Donington: BTCC & support chat

[Sgt Joe Roberts]

Speed Badger said:

It's better than having four or five donkeys knobbing around that the back, now there's only one.

I think there's two, Halstead & Osborne. Both are driving cars that their teams mates are winning races in, these two have no wins, no podiums and very few points finishes. They've probably got more race finishes on the back of a recovery lorry than points finishes.

[Drumroll]

The number of cars is almost irrelevant to good racing.

BothGT racing or BTCC can't produce some good racing and also some not so good races. Neither are dependent on grid size.

Some if the best racing I ever watched was the Cadwell Park FF1600 series. Usually had about 5 or 6 entries but absolutely brilliant racing.

[ninepoint2]

Sgt Joe Roberts said:

Speed Badger said:

It's better than having four or five donkeys knobbing around that the back, now there's only one.

I think there's two, Halstead & Osborne. Both are driving cars that their teams mates are winning races in, these two have no wins, no podiums and very few points finishes. They've probably got more race finishes on the back of a recovery lorry than points finishes.

Totally agree with that, and just to add I enjoyed Edwards on TV, and she seems to be much better at TV presenting than racing IMHO, suspect Osbourne is only there because of his dad, rather than ability, Halstead has been the cause of more Safety Car incidents than most, however he does seem to be doing a lot to help promote the sport, so it's almost forgivable, almost....

Edited by ninepoint2 on Wednesday 1st May 21:51

[stevemcs]

FredericRobinson said:

Has the campsite been open this weekend? That won’t have been much fun if it has

Yes and we left early Sunday, luckily our home was made of plastic. The ones under canvas were also waking up to 50mm of water in there tents. I don’t think we will bother camping next year.

It’s a shame as Friday evening was nice and the views are very good.

[Milkyway]

Whilst its still fresh on my mind... those live lifts are a bit butt clenching.

I quite agree with Paul O' Neill's comments & hope that he didn't get his knuckles rapped by Mr Gow... too hard anyway.

Edited by Milkyway on Thursday 2nd May 13:20

[SpudLink]

Milkyway said:

Whilst its still fresh on my mind... those live lifts are a bit butt clenching.

I quite agree with Paul O' Neills comments & hope they he didn't get his knuckles rapped by Mr Gow... too hard anyway.

Edited by Milkyway on Thursday 2nd May 08:20

In principle, I'm not against recovering vehicles while cars are circulating. But only when it's appropriate. Having marshals in the firing line while cars were flying through Craner Curves just seemed to dangerous. Even under yellow flags they were too fast for comfort, given the conditions. I know they wanted to get in as much racing as possible, but that was very badly handled.

[SpudLink]

stevemcs said:

Yes and we left early Sunday, luckily our home was made of plastic. The ones under canvas were also waking up to 50mm of water in there tents. I don’t think we will bother camping next year.

It’s a shame as Friday evening was nice and the views are very good.

Good biscuit choice.

[The Wookie]

Sgt Joe Roberts said:

I think there's two, Halstead & Osborne. Both are driving cars that their teams mates are winning races in, these two have no wins, no podiums and very few points finishes. They've probably got more race finishes on the back of a recovery lorry than points finishes.

That's pretty damn unfair, Sam had a bad weekend and I know had issues with his car but he was still competitive in terms of pace when it was on song and has run strong top ten at Donington in the past, even in cars that weren't as strong as the Focus is right now.

He also works unbelievably hard for his spot on the team, outside his day job he drives and services the race trucks, keeps the team's tech running and upgraded, works on the cars, builds and maintains the NAPA hospitality for each event, in fact he completely re-engineered their hospo setup over the winter more or less single handed.

He's also one of the nicest people you'd ever meet.

Sam's hard work is a big part of the success of the other cars and he's a quick driver on his day, he more than deserves to be on the grid.

[GlobalRacer]

SpudLink said:

Even under yellow flags they were too fast for comfort, given the conditions.

The solution is to throw the book at those who didn't slow down enough. Under a double waved yellow you're supposed to be obeying the following:

"Great danger. Slow down considerably. Be prepared to suddenly change from the projected racing line, or take other evasive action including stopping if necessary. No overtaking. "

I rarely see that happening on TV but I've seen it obeyed many times in general club racing. For me you should be at safety car speed at the maximum when live snatch is underway. So what if someone catches up. It's no different to a safety car and is a plastic trophy more important than the risk of inuring a volunteer?

[Robmarriott]

The problem with ‘slow down considerably’ is it’s incredibly vague.

A Radical slowing down by half will still be quicker than a 2cv doing the same. That’s even assuming everyone’s ‘considerably’ is the same, which is unlikely given there’s not a percentage of reduction or a target speed dictated.

[The Wookie]

Frankly I find it astonishing that live snatch under yellows is still a thing in this day and age.

Everyone else has rolled out code 60/full course yellow/virtual safety car for these sort of circumstances, it needs to be addressed in this country too

[Sebring440]

The Wookie said:

He's also one of the nicest people you'd ever meet.

Yes, but he's not one of the opinionated PH armchair-experts, who know much more than you do!

[Speed Badger]

Sgt Joe Roberts said:

Speed Badger said:

It's better than having four or five donkeys knobbing around that the back, now there's only one.

I think there's two, Halstead & Osborne. Both are driving cars that their teams mates are winning races in, these two have no wins, no podiums and very few points finishes. They've probably got more race finishes on the back of a recovery lorry than points finishes.

Oh come on Osborne is not a donkey. He's usually found mid-pack, with occasional forays into the top 10. Plus he has actually got one podium to his name technically, whereas Halstead is always, always (unless it's a weird race/tyre gamble etc) at the back, in effectively a championship winning car. Nothing against Halstead by the way, I'm sure he's a good guy.

[Milkyway]

It will be interesting to see how. Nick will compare to Tom & Ronan as the season progresses.

[zsdom]

SpudLink said:

In principle, I'm not against recovering vehicles while cars are circulating. But only when it's appropriate. Having marshals in the firing line while cars were flying through Craner Curves just seemed to dangerous. Even under yellow flags they were too fast for comfort, given the conditions. I know they wanted to get in as much racing as possible, but that was very badly handled.

I was baffled by the marshalling this weekend, I said at the time:

zsdom said:

If there is an injured marshall track side surely they should’ve red flagged it rather than pootle around behind the safety car, even if they add 3 laps on we’ll only get a 6 lap race

Baffling decison

It seemed that the TV schedule was more important than track side safety and they wanted as much TV time to be recovered instead of doing things properly

[SpudLink]

zsdom said:

It seemed that the TV schedule was more important than track side safety and they wanted as much TV time to be recovered instead of doing things properly

Sadly, that did seem to be the case.

[egor110]

Thing is marshalls have the power to stop that ever happening again.

If they just stopped working they could no longer race and balls to the tv schedule.