Just read a very good article by Ross Bentley regarding the speeds that street cars are attaining during lapping days and schools. He pointed out that in many cases, street cars with no special safety equipment other than stock 3 point belts attain speeds higher than those of full safety equipped race cars. These speeds are often obtained by inexperienced drivers, who do not have the skills and understanding of car dynamics to deal with potential emergencies. This conversation was prompted by a recent death at Road Atlanta involving a street car and a patch of oil.
Do we need to control speed more effectively before we find ourselves in an accident situation?
Things like pylons are an easy way to lower speeds, and hand-held radar guns are in the $100.00 range.
There is often talk about reducing speed being an issue as the drivers will not want to be slowed down, but in my experience, the thrill of straightaway speed is soon overtaken by the complexities and challenges of the twisty bits.
I wonder if there is a conversation here???
A fabulous article by Ross Bentley -
As a former Chief Instructor , Organizer of many driving schools plus 1000s of laps in the shot-gun-seat of rookie drivers' cars, I believe this issue is a real and valid concern. This is not new and I have had discussion with many other instructors. (For the past 2 to 3 years I have had numerous senior instructors approach me and indicate they are getting more and more nervous about being a ride-along instructor because the cars are so fast & powerful.) Almost year every for the past 15 to 20 years we see more and more off-the-showroom floor cars with just 3 point seat belts that are lapping many road courses at speeds exceeding flow blown roll-caged equipped race cars and race car drivers in personal safety equipment strapped in with 5 or 6 point belts. I had previously mentioned it at national advisory meeting 11 years ago when I saw street cars lapping Mosport as fast or faster than their equivalent displacement sibling race cars. I recently had this discussion with a )gentleman 30 years my junior and he stressed the fact that today's car are build better and are far safer than cars of my generation. Tires are far better ( seldom disintegrate as they did years ago) and brakes on street cars are often 4 & 6 piston and suspensions are better than yesteryear, in addition new cars all have well engineered and constructed safety cells. I had to agree on some points with this well educated younger fellow, however the laws of physics have not changed in my 5 plus decades around motorsports.
Brooke, I concur with Ross, the speed and power of these modern cars are an issue. How do we address it? I think it is open for discussion.
If it's a Lapping event or School, there should be no problem setting speed limits on the straights, or advising drivers that they must use only 80% of the cars (or theirs) capabilities, so that they remain in control at all times. Any offs, spins, or losses of control, could trigger trips into the pits to talk to Stewards or Chief organizer of the event. Presently our National regulation 8.7 for lapping states: "Aggressive driving of any kind will be penalized by black-flagging the offending party". It should be noted that Lapping is not a Speed Test, or timed event. All out runs should be restricted to Time Attack events, where the competitors are graduates of licensed schools, hold licenses, and hopefully more experienced and skilled.
There is still the problem of speed in Time Attack events, but that is also why the insurance rates for those events is higher, as the risk of crashing is also greater. You cannot specify the top speeds in a competitive event obviously, you could only restrict speeds by changing the course with pylons or barriers, which may cause more problems than they solve, if drivers lose control transitioning from higher speed areas to these lower speed sections. It's a bit of a dilemma. It is a topic which has been discussed on the National SoloSport Committee for several years.
Doug Campbell,
WCMA Rep National SoloSport Committee
One option to limit top speeds would be to use cones early in the straight so you can have the transition at a lower speed. Effectively leaving a shorter straight that is entered at a lower speed. Not a perfect solution but perfect is likely hard to come by.
If we talk specifically about Castrol; I don't think the 'high speed' sections are where issues are likely to occur. Loss of control seems more likely in the slower parts; exits of 3&4 or the kink. I suppose incidents in these slower speed sections would be within the speeds that the vehicles crash protection was designed for. Everyone likely goes home.
Gimli has lots of runout, so I expect it is less of a concern there.
Chris