Wills And Cat Car In The Sand

[Seton_5]

I've just picked up that When the Brede and Owen Went in the sand gave Wills and Beseard the Victory. Seeing that He drove for the team and after everything with him being sacked.

Also Murphy and Richards. So much for them being great Mates. Richards spinning each other.

na there great mates!

[Crash Test]

An interesting comment from someone high up in the touring car ranks went along the lines of "we'd better send CAT a cheque for that..."

I've never seen so many people go through all of the sand traps as many times as during the weekend without seeing anyone go A over T...

[spook]

You can drive throgh the GRAVEL traps if you have power and steering control - they are designed for that - you only go "A over T" if you enter the GRAVEL traps out of control/sideways. What I found great was that so many of them were able to re-join the fray simply by the 3m of grass between the traps and the tyre walls/concrete walls. Imagine how many Safety Car periods there would have been without that "self-recovery" zone. Having just watched the telecast, the drivers and commentators seemed to have changed their tune on the track design - now it's technically challenging and a real car breaker - this time last year it was a "paper clip".

[William Dale Jr]

Yeah, it's amazing what a few bumps in the track surface can do to the character of a circuit. Or maybe it's just the fact that Matthew White is in the booth...

[RaceTime]

The design of QLD Raceway isn't conducive to cars entering the gravel traps at an angle which will cause a roll.

If you compare, say, the trap at the end of the main straight at Sandown - which has seen numerous rolls - the design of that corner is go flat out-stop-turn hard left-go again; whereas QLD Raceways tracps are go flat out-brake slightly-turn rght-go again.

The difference in the two being that at Sandown you have a 90 degree hard turn - you go off line into the gravel the angle and momentm of the car is such that you *will* hit the gravel sideway. QLD Raceway almost guarantees you hit the gravel head on.

[TMS]

Originally posted by Seton_5
I've just picked up that When the Brede and Owen Went in the sand gave Wills and Beseard the Victory. Seeing that He drove for the team and after everything with him being sacked.

Also Murphy and Richards. So much for them being great Mates. Richards spinning each other.

na there great mates!

I was right about 20 meters form that incident, and Murphy's car stopped breifly trying to pickup fuels which caused Richards to hit him......It wasnt intentional. It was definitly unfortunate for murphy though.

[Crash Test]

RT- Sure, design wise, cars shouldn't go A over T, but somehow, an awful lot of people have found out over the years, the hard way, that T1 especially can roll a car. In fact, from what I've read from some high ranking places, that there could possibly be a redesign of the sand trap in that part of the circuit.

There are two massive bumps out there, at turns one and two, and it's interesting how different drivers prepare for it. Some get their braking done well before them, then brace themselves, other go straight through there without braking until after them, because the jolt is so bad that you lose your footing on the brake pedal.

[RaceTime]

Don't doubt that the bumps won't help and, of course, any sand trap on a turn could result in a roll over, but the basic design won't or shouldn't result in as many as at, say, Sandown.

Remove the bumps and you have a comparitively safer corner than Sandown.

[spook]

Don't forget that the purpose of a Gravel Trap is to reduce an accident to a survivable incident. Most rollovers are soft on the driver and usually the car - high speed impacts with tyre faced earth banks and concrete walls will kill drivers. The number of rollovers at Turn 1 QR is very small - there have been no monumentals that I can recall, and most rollovers have been repaired on the day or racing the next day. The traps at QR are also different because as you move around the corner the edge of the trap moves away from the track - something like 2m at the start and widens to 10m at exit I think - this allows more room for the driver to regain control and enter the trap safely and if he keeps up the momentum, drive through.

As far as the bumps are concerned - they have always been there - watch the videos from 1999 - the cars are just being pushed a lot more and finding the limits more often. Talk to a few drivers and they will tell you that every other circuit in Australia has bumps far bigger than the TWO at QR.

[FalconEL]

I've got agree spook, the QR gravel traps are pretty good, you can generally spear across them OK whilst decelerating so as not to hit anything hard. I've only visited the sand at relatively low speed myself though.

Cars such as Gemini series cars with higher centres of gravity have a problem when they hit the T1 sand trap sideways however.

The bumps at QR going into turn one have definately gotten a lot worse since 1999. I remember the place was nearly billiard table smooth when I first ran there in 1999, but this year you get blurred vision and your foot actually bounces off the brake pedal when you jump on the anchors for turn one. I think there is about three really noticable bumps into T1, then right about mid corner, there is another bump which actually helps you get through the corner because it unsettles the rear of the car when you've gotten back on the power.

T2? I haven't noticed too many bumps there, there is a patch of bitumen where they must have done some resurfacing but T2 is pretty smooth for mine LMW??

The bumps in the braking area for T3 are also pretty vicious but generally only really affect the smaller cars who jump on the brakes at about 130-140m. The bigger cars that brake at about 180-200m are already settled into their braking zone before the bumps.

As for the rest of QR, its still pretty smooth and standing up well to a fair bit of abuse from a lot of racing traffic over many years.

CD.

[Crash Test]

You know very well that I can't count....

BTW- if you're reading this, my new laptop is working

[RaceTime]

Sorry Crash - can't read it - came out all gobblydegook...

[Crash Test]

...stupid lump of junk...

[silvervsix]

Question why are the bumps becoming bigger? Is the track sinking or settling.

[Crash Test]

The bumps have been getting worse since the track was built. Remember that when the track was first being laid, it was washed away by floods... probably a combination of the soil moving and the fact that they are the areas on the track when the cars are hard on the brakes etc

[silvervsix]

Thanks but there is no firm reason for this happening. Just speculation? Have QLD raceway decide to do anything about them?

[spook]

The bumps are caused by the braking forces exerted by the cars on the very weak material that supports the racetrack pavement. The pavement I have been reliably informed is nearly one metre deep (imported gravel from quarry & mines) with 40mm of Asphalt on the top. The movement is in the gunk below - the site was a swamp before construction. The bumps have been measured each year by the QR managers and they are monitoring the situation, but there are no easy or cheap way to overcome the problem.

To be fair, there are a great number of larger bumps at other racetracks in Australia that are of greater concern to drivers than those at QR.

BTW Crashy, the flood during construction is not connected in any way to the bumps - I have seen photos of the flood and the bump areas are actually not under water. The creek that flowed through the site during construction is now permanently diverted around the raceway.

I agree that this years 500 was the best racing/passing event we have witnessed all year. The drivers seem to have realised that with 12m of track to use there is the possibility of more than one line through every corner and there is ground to be won/or lost by using that extra track width. There was a large number of drivers and team managers walking the track on the Thursday, and they were spending as much time looking at the runoff from each corner as the corners themselves. Apart from LP who thinks the place is dull & flat, most drivers left with straight cars and only damaged pride. Humm - if Larry thinks the place is that simple, why can't he get anywhere near the lap record.

[Crash Test]

Thanks Spook.

I suppose Larry has to have a grumble about something...