Performance standings updated from St Pete

helps if I include the link...duh

http://nasportscar.com/total-driver-...gtgta-st-pete/

[Rcz]

If they were on a race course, then I think they would have delayed the race by red flagging it. But because they are on a street course they had no choice but to let the clock tick down. That's the chance for racing on a street course. I guess their lucky that type of accident happened near the beginning and not the later half.

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by Rcz

If they were on a race course, then I think they would have delayed the race by red flagging it. But because they are on a street course they had no choice but to let the clock tick down. That's the chance for racing on a street course. I guess their lucky that type of accident happened near the beginning and not the later half.

The problem is the day is shared with IndyCar. When you're a support race you're given X amount of minutes to run your session, period. They don't adjust the schedule for you.

-mike

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by Rcz

If they were on a race course, then I think they would have delayed the race by red flagging it. But because they are on a street course they had no choice but to let the clock tick down. That's the chance for racing on a street course. I guess their lucky that type of accident happened near the beginning and not the later half.

No, PWC runs to a 50-minuter time limit no matter what, because they are a support series, and the whole day's schedule cannot be pushed back just so a support series gets to run a full race.

I agree a red flag would be a huge improvement. No fuerl, no tires, just park the cars until the track is clear, do a parade lap, and roll off under green.

A bigger improvement would be to not have a multi-car wreck in the first lap or two every single race. A lot of cars get torn up, and that's not too good in a series where people run to save money compared to TUSC.