The Chase at Bathurst

[Kingair]

Should the chase be altered, removed alltogether or realigned?

After watching Fabian's big prang last year and nearly a very nasty ute prang this year, is it time for the chase to be removed or altered to stop cars spearing through the sand trap and back onto the track and colliding with other cars?

[TSR]

Return it back to pre 1986, but then again I dont think the current v8 engine would last with a full conrod

[bestfit]

I'm more concerned about the wall coming out of the chase where Radisich went in a few years ago. The were two very major hits there in the utes and masters. I didn't hear any reports of injuries so hopefully both drivers escaped unscathed but they could have both been very serious.

[peckstar]

Im with you on that one Bestfit

that was a massive hit in the masters(missed the ute one) was checking out the car afterwards, it is in a bad way (i assume its destroyed)

something needs to be done about it

but at the same time we have seen some very big offs at the chase with cars flying through at high speed amd coming out the other end and in many times coming out and able to keep going there are so many positives and negatives

the only true fix is too scary to put into words slow the cars considerable

[St00ge]

http://youtu.be/UBJs-Zbq97E

Big hit..

[Simon S]

not sure I agree with you.

Without appearing cherish, what would you change to prevent this kind of thing without destroying the legacy of the cct?

And let's face it, that was an avoidable incident.

[JHamilton]

It's one of the best corners in motorsport. Mostly because of the danger involved. Leave it be.

[KLR93]

we should just ban all motorsport it seems to be pretty dangerous

[porsche91722]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

It's one of the best corners in motorsport. Mostly because of the danger involved. Leave it be.

Have to agree. Lowndes pass on Murphy proves this. I haven't been in favor of track modifications in the past, but the chase should stay.
I'm still getting over on what they did at La Sarthe.

[Downoz]

Make it a fraction tighter, still flat out for the ones with real big nuts and that are gamer

[Axeman444]

Originally Posted by bestfit

I'm more concerned about the wall coming out of the chase where Radisich went in a few years ago. The were two very major hits there in the utes and masters. I didn't hear any reports of injuries so hopefully both drivers escaped unscathed but they could have both been very serious.

+1 to this, drivers often have to get wide there to avoid other cars that are re-entering after going through the Trimbole sandtrap, or trying to make a pass on someone who has run wide at Turn 21 and gets put out on the marbles at 22, and we have all seen the incidents as soon as a car gets on the grass there at 22, passenger time

[Woolley]

I've always felt it seems a bit of a stop gap for safety reasons until they can come up with something better.

Happily it's not a big tarmac run-off of the type that's turned Eau Rouge from being a challenge to being a car park with white lines marking the suggested line. However it's not really somewhere to challenge technique and it's unsympathetic to error or mechanical failure, simply moving the danger from the last corner to the wall on the exit of the Chase.

Hard to know what to do differently, but I feel it needs something of a braking zone before the first part and then a tricky sequence that allows a quick driver to mount a challange down into the last. I'm mindful of Silverstone's Becketts Esses as being a guide - 4th gear entry down to third in the middle with a difficult sequence leading on to the straight.

[Denosaur]

If Conrod was still straight, all that spectator area straight on at Murray's would be so far back, you'd probably need a telescope or something to watch the action down there.

I say leave it the way it is, just get rid of that sand trap.

[Langers]

I'd prefer that they simply remove the gravel trap at Murray's corner and replace it with high traction tarmac. Would have prevented 3 unnecessary safety cars in the 2011 race.

[sizzle]

Remove the bridge, remove the problem.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Langers

I'd prefer that they simply remove the gravel trap at Murray's corner and replace it with high traction tarmac. Would have prevented 3 unnecessary safety cars in the 2011 race.

Something is certainly worth looking at. There is no real runoff that you don't immediately get sand bagged on.

Leave the Chase as is.

[craig1]

Move the outside fence/barrier where the rat and the mustang hit closer to the edge of the track (right to the edge) and bring it back toward the chase and more parallel to the track.

No run off, no time to build speed before you hit. If you go wide you would more than likely slide along the fence and not hit it at an acute angle.

[Purist]

Sorry, but a gravel trap causing a safety car is merely an inconvenience. Live with it.

Tarmac doesn't do (fill in explative here) for an out-of-control car. At the Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen this year, two of the cars more or less lost brakes and steering; they rollicked right across the tarmac and hard into the walls, almost head-on.

And for those who say the cars go right over gravel traps, what's that tan stuff that seems to be eminating from under the car the whole way across? The only cases that I've seen gravel traps be ineffective is where bad grading of the ground the car went across before reaching the bed launched the car over part or all of the trap, so that's NOT an issue with the gravel itself at all. As for cars being pitched into rolls in the gravel, if the car is still moving, it's dissipating energy. Better it do that, than come to a sudden, complete stop (a lot of drivers have been injured/killed by that sudden stop).

There might not be a Chase in the first place if they had had walls running parallel to the straight for a good distance, more or less preventing a head-on into the barriers protecting that bridge abutment, which one of the cars finally hit with lethal consequences in 1986.

It's a long way from the worst chicane I've seen, but part of me definitely wants the full Conrod back. And it seems a bit of a bad idea having a sizable spectator area directly in line with a significant straightaway. It might be nice if they could put some bleachers/stands up on the outside of the track alongside the braking zone. As for runoff at the bottom, either do a spur escape road with layers of tire barriers, or have a large sand bank a la the old Mulsanne Corner (just don't use compacted material for it).

[JC Ohope]

Looks like Glen Seton agrees with us

Former Australian Touring Car champion Glenn Seton has called for the Mount Panorama circuit to undergo immediate safety changes.

Seton, now driving in the Touring Car Masters Series, says that the angle of the wall on the exit of The Chase needs to be addressed after it claimed a number of support race victims last weekend.

Due to the location of the famous Armor All bridge, the wall sits at a 45 degree angle to the race track, making it susceptible to nasty incidents – most notable for Paul Radisich’s crash in the 2006 Bathurst 1000 when he hit the wall head-on, breaking his pelvis and ankle.

At Mount Panorama last weekend, both Brad Patton (V8 Utes) and Andrew Whiteside (Touring Car Masters) collected the wall heavily, causing significant damage to their race cars.

It is considered that the only way to improve safety at the corner is to re-profile the size and shape of the Armor All bridge.

Seton, who won the final Touring Car Masters race at Bathurst last weekend, says that the issue needs to be addressed before more a driver is seriously injured.

“There’s no doubt that it needs to be looked at,” Seton told Speedcafe.com.

“We’ve had quite a few incidents now, with quite a few injuries. Paul Radisich is a good example there, plus the couple of accidents that we saw over the weekend.

“It’s the alignment of the wall that creates the situation. If the wall ran alongside of the track, you’d only bounce off it and run down the road.

“Anytime you have an incident, in any part of any race track, you’ve got to access what you can do to make the circuit safer.

“It’s the angle that you hit that wall. Just before the bridge is the situation you have to look at.”

[PVDA]

Originally Posted by craig1

Move the outside fence/barrier where the rat and the mustang hit closer to the edge of the track (right to the edge) and bring it back toward the chase and more parallel to the track.

No run off, no time to build speed before you hit. If you go wide you would more than likely slide along the fence and not hit it at an acute angle.

You beat me to it in posting this suggestion.

The wall only needs to be a car width away from the track edge to allow for the occasional car running a little wide but anyone going wider than that usually ends up having a big one on the wall at the base of the bridge.

I can now see a few people saying you cant move it closer but you need to remember the race track is the area between the white line and in track safety they design the run offs to minimise injury to the driver & marshals/spectators first and then worry about the car 2nd. At least with the wall close they'll simply slap it and then slide along it which is 1000% better than the near head on stop they have now.

[GTRMagic]

Or perhaps that story originated from the discussions on here

It was amazing to show a newbie the Bathurst circuit last weekend, to show the crowns in the road, the changes in camber, the bumps in some places that make a difference to how the cars land on entry or exit...

The Chase wasnt really a stop gap measure, it was in direct response to the unfortunate accident that claimed the life of Mike Burgmann all those years ago. 25 and counting...

There are a couple of challenges there:
- People stuff up. Errors are in motorsport every day, its part of the challenge right?

Take a squiz at This one... Ouch! Imagine if it had been Mr Whincup's unwell car sitting in the chase... could easily have been another FPR 2007 style crash, or a rollover or worse.

- Challenges with the cars that can fail to make it thru the Chase, and how they re-enter the track. Arguably the circuit, and runoff area narrows considerably once thru the Chase area, such that rejoining cars will almost always land back onto the racing line, in front of, or certainly near any passing vehicles, who are still in the 200+km/h space, and under full load in the car at that point.

But what is the answer? Take out the bridge? Perhaps.

Not sure how people would get to the other side of the track without that bridge, other than walking a million miles... but its not impossible. The bridge itself is barely 1.5 people wide to get across, nothing like the 4 lane highway that crosses pit straight. Having said that, there is no better feeling in the world than standing atop of the thing when a V8Supercar (or more preferably a 360 N-GT!) shrills its way past, and shakes the bridge to the tune of its engine note...

To remove the bridge across the Chase exit would lose some heritage from the circuit, and some sponsor dollars from JPS, Dunlop, Bridgestone, Armor All and all the other brands that have assumed the naming rights to that space.

Is this discussion even on CAMS' radar?

[peckstar]

PVDA, not disagreeing with you

just asking the question, where would you start the wall?

[redesp]

Originally Posted by PVDA

You beat me to it in posting this suggestion.

The wall only needs to be a car width away from the track edge to allow for the occasional car running a little wide but anyone going wider than that usually ends up having a big one on the wall at the base of the bridge.

I can now see a few people saying you cant move it closer but you need to remember the race track is the area between the white line and in track safety they design the run offs to minimise injury to the driver & marshals/spectators first and then worry about the car 2nd. At least with the wall close they'll simply slap it and then slide along it which is 1000% better than the near head on stop they have now.

Agree,
Especially when there is a marshall station right at that point.
The end of the wall is obvious.. but at which point along the exit corner of the chase does it start?

[PVDA]

If my Google Maps link works............

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=bat...Wales&t=h&z=18

There's a concrete wall all the way along the old straight ahead line through the big gravel trap on the drivers left side of the track.

Instead of having it go wider prior to the bridge just have it keep going straight towards Murrays and widen up past the bridge itself.

The only other possibility is to replace the bridge with a wider & longer one so it "lands" on the infield further inland allowing more run off underneath and will allow for easier pedestrian access across it.

Hey GTR is it 1.5 average people wide or 1.5 people slightly bigger than normal wide (which I qualify for)

I've only worked the Chase once and that was in 1994 so it doesn't present a lot of good memories for me

[Bevan-L]

There used to be a similar problem at the Killarney Racing Circuit in Cape Town South Africa...

the start/finish straight used to have a Goodyear bridge across it, and the same issue of the wall coming in at 45' to the circuit... every year there would be an incident there especially from the Supertourers, because you'd have FWD, RWD,AWD cars launching and all hell would break loose!
An example of the carnage that used to take place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcU9B0vqSe0 (from 9sec mark)

When we had the Touring Car World Cup there they moved the start further down the grid in an attempt to not have half the field take each other out...
Because the bridge was such an iconic structure with the track they never wanted to remove it...

They eventually resolved the problem about 2-3years ago..... they took the bridge down, and moved the retaining wall back in line with the rest of the circuit.