[NZST12R7] Ruapuna - 24th - 25th November

[DX20VT]

Back on topic for a second,

I hear the commentators saying how well mcGlaughlan did winning the championship even though he missed a round,

And now I see in the overall season results that the seasons results are calculated on your best 6 out of the 7 rounds???


When did it become a drop your worst round championship?

[isoskim]

Originally Posted by DX20VT

When did it become a drop your worst round championship?

It has been from the outset.

[Club racer]

Originally Posted by Bill Brown

Cotton Wool is good!

Absolutely unbelievable. Inappropriate in the extreme.

In fact this comment makes me sick to the stomach - and I absolutely mean that.

Disgusting.

[nistfan]

Originally Posted by Club racer

Absolutely unbelievable. Inappropriate in the extreme.

In fact this comment makes me sick to the stomach - and I absolutely mean that.

Disgusting.

I agree 100% and he had the cheek to say when did I become an expert on Track safety. Is this guy for real?

[Mr Revhead]

I think some people are being a little selective on what they are viewing as serious comments when they quite clearly are not.

[Bill Brown]

Originally Posted by Mr Revhead

I think some people are being a little selective on what they are viewing as serious comments when they quite clearly are not.

I agree
But on a serious note I feel sorry for Johnny he has lost a car but has also had a lucky escape.
The reality is that you loose your brakes at 240km at the end of a straight it is going hurt and I dont care which circuit you are talking about. Motor racing is dangerous, to competitors, officials and spectators.
What frustrates me is that the trend in recent years is that it is always the circuits fault. I have worked for my club that against the odds had the balls to build a circuit back in 1967. Since then every dollar earnt or scrounged and many 1000s of man hours have gone in to making it the safest and the most user friendly facility that we can.
The situation as far as the countries top saloon cars whether it be NZST or NZV8 is the cars are actually slower than the top saloons of the past, yet they have better brakes, suspension, safety etc.
The circuits also are far safer, some photos posted of Puke on another thread show how far we have come.
So where do you see the problem?
As a member of a circuit owning club I get sick of coping all the flack.

[smokin'joe]

Originally Posted by Bill Brown

I agree
But on a serious note I feel sorry for Johnny he has lost a car but has also had a lucky escape.
The reality is that you loose your brakes at 240km at the end of a straight it is going hurt and I dont care which circuit you are talking about. Motor racing is dangerous, to competitors, officials and spectators.
What frustrates me is that the trend in recent years is that it is always the circuits fault. I have worked for my club that against the odds had the balls to build a circuit back in 1967. Since then every dollar earnt or scrounged and many 1000s of man hours have gone in to making it the safest and the most user friendly facility that we can.
The situation as far as the countries top saloon cars whether it be NZST or NZV8 is the cars are actually slower than the top saloons of the past, yet they have better brakes, suspension, safety etc.
The circuits also are far safer, some photos posted of Puke on another thread show how far we have come.
So where do you see the problem?
As a member of a circuit owning club I get sick of coping all the flack.

looks like we better ban rallying or bulldozes a "safety net" into every piece of road in case some one looses their brakes on stage

FFS, it's motorport, not tiddly winks, how often has racetrack safety been in the gun after MECHANICAL failure has caused a major issue/incident ????

[ccc member]

Originally Posted by Bill Brown

I agree
But on a serious note I feel sorry for Johnny he has lost a car but has also had a lucky escape.
The reality is that you loose your brakes at 240km at the end of a straight it is going hurt and I dont care which circuit you are talking about. Motor racing is dangerous, to competitors, officials and spectators.
What frustrates me is that the trend in recent years is that it is always the circuits fault. I have worked for my club that against the odds had the balls to build a circuit back in 1967. Since then every dollar earnt or scrounged and many 1000s of man hours have gone in to making it the safest and the most user friendly facility that we can.
The situation as far as the countries top saloon cars whether it be NZST or NZV8 is the cars are actually slower than the top saloons of the past, yet they have better brakes, suspension, safety etc.
The circuits also are far safer, some photos posted of Puke on another thread show how far we have come.
So where do you see the problem?
As a member of a circuit owning club I get sick of coping all the flack.

Bill as much as I do agree with peoples concerns with regard to circuit safety, we can always improve on what we have got! But at least the South Island clubs own their own circuits and the passion of the members/volunteers to put everything back into their circuits is of course not recognized by the sort of people on here! And as you state it doesn't matter what circuit you are at in NZ if you you loose your brakes at 240k it's going to hurt and damage cars. How about Johny and his team taking some responsibility for the safety of their driver and car! Brake issues in the previous session and having clearly not being fixed the car, yet it was still being driven to the limit. Always easy to blame something else.

[RogerH]

Sure racing is dangerous and we understand that - however that doesn't mean that improving safety should be restricted to just meeting the minimum standards set by MSNZ/FIA.
I've raced at virtually every track in the country and the South Island ones concern me the most from a competitor perspective. Pukekohe is not inherently safe but the only big concern is coming over the "hill" - there is a large run-off exiting turn one and kitty litter at the end of the main straight.
At the South Island tracks the concern seems to be grass or hard run-offs into pretty solid non-forgiving barriers, On a hard run-off surface, you tend to maintain (or even increase) speed when you leave the track and the tyres are often filled with earth and very solid - from a single seater perspective its a bit scary thinking about an "off" in these circumstances.
An improvement at these circuits would be to put in more kitty litter type run-offs to help decrease speed before meeting up with solid walls/tyres/barriers. Hopefully this low tech solution would not be too costly.

[mountainstar]

From my own personal knowledge of what I have seen in this process of FIA grading, I think people misunderstand FIA circuit grading.

Mostly what the grading does is some mathematical calculations the FIA does to determine what cars/series are suitable to race at that particular track. In addition, it looks at things like fencing, curbing, barriers and a checklist of things like fire extinguishers at set points and if you have all that up to spec you pass.

However it can be taken out of context. It's just a set of standards and it doesn't necessary mean that there is not safety issues at each particular track that can arise.

What I have seen that helps in the USA is having plenty of real estate to run off at those high speed areas, rather than putting barriers up close to the track. In my opinion, most NZ tracks I have seen or been on lack in this area, so you end up with a lot of unnecessary damage if you go off. It could be the tracks are limited by what real estate they own to lengthen some of these areas. But there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

From what I have seen there are always people who have safety at the back of their mind or don't want to hear about it. Like Bill Brown said, he doesn't want any flack or criticism. A lot of others don't either. And usually they are the people who don't pay the bill for broken cars and broken bodies. The fact you get turned into a strawberry pancake against the wall or your 200K car is ready for the Metalman, no worries mate that's the way we did it in 1967. So a lot of it falls on competitors and series to insist on looking at changes to make things better, even if that doesn't make you popular(I already decided I was never going to be Mr. Popularity years ago, so be it).

It's why I am a firm believer in competition and capitalism, rather than have a few feudal lords running the show. I think when new and modern tracks like the one in Cromwell come online it will force some of these other tracks to up their game or get left behind. I know these South Island clubs try hard to keep their 3 circuits running for instance, but it's never a bad thing to set aside some funds every year that look at improving safety or have a rethink about what they are doing. Same up north as well.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by ccc member

Bill as much as I do agree with peoples concerns with regard to circuit safety, we can always improve on what we have got! But at least the South Island clubs own their own circuits and the passion of the members/volunteers to put everything back into their circuits is of course not recognized by the sort of people on here! And as you state it doesn't matter what circuit you are at in NZ if you you loose your brakes at 240k it's going to hurt and damage cars. How about Johny and his team taking some responsibility for the safety of their driver and car! Brake issues in the previous session and having clearly not being fixed the car, yet it was still being driven to the limit. Always easy to blame something else.

Yeah they do. Just because there is some criticism, doesn't mean people don't recognize that many have invested plenty of time and money to improve these places. Constructive criticism shouldn't burn your ears off.

Rather than having a cry about it, whether or not JMac's crash brought up any circuit specific safety issues, as a circuit owner anytime there is an incident where someone goes to the hospital, I would do a thorough examination that everything was done properly and look at what would make it better for the next time. There isn't anything wrong with that and no one should get their panties in a wad over it like it's questioning their integrity.

[Goat Boy]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

Yeah they do. Just because there is some criticism, doesn't mean people don't recognize that many have invested plenty of time and money to improve these places. Constructive criticism shouldn't burn your ears off.

Rather than having a cry about it, whether or not JMac's crash brought up any circuit specific safety issues, as a circuit owner anytime there is an incident where someone goes to the hospital, I would do a thorough examination that everything was done properly and look at what would make it better for the next time. There isn't anything wrong with that and no one should get their panties in a wad over it like it's questioning their integrity.

Exactly! Well put. There seems to be something about people from the SI circuits who think they are being got at because questions are raised over the safety of their circuits.

But if I owned a circuit, I would not want to see anyone hurt at all, therefore if something happened and the drivers were saying what they are saying here, which is, "The tyre barriers are too hard, you need another two layers that don't have dirt in them at that point of the track," then I'd say that sounded like a good cheap and easy fix. I wouldn't attack the people who are concerned about it, that's just being defensive and frankly childish.

Of course motorsport is dangerous, but it's a lot less dangerous than it used to be and with car and track upgrades will continue to become less so, but you have to move with the times, if it worked 20 years ago it is probably NOT adequate now. Just accept that and move on.

[Bill Brown]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

From my own personal knowledge of what I have seen in this process of FIA grading, I think people misunderstand FIA circuit grading.

Mostly what the grading does is some mathematical calculations the FIA does to determine what cars/series are suitable to race at that particular track. In addition, it looks at things like fencing, curbing, barriers and a checklist of things like fire extinguishers at set points and if you have all that up to spec you pass.

However it can be taken out of context. It's just a set of standards and it doesn't necessary mean that there is not safety issues at each particular track that can arise.

What I have seen that helps in the USA is having plenty of real estate to run off at those high speed areas, rather than putting barriers up close to the track. In my opinion, most NZ tracks I have seen or been on lack in this area, so you end up with a lot of unnecessary damage if you go off. It could be the tracks are limited by what real estate they own to lengthen some of these areas. But there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

From what I have seen there are always people who have safety at the back of their mind or don't want to hear about it. Like Bill Brown said, he doesn't want any flack or criticism. A lot of others don't either. And usually they are the people who don't pay the bill for broken cars and broken bodies. The fact you get turned into a strawberry pancake against the wall or your 200K car is ready for the Metalman, no worries mate that's the way we did it in 1967. So a lot of it falls on competitors and series to insist on looking at changes to make things better, even if that doesn't make you popular(I already decided I was never going to be Mr. Popularity years ago, so be it).

It's why I am a firm believer in competition and capitalism, rather than have a few feudal lords running the show. I think when new and modern tracks like the one in Cromwell come online it will force some of these other tracks to up their game or get left behind. I know these South Island clubs try hard to keep their 3 circuits running for instance, but it's never a bad thing to set aside some funds every year that look at improving safety or have a rethink about what they are doing. Same up north as well.

Mountainstar

For anyone to try and keep up with Cromwell would be impossible, their money box is far to big.

We at Timaru dont "try and keep our circuit running" we run a very successful operation.

Setting funds aside is really for a circuit owner is a myth, a bit similar to media gate numbers.

Come and see me sometime and I would be happy to give you an insite into what is involved in running a circuit operation.

[NZSTfan]

on a kind-of related topic, i watched the F1 grand Finale last nite in Brazil......i couldn't help notice that when Grojean (sp?) went off, he went over the asphalt run-off area and hit the tyre bundles side on at an alarming speed. No doubt he would have walked away from it no worries, but it does go to show that even at an FIA 1 track, in the wet, the safety side of things can be a lottery.

Now the fact that he should have been on intermediates and not slicks is another issue.....

[Goat Boy]

Originally Posted by NZSTfan

on a kind-of related topic, i watched the F1 grand Finale last nite in Brazil......i couldn't help notice that when Grojean (sp?) went off, he went over the asphalt run-off area and hit the tyre bundles side on at an alarming speed. No doubt he would have walked away from it no worries, but it does go to show that even at an FIA 1 track, in the wet, the safety side of things can be a lottery.

Now the fact that he should have been on intermediates and not slicks is another issue.....

In the wet is another issue - the only thing that will work the same to slow cars down is kitty litter in that instance, so you still need to have really good impact absorbing barriers at the end of the run-off area. Which is the issue that seems to be a problem. But let's move these discussions to the new thread?

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Bill Brown

Mountainstar

For anyone to try and keep up with Cromwell would be impossible, their money box is far to big.

We at Timaru dont "try and keep our circuit running" we run a very successful operation.

Setting funds aside is really for a circuit owner is a myth, a bit similar to media gate numbers.

Come and see me sometime and I would be happy to give you an insite into what is involved in running a circuit operation.

I work in the business but I am always interested in learning more from others and their perspective, so next time I am in the locality, I'll be sure to check in.

[E36ST]

Is the footage of this crash online anywhere? From where I was standing it looked like he was airborne for some of it, so I wonder if adding more sand would really have helped if he was flying above it.

Powerbuilt Tools Raceway Ruapuna is my home track and I consider it vastly safer than many I have raced at around the country. And sure there have been a handful of times I've gone into Turn 1 a bit quick and yes it does tighten the bottom a bit. But if my brakes failed & I had an off then the last thing on my mind would be complaining in the media about sub standard track safety.

But I am fairly sure that the Canterbury Car Club will consider options on what can be done to further improve safety. The sand trap on T1 was recently extended anyway - not because it was required as a result of a formal review but as part of their ongoing continuous improvement. But there is only so much that can be done and ultimately we as competitors need to accept that there is some element of danger involved, despite ongoing safety improvements.

I remember Johnny Mac calling the Timaru track safety into question a couple of years ago also after he went off... on his own.

The subject of circuit safety is an interesting one and will often be debated but I think as a general rule of thumb you drive to the conditions as you would do on the road. i.e. If you're racing at Teretonga in the middle of a rain storm then slow it down a bit

[Club racer]

He was airborne for some time - that's also what I saw. Grass bit off the immediate edge of the track launched him. I still think the issue isn't that, it's what he hit. After all, contact with another car could launch you into the air over anything, good or bad and in most cases the barrier/tyre wall is the thing that finally stops the car. Just put more tyres in for goodness sake - I just cannot believe that it is even questionable. Sure they may still crash, sure teams may still cock up, sure it is unreasonable to lobby circuit owners to modify the run offs or gravel beds- but ffs all we're talking is a few old tyres that could improve the end result for driver and car dramatically.

Seriously, if that is such a difficult notion for people on here to accept, I'd question whether they should even be involved in modern day motorsport. Unreal.

[MacrosNZ]

Originally Posted by E36ST

Is the footage of this crash online anywhere?

http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/Motorsport...2/Default.aspx

[Mike Racer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clMW1...ature=youtu.be

[Goat Boy]

Here's the interview with Johnny Mac

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOiQ5Vz4OeQ

Try turning on the captions! Hilarious!

[on_to_it]

Originally Posted by Club racer

Seriously, if that is such a difficult notion for people on here to accept, I'd question whether they should even be involved in modern day motorsport. Unreal.

I may be a lone supporter here Clubbie, but logic sometimes isn't enough. I fully agree with you, but at times politics comes into play...

[grelley]

It is a litle more then just a few tyres ffs. They must all be the same size and they must be bolted together in an approved manner into bundles and then placed in the required position in the tyre wall. Conveyor belting along the front of the tyre barriers also helps. Also sometimes it is difficult to envisage what damage a car will cause on impact until it actually happens so track safety is built around known factors but is always an evolving process. It is unfortunate that the machine that Hamilton had for doing tyre bundles was sold off so cheaply to those other people. It would have been ieal for the clubs to share between them for just such an eventuallity.

[Club racer]

Originally Posted by grelley

It is a litle more then just a few tyres ffs. They must all be the same size and they must be bolted together in an approved manner into bundles and then placed in the required position in the tyre wall. Conveyor belting along the front of the tyre barriers also helps. Also sometimes it is difficult to envisage what damage a car will cause on impact until it actually happens so track safety is built around known factors but is always an evolving process. It is unfortunate that the machine that Hamilton had for doing tyre bundles was sold off so cheaply to those other people. It would have been ieal for the clubs to share between them for just such an eventuallity.

Well they certainly are not bolted together on the turn where John crashed - just stacked one on top of the other - hence they were fired around like skittles in the hit.

[Mr Revhead]

Just a little back track, it has been confirmed that the crash was definitely caused by brake hose failure?