Race stoppages - are they all necessary? (plus a bit of CSCC, Brands Hatch)

[bludvl_x19]

Originally Posted by jellison

I was going to compose a long winded reply here - but as you have so many fragile individuals on here, I won't bother.

Oh stuff it I will....

How can anyone Complain about a general discussion like this.

Discussion is the whole point of Discussion forums. It seems to me that no one can moan on ANY level on this forum about anything about the Officialdom of a race meeting (as if they can do no wrong)!

I do like alot of things about 10/10ths but this is the petty side of it that really puts people off, you just CANNOT have a lively debate on here.

Honestly, unless you are the one's spending huge amounts in travel costs, race prep, fuel, entry fees and general maintence of the cars then you do not know where ANY of the competitors on here are coming from.

And to have this view that anything anti the general running of a meeting is Verbotten is frankly Dictatorial.

Alot of this ever increasing stopping of meeting and never restarting them is due (IMHO) to the ever more number of event being squeezed into the average days racing - 18 races crammed into this 2 day meet - so you can see why they er on the not restarting side!

Complaining about dodgy race stoppages is generally done through the respective race organisers secretary not individually. We had one of these last year I think and did get some redress for a rubbish decision - they sent us all 50 quid (which was OK as the field was HUGE), but we would have all rather have not had it and had a restart after all the expense, time and money in getting to the meeting from all over the UK (and sometime further a field).

Anyway let get off the Red flag thing - the Thoroughbreds was a Great Race till the chap binned it / "reversed in the Gravel".

Mike H did say he almost pooped his pants when he as the race leader, dropped down paddock with the MG spinning and not totally sure which way to go!!

Also PM a reply

Mick

[NiG_21]

Originally Posted by carrera

It does seem odd that we race to different rules and regulations at the same meeting. We were in the Tin Tops and had 2 pace car periods, both of which worked very well indeed.

Thank you very much... I was driving

[terence]

Safety car periods in my opinion,are far better than a Red Flag.
Gordon,the Spa farce was caused by the nob's in their "Classic Car Parade",the police would not let them out of the circuit via another gate,so some of these "drivers" could not get their respective cars out of the pit lane!
See-ing as it's likely to happen again,my other driver is going to leave the pit lane 10 Minuit's before the Six Hour Starts.

[Peter Mallett]

In the car or walking?

[terence]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

In the car or walking?

I thought that having three laps in hand would be a good start.

[MartinSmith]

Originally Posted by terence bower

Safety car periods in my opinion,are far better than a Red Flag.
..............

Thats only cause we let you drive the safety car for us!!!!

[The SpeCTator]

Zafarelly ....A fair bit has been written about the driver that spun twice at Brands halting the race.
From my observations on both occasions it was speed outstripping skill and failing to learn any lessons in between the incidents.
His failure to apply the brakes on the second occasion was blatantly dangerous as the approaching leaders I am sure would rather deal with avoiding a stationary car rather than one slowly rolling back accross the track towards the gravel.
Having backed into the gravel therefore stopping a few feet off the bottom of Paddock Bend exit kerbs, he got out and took refuge behind the barrier a few feet in front of me.
He was then approached by an official wearing black (as opposed to the regulation orange), the official explained to him that his actions were dangerous, upon which he was seen to argue back if his arm waving movements were to be judged as defensive.
The race was stopped and he went back to his car still "in discusion" with the official.
It was encouraging to me to see the driver been given some firm advice about the incident and maybe this should happen more often.
Was the official in black sufficiently qualified to give such advice, well from my recognition it was a driver with over 40 years racing experience in a number of different categories, so I reckon most definately so!

[tonful]

Thanks for confirming what I thought Spectator, I was standing on the inside on the way up to Druids and I could see a lot of arm waving and hear raised voices but was too far away to actually hear what was being said. He certainly looked very cross when he got back in his car.

[terence]

Originally Posted by ClaireSmith

Thats only cause we let you drive the safety car for us!!!!

Thats not funny.

[Tim Falce]

The people I was with said he had spun, was going backward very neatly up hill then suddenly dived off the track into the gravel, ho humm, C'est la vie or whatever the German for it is.

[flagwaver]

Well here is my take on this debate.

The Clark of the Course gets a message from the post chief (observer) saying a car is in a dangerous place. He has to make a quick decision whether he stops that race or let it carry on. (we have already established that the use of the safety Car was not an option) OK so now the race has been stopped. The C of C has a look at his timetable and again has to make a quick decision on what is going to happen with the rest of his meeting.
With the best will in the world he/she is occasionally going to get it wrong.

Then again if drivers never got it wrong, he/she wouldn't have to make those sort of decisions.

And yes organisers try to cram in as many races as they can. If they did not you would have to pay even more for your entry fees.

I am not saying drivers do not sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, but as I have said many times before perhaps if more drivers actually became more involved in their clubs organisation some of these problems may not occur and if they did you would have a better understanding.

What does surprise me is that some of the posters on this thread seem to have little idea of how their own race (and racing) is organised.

[carrera]

Originally Posted by NiG_21

Thank you very much... I was driving

And you led for more laps than I did!

[MartinSmith]

Originally Posted by flagwaver

Well here is my take on this debate.

The Clark of the Course gets a message from the post chief (observer) saying a car is in a dangerous place. He has to make a quick decision whether he stops that race or let it carry on. (we have already established that the use of the safety Car was not an option) OK so now the race has been stopped. The C of C has a look at his timetable and again has to make a quick decision on what is going to happen with the rest of his meeting.
With the best will in the world he/she is occasionally going to get it wrong.

Then again if drivers never got it wrong, he/she wouldn't have to make those sort of decisions.

And yes organisers try to cram in as many races as they can. If they did not you would have to pay even more for your entry fees.

I am not saying drivers do not sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, but as I have said many times before perhaps if more drivers actually became more involved in their clubs organisation some of these problems may not occur and if they did you would have a better understanding.

What does surprise me is that some of the posters on this thread seem to have little idea of how their own race (and racing) is organised.

agreed

[Bryan Degerlund]

Originally Posted by Eddy V

It may be a silly remark, but they should get those quarterd flags (yellow-black) back again. No crock with safety cars, no need for red flags.
But I'm only a marshal, what do I know.

Totally agree Eddy, it worked very well at Brands Hatch but with some circuits NIH attitude and lack of correct application from some competitors it was doomed to failure.

[terence]

In many respects I tend to agree with Flagwaver,that was my reason for the earlier post about a days Marshalling being a compusory part of the ARDS Test for the newcomers,at least they would get an idea on how a meeting is run,it's not just standing around at some windsweept post,there is the constant radio connection from all around the circuit,and the CoC etc.

[MartinSmith]

Originally Posted by terence bower

In many respects I tend to agree with Flagwaver,that was my reason for the earlier post about a days Marshalling being a compusory part of the ARDS Test for the newcomers,at least they would get an idea on how a meeting is run,it's not just standing around at some windsweept post,there is the constant radio connection from all around the circuit,and the CoC etc.

That may be a good idea Terry, because, just on the flip side, in order to become a Clerk of the Course, part of the modular training is to spend time on post so it could well work the other way with regard to competitors.

[terence]

It also lets "Us Lot" know what a pain we can be when things go wrong.

[zefarelly]

when some historic racers spend less time at the circuit than the published duration of their race its hardly suprising a few don't know their ar*e from their elbow as far as circuit decorum goes

golly I'm in a good mod today

[Al Weyman]

Yesterday at Oulton there was an epidemic of shortened races the worst the Group 1 race which was black flagged after 4 laps and astonishingly they did not restart it and it was a very simple single car recovery, I can tell you most of the guys were pretty miffed paying £205 to just get 4 laps racing!

[GORDON STREETER]

: The 750 Motor Club meet at Brands seemed to have it sorted today with racing under waved yellows and a restart.

[juliann]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

Yesterday at Oulton there was an epidemic of shortened races the worst the Group 1 race which was black flagged after 4 laps and astonishingly they did not restart it and it was a very simple single car recovery, I can tell you most of the guys were pretty miffed paying £205 to just get 4 laps racing!

That looks like a pretty unfortunate day Al. A back of fag packet calculation estimates that £7,650 of entry fees were wasted over the day. That's about £100 for every driver affected.

[Al Weyman]

In fairness it was a bad weather day but it was improving at the time of the stoppage in the Group 1 and our David Howard in the XJ12 was robbed of a win as he had just taken the lead but they have that bizzare wind back a lap thing which I never quite understand surely it should be who's up front when the flags come out, all stay in order as soon as they come out and take the positions from there.

I have to be cynical and say that because of the weather conditions and other stoppages it became the thing to do to just stop and move on. Pace car usage or waved yellows would have sufficed on this occassion.

[Stacy]

£205 for an Oulton 10 lapper is about break even for 17 cars on a 15min race by my rough calcs.

S.

[Eddy V]

Were you there spectating for 750 Gordon? Shame I missed you then. But yes, they restarted a few races that were stopped after the dreaded percentage. Well done from 750 MC.
One restart was only 4 minutes and a lap, but still.

[jamesholland]

Re. 750MC Brands - I can't have been at the same meeting. On Saturday races 2, 3 and 4 were all red flagged. Mine wasn't restarted as we had completed 7 out of 13 laps.