C1 24 Hour Race this weekend - Rockingham

[geeks]

There are a few of us PH'ers out this weekend, if anyone fancies coming along and waving at us!

[geeks]

318 garage 31 for us

[geeks]

What a weekend! I did come and try to find some of you but it was just so busy! Well done to you all. We finished P8 after a hard and emotional 24 hours, a quick look at the sort of sportsmanship displayed take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avCpoU_9KQg&fe... we had been battling with these guys for most of the race when they ran out of fuel, in an inspired moment JP made sure the Safety Devices could drive to the chequered flag!

[geeks]

andy97 said:

rallycross said:

Ok its going to be slow but if everyone is slow and there are 30-40 cars it will be fun.

It is all relative and coming off the banking into the first braking point for the hairpin at 95-97 mph did not feel slow at the time, nor did trying to go through some of the corners with just a lift (and the quick guys were flat) in a car with no weight over the back end and a short wheel base!

It's a small shopping car that has no business being as fun as it is to race for 24 hours. It doesn't feel slow braking into the hairpin or before taking a breathe and turning left into Piffpaff flat on the throttle an staying pinned all the way through to Tarzan. It does however feel slow on the banking but then before you know it you're braking and it all begins again haha! The wet night stint was huge fun, the drift angle you can hold through Gracelands is hilarious although not the fastest way through it made me grin like an idiot more than once.

Damage wise we were ok, a couple of scuffs, one dented wing and a dented wheel from hitting the pothole on the outside of the first hairpin. You had to be very aware out there on occasion trying to find my way through a small pack of slower cars was ridiculous, they had seen me approach (at around 3s a lap) and rather than tuck in behind me and try to copy/follow/learn a quicker way around they would defend with all their might!

[geeks]

rallycross said:

I’m quite interested in doing the next race, if anyone is involved in a C1 team that needs an extra driver let me know (I race saloons in 750mc at the moment).

Get on the unofficial C1 Facebook page there are plenty of teams looking for drivers/drivers looking for teams!

[geeks]

That's our car top right of the pic, this is fun, we were in the garage next door! you guys were garage 30?

[geeks]

Ah yes I remember! I chatted to your pit board guy!

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Interesting RE the damage, ours came out pretty unscathed bar a new wing and a bit of vinyl we are ready for the next one!

That includes pushing another car back to the pits

[geeks]

Dr Gitlin said:

geeks said:

Interesting RE the damage, ours came out pretty unscathed bar a new wing and a bit of vinyl we are ready for the next one!

That includes pushing another car back to the pits

Was your car involved in this incident? https://twitter.com/Motor_Sport/status/99751474421...

Because if so, that's one of the most dangerous and stupid things I think I've ever seen in the context of a motor race. Not the pushing the car back to the pits, but that fking idiot getting out of his car when the track was hot and other people were going past at racing speed. Had that happened in the series I race in, the driver would have been thrown out of the circuit by the race organizers.

.

I was one of the drivers in the team in the car that did the push back. I’m also close friends with the guy who was out of the car. In his defence the instructions from the clerk were to exit the car in the event you broke down in the last hour. There was no recovery then and as the car wasn’t in a precarious it was covered under waved yellow as at that point there was only 10 minutes of the race left. There is a YouTube link earlier in the thread with the full bit and also explains the situation better so let’s wind your neck in shall we!

[geeks]

SoftwareSorcerer said:

There were one or two cars with the odd remodelled offside front wing...

Pleased ours (2nd row, on the right) came out of it much better than most.

Yeah we came away pretty well too. Slight dint in offside wing. Inside is much worse but nowhere near as bad as some!

[geeks]

Crash bar from memory is a pain as it needs to be welded in? Could be wrong though

[geeks]

2172cc said:

geeks said:

Crash bar from memory is a pain as it needs to be welded in? Could be wrong though

Our one unbolted in minutes. 4 bolts holding it on

/snipped pic/

Did say I could be wrong I was thinking of the slam bar above it that is welded in place

Altrezia said:

Why is there so much damage?

I was planning to build one for later this year / next year, but if it's a bit crashy, it puts me off a bit.

Not single reason I don't think. One make racing always induces a bit more contact, when you don't have differences in cars characteristics to exploit passing becomes trickier. There were alot of people out there in their first endurance race, there were alot of people out there in their first ever race. Alot of cars don't seem to understand that in a 24hr race defending every car for all you're worth isn't a great idea, mainly as for the most part you have no idea what position you or they are in. It was raining at the start and continued into the dark, it didn't really stop until around midnight from memory but you then had a period of at least 3-4 hours of a slippery greasy track.

As you can see from the above I am not sure there is just one reason for it, however I think for most it was the lack of investigation that was the issue, however if you aren't going up to the organisers and or the clerk with a gopro reporting it, then they aren't going to look at it. In the dark the Marshalls aren't able to spot stuff so easily (they are the main source of track behaviour reports to the clerk's office), I was overtaken under double waved yellows right in front of the marshalls post down at the first hairpin, but it was dark and they didn't spot it, I'm not mad, I made it back through on them after the SC cleared easily enough (much slower car) but the point is in the dark even when it's right in front of them it's tough to see!

[geeks]

Mark Benson said:

geeks said:

Not single reason I don't think. One make racing always induces a bit more contact, when you don't have differences in cars characteristics to exploit passing becomes trickier. There were alot of people out there in their first endurance race, there were alot of people out there in their first ever race. Alot of cars don't seem to understand that in a 24hr race defending every car for all you're worth isn't a great idea, mainly as for the most part you have no idea what position you or they are in. It was raining at the start and continued into the dark, it didn't really stop until around midnight from memory but you then had a period of at least 3-4 hours of a slippery greasy track.

As you can see from the above I am not sure there is just one reason for it, however I think for most it was the lack of investigation that was the issue, however if you aren't going up to the organisers and or the clerk with a gopro reporting it, then they aren't going to look at it. In the dark the Marshalls aren't able to spot stuff so easily (they are the main source of track behaviour reports to the clerk's office), I was overtaken under double waved yellows right in front of the marshalls post down at the first hairpin, but it was dark and they didn't spot it, I'm not mad, I made it back through on them after the SC cleared easily enough (much slower car) but the point is in the dark even when it's right in front of them it's tough to see!

I also see that the club ackowledged that standards could have been better and are looking at mandatory cameras in the cars.

One thing I do note, probably controversially is that our car suffered very little damage (a scuff on the front wing) but we were out of contention early on with mechanical problems and none of our drivers were defending every place or trying to pass everything in sight.
I encountered quite a lot of cars that I was clearly faster than who, despite us being between 35 and 14 laps down for almost the duration of the race, were determined to defend every corner like we were in a 20 minute sprint. As geeks says, when you have 68bhp and identical cars, overtaking needs to be planned and requires common senseand a little give and take from the person being overtaken, which wasn't always forthcoming.

Towards the end our drivers were waving the lead cars through where it was safe to do so - what's the point in holding up a car that you have absolutley no chance of catching and in the process encouraging them to chance it up the inside somewhere dodgy, potentially ruining both your races?

So I think a fair proportion (though by no-means all) of the damage was self-inflicted and down to lack of experience, either in racing itself or specifically in endurance racing by drivers who've only ever done sprint races and drove as if they still were. That's where a good team manager and a team of drivers willing to do as they're told pays huge dividends as it's as much about consistency, planning and strategy as it is individual driver performance.

Spot on I couldn't agree more! Ours suffered very little damage too but with a team full of endurance racers we all knew when and where to fight and when and where to just let them go/go through. It's all experience, I dare say it's the same for Marks team!

[geeks]

andy97 said:

Mark Benson said:

I also see that the club ackowledged that standards could have been better and are looking at mandatory cameras in the cars.

I encountered quite a lot of cars that I was clearly faster than who, despite us being between 35 and 14 laps down for almost the duration of the race, were determined to defend every corner like we were in a 20 minute sprint. As geeks says, when you have 68bhp and identical cars, overtaking needs to be planned and requires common senseand a little give and take from the person being overtaken, which wasn't always forthcoming.

Towards the end our drivers were waving the lead cars through where it was safe to do so - what's the point in holding up a car that you have absolutley no chance of catching and in the process encouraging them to chance it up the inside somewhere dodgy, potentially ruining both your races?

So I think a fair proportion (though by no-means all) of the damage was self-inflicted and down to lack of experience, either in racing itself or specifically in endurance racing by drivers who've only ever done sprint races and drove as if they still were. That's where a good team manager and a team of drivers willing to do as they're told pays huge dividends as it's as much about consistency, planning and strategy as it is individual driver performance.

Most of the contact problems did not seem to be from those dicing with each other, it seemed to be with cars being lapped. And yet I don't think that the contact issues were all the fault of drivers defending places when they did not need to. I actually think that some of the contact and spins I witnessed (and contact I felt - 2 sideswipes by quicker cars) was caused by over ambitious moves by quick amateurs that were just not on, particularly at the chicane for example. I certainly worked very hard to give people room to the detriment of my own lap (sometimes difficult when my left mirror had been knocked off) and yet I was still barged aside on 2 occasions, and witnessed one of the cars that barged me later spin twice within the space of a few laps. Overdriving. That very same car then wrote us off late in the race by pulling off a ridiculous move that put one of our other drivers into the barriers.

Quick drivers also need to realize that if they cant get past "right now", they will inevitably get past very shortly, and need to be patient in an endurance race. That is the nature of endurance racing. Quite simply, planning the over takes and common sense, as well as a little bit of give and take from the person trying to overtake is just as important from the quick drivers as it is from the slower drivers, if not more so. I am not sure there was enough of that from some of those quicker drivers.

I had absolutely no problem with the very experienced and the professionals but I think some of the quick but less experienced/ less patient drivers need to realize that chancing it up the inside somewhere dodgy may ruin both participants race.

Edited by andy97 on Thursday 24th May 14:27

I broadly agree with Mark I am afraid. A lot of the contact I witnessed was the lapped/slower guys not giving up a position, the quick guy positions himself on the outside of Yentwood (having exited the hairpin quicker than the slow car allowing him to be alongside on the outside of Yentwood because the slower guy is busy defending the inside for no good reason) and rather than give the place up, tuck in behind and learn something they then insist on running the quicker car out onto the grass on the outside of Chapmans. I had two separate instances of this done to me when passing slower cars, one put me on the grass at the exit of Piffpaff the other at Gracelands. I'm not talking just making them go the long way round or leaving them space on the outside but full on "I'm not turning right/left until I am certain you can't come through" it was fking dangerous, also the chicane, overtaking there is as valid a place as any other, if I am on on the inside and out brake you into the left I get you may still be alongside when we turn right but we also have to go left again, I will probably still be there, I had numerous drivers try and run me out of room on the chicane, I saw it coming everytime and either backed out or toughed it out as it was too late to do anything else. When the leaders came by with me I just hoped out the way and then tucked in, by doing this early on I found half a second a lap just by adjusting my line into two corners it also ended not costing either me or them time (a net gain for me as it goes).

I also question why a racer with your experience is not heading to the organisers or the clerk with gopro (other cameras are available ) footage insisting things are investigated!?