'09 ALMS Petit Le Mans - Sep 26th

[The359]

IMSA lists the time of race as 4 hours 48 minutes. Race called at 8 hours 44 minutes.

[Jonerz]

Cool, thanks.

Chris

[Fogelhund]

http://americanlemans.com/index_news.php?n=13911

PETIT LE MANS 2009: AN EXPLANATION
The position from the Series, IMSA and Road Atlanta
The unusual weather circumstances that resulted in a rain-shortened Petit Le Mans powered by MAZDA6 created many questions about how and why certain decisions were made. As a result, the Series feels it important to communicate the process that American Le Mans Series, IMSA and Road Atlanta officials pursued as they dealt with weather and track issues.

The decision to call the race prior to its completion was required for the following reasons…

• Due to the weeks of historically unprecedented inclement weather that the Greater Atlanta area had been subjected to (including additional very heavy rain Saturday morning) the track conditions at the start of the race were fragile at best. The land surrounding Road Atlanta was completely saturated and incapable of absorbing any additional rainfall. The heavy rain that began just before the halfway mark of the race almost immediately created an unsafe condition on the track. There were several areas with water running across the track and standing water up to 6 inches in depth in the Turn 4 and Turn 10 areas. These conditions required IMSA to halt the race per the published red flag procedures.

IMSA acknowledges that Road Atlanta staff was adamant that every effort be made to resume racing all the way up to the 10-hour mark. IMSA was in complete agreement and made every effort to restore the track to race condition. However, the unsafe track conditions continued even after the rain stopped. As a result, it was not practical to restart the race for the following reasons:

• Both the Road Atlanta and IMSA staff were very aware of the changing weather conditions and had formulated a plan to attempt to restore the track to racing condition based on a break in the weather (indicated on weather radar for the Road Atlanta area) that was to occur around 7 pm. This plan was activated despite the break not coming at that time. The break in weather did not occur at 7 pm but did materialize at approximately 8 pm. The race has historically ended around 9:30 pm. At 8 pm it would have taken at least 1 hour to restore the track to a condition that was better than when the red flag was waved. This criterion is the standard by which IMSA and other professional race series (which follow the International Sporting Code) use to determine a restart to a race event that has been stopped due to inclement weather. During the decision making period IMSA also called upon two (2) unbiased veteran professional drivers from the Series to personally inspect the track conditions at approximately 7:45 pm. Both drivers agreed that the conditions were not safe and that restarting the race in the extreme wet conditions and in darkness represented an unacceptable level of risk. It was only after this comprehensive analysis of all factors involving track conditions, time required to restore the surface to an acceptable condition and the consultation of highly experienced professional drivers that IMSA made the decision to wave the checkered flag and end the event.

The 12th Petit Le Mans was an official race as defined in the rules for the following reasons…

• Series races are conducted under two sets of rules: the IMSA CODE and the Standing Regulations for the American Le Mans Series. According to the IMSA CODE, the Race Director and the Stewards are responsible for determining whether track conditions are safe to continue the event for reasons of safety or forces beyond their control. Obviously weather is classified as a force beyond control. The race was red flagged due to a torrential downpour just short of the 50 percent completion point in regards to time. The IMSA CODE also states that during a race stoppage the overall race time will continue to be counted during the stoppage unless otherwise announced by the Race Director. The Race Director did not stop the race time due to the fact that there was every expectation and intention to re-start the event. The weather radar readings at the time the red flag was displayed indicated a break in the rain was due at approximately 7 pm. As a result a plan was made to put every effort into restoring the track surface and restarting the race. As referenced above, the expected break in the rain did not materialize until much later. However, the clock continued to run and the race was considered complete once it passed the 50 percent point.

[GTfour]

To all american 'gentlemen' who can't resist using degrading terms like 'you dolt' or 'retarded', maybe it's a good idea to just red flag ALMS races beforehand? I mean, what's the use of running a race on a track of which it's allready known it's not up to the job when heavy rain's gonna come?
You do have weatherforecasts over there do you?

The funny one is who actually thinks that building a suitable waterdrainage system wouldn't have worked anyway... Architect or engineer was it?
Come visit Holland some day, our country excists below sealevel for more then 75% of which we dutch actually won a big portion from the sea.

Never tell a dutchmen water can't be drained...

But hey,you guys probably know best, as allways.

[The359]

The track can handle most rains. It just couldn't have a "Once in a 100 years" rain like that.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by GTfour

To all american 'gentlemen' who can't resist using degrading terms like 'you dolt' or 'retarded', maybe it's a good idea to just red flag ALMS races beforehand? I mean, what's the use of running a race on a track of which it's allready known it's not up to the job when heavy rain's gonna come?
You do have weatherforecasts over there do you?

The funny one is who actually thinks that building a suitable waterdrainage system wouldn't have worked anyway... Architect or engineer was it?
Come visit Holland some day, our country excists below sealevel for more then 75% of which we dutch actually won a big portion from the sea.

Never tell a dutchmen water can't be drained...

But hey,you guys probably know best, as allways.

Calling a race beforehand based on weather forecast seems a little silly doesn't it?

You hit on an excellent point. We're not dutch. Isn't that weird? Atlanta is about 1000 ft above sea level, and Rd. Atl. probably 100ft higher. It doesn't flood here, it's too damn hilly, and yet it did. My family has lived in this part of Georgia for over 200 years and to our knowledge it has never flooded like that here. Why would you design a drainage system for an event that will never occur again in our lifetimes?

Dan's post on the previous page really hit home what happened and why. And he's right, nothing financially viable could have been done to prevent this.

[Flyin Ryan]

GTfour: To all american 'gentlemen' who can't resist using degrading terms like 'you dolt' or 'retarded', maybe it's a good idea to just red flag ALMS races beforehand? I mean, what's the use of running a race on a track of which it's allready known it's not up to the job when heavy rain's gonna come?
You do have weatherforecasts over there do you?

The funny one is who actually thinks that building a suitable waterdrainage system wouldn't have worked anyway... Architect or engineer was it?
Come visit Holland some day, our country excists below sealevel for more then 75% of which we dutch actually won a big portion from the sea.

Never tell a dutchmen water can't be drained...

But hey,you guys probably know best, as allways.

Cut the arrogance.

Originally Posted by JHamilton

You hit on an excellent point. We're not dutch. Isn't that weird? Atlanta is about 1000 ft above sea level, and Rd. Atl. probably 100ft higher. It doesn't flood here, it's too damn hilly, and yet it did. My family has lived in this part of Georgia for over 200 years and to our knowledge it has never flooded like that here. Why would you design a drainage system for an event that will never occur again in our lifetimes?

To add to this guy's point, where I live now in 1999 was heavily affected from the rains of Hurricane Floyd. The reason was because the water literally had nowhere to go because the ocean was too far away to act as a draining effect until many days later, so the water just "sat there". Where I lived at the time was near the North Carolina sounds and there was no problem with flooding there, because we lived near the ocean. Where I live now is 100 miles inland and it got no help at all from draining and a third of the city was underwater for several days. It was a 500-year flood, meaning that it has a 0.2% chance of happening in a given year. And yes, I am an engineer, so where would you drain the water to? The convenient little fact that you forget considering you live in Holland and this race happened in inland Georgia is that in Holland you've got this thing called the Atlantic Ocean that you can drain all your water to. Where are you going to drain the water that was in Braselton to? The Atlantic is too far away. You can't drain it to rivers because they would be full and in most cases of flooding are what cause the flooding to start with. Lakes and ponds nearby would be full as well. The groundwater is too saturated, that is why the water is staying on the surface. So what magical place are you going to pump all this water to? It's a Southern storm in the summer. They sometimes drop a lot of water.

I swear, the more I'm on the internet on various message boards, the more I realize that our supposed friends in Europe hate us. Every single problem in the world is our fault and if we do absolutely the tiniest thing wrong like the unforgivable sin of the pumping system in the hills of Georgia cannot take the torrential rain of a multi-year storm, it's because Americans are too dumb and stupid and not cultured or educated enough like they are.

[Tim the Grey]

But it's true...

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by GTfour

Never tell a dutchmen water can't be drained...

Thank you for your expert opinion. I tried to put my finger in the dike at the race, but it just didn't work. I am not sure what I was doing wrong.

[DanShenise]

The thing I've realized about Europe is that they spend money on engineering and infrastructure projects like nothing else. So it makes perfect sense to design something for a 100 year flood event. You have to remember we've only been around as a nation for 233 years. Throw in another 100 years of settlement of any decent size before that. We don't have the experience.

That said we also value engineer the heck out of everything. On our way out to RA, my friends (one Scot and one Geordie?) both commented on that when we do highway interchanges, we only seem to design them to last about 20 years before they have to be re-done due to increased capacity. So we save $20M now to spend $50M later. Anyway, I don't think there was a viable option at RA. Its just not cost effective for a privately owned facility to invest in the kind of drainage system that would have been required for one week during a hundred year period. Especially when that event could have happened during the other 51 weeks in a given year.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by DanShenise

Its just not cost effective for a privately owned facility to invest in the kind of drainage system that would have been required for one week during a hundred year period.

Small nit to pick... "100 yr floods" is not a flood that may happen every 100 years or so, but rather are 1% floods meaning their is a 1% chance of them happening in a given year. Regardless your point is 100% accurate. How much money do you throw at a scenario that has 1% chance of happening within a given year and then that even happening close to the a major event at the track.

I seems odd to me that every is ignoring risk, cost and benefit factors. To our friend in Holland's point, if you live below sea level and a significant failure is going to cost billions of dollars in damages and loss of life, then the cost is justified. However in this case the worst case scenario is that a race had to be cancelled early and you can't justify the cost to protect against a rare occurrence. Can improvements be made to the drainage system? Sure, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are. However I don't think anything could have been "economically" done to prevent this.

No doubt if a meteor had hit and destroyed part of the track someone would be saying they should have had a protective dome built over the track or a Star Wars tractor beam system to deflect meteors away or something like that.

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by GTfour

To all american 'gentlemen' who can't resist using degrading terms like 'you dolt' or 'retarded', maybe it's a good idea to just red flag ALMS races beforehand? I mean, what's the use of running a race on a track of which it's allready known it's not up to the job when heavy rain's gonna come?
You do have weatherforecasts over there do you?

The funny one is who actually thinks that building a suitable waterdrainage system wouldn't have worked anyway... Architect or engineer was it?
Come visit Holland some day, our country excists below sealevel for more then 75% of which we dutch actually won a big portion from the sea.

Never tell a dutchmen water can't be drained...

But hey,you guys probably know best, as allways.

none of this really applies to me cause i ain't no gentlemen.
but i'd be a little worried about living on reclaimed ocean with global warming and all. good luck with that!

[DanShenise]

Instead of using dolt, I recommend we use imagery:

[NightStalk3r]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

none of this really applies to me cause i ain't no gentlemen.

Or me cause i ain't no American.

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by Tim the Grey

But it's true...

Fine. Yet your prime minister still feels the need to run through a kitchen to talk to Obama in an aim to feel relevant.

[Hazard]

I've just looked and it looks like the last dozen posts in this thread have nothing to do with the Petit Le Mans. Presumably then, there's nothing to say about the Petit Le Mans anymore?

Go talk about the next race now - this thread is done.

[Tim Northcutt]

Moderator Hat On:

Get on topic and challenge the content of the post...

Don't attack the person.

If it persists, I'll be either issuing warnings or vacation time for a little while from Ten-Tenths to the offenders.

Now...let's discuss the subject of the thread and quit bashing continents, nations and other people individually...