blacksheep-1
Epic Contributor
Since I have a professional interest in this, after much soul searching I have decided to post this.
Basically there was a spin in turn 1, and after a couple of laps of yellow, another car collided with the parked car, killing the occupant.
So here's the take aways that we would discuss after a major incident.
Cause.
The Porsche blew a tire in the tri oval, during an international GT practice, scattering debris into turn 1 and coming to rest on the inside, basically at the end of pit lane.
Racing on banked tracks is very hard on tires, the extreme loading does not come into play anywhere else. These are a good place to have your act together mechanically as well. The last Daytona GS race EVERY Porsche blew tires, until they added pressure and took out camber. The BGB car finished 2nd or 3rd in the race. As most of you are aware, the bank at Homestead with its short radius makes me crazy, due to tire deg. Daytona is not near as bad, but it still comes into play.
Yellow flag,
The caution came out immediately, but the car was not in a position to be reached by turn marshalls, while ( this part is an assumption on my part) a decision was being made on how to recover the car several laps went by. Whether or not a red , or black flag all should be thrown might be controversial, the car was intact, the driver was apparently OK at this point, the drivers were aware of the problem, so time was not an issue. They simply needed a way to recover the.car safely.
After several laps another car came into the scene crashing into the parked car, killing the driver.
How and why this happened is completely unknown. There was conjecture that the other car tried to pass under the yellow, but this makes no sense, the track was under full course yellow at this point, and it was clear to all that a recovery operation was needed. Another thought was that the other car may have hit debris and cut a tire and this caused the secondary wreck. I'm not sure we'll ever know since the second car was also badly damaged.
Stay in your car.
The mention was made that the driver of the original car tried to get out of it under the long yellow. While this makes some sense, since the track was under yellow for a long period, and the track temp was over 100 degrees, maybe the driver thought it was a safe move. Again, we don't know the mind set, or for that matter that he actually tried to escape the car. I think that generally we all know that unless the car is on fire , you stay in the car until the marshalls get there.
None of this is to point fingers.
As with any incident from the Titanic to this one, a chain of events has to happen in a specific order, for the event to take place, remove or change the timeline, the event doesn't happen .
You can " what if" all day long, but in the end racing can be a deadly serious business, so play safe and have fun, but always keep safety in.mind.
Basically there was a spin in turn 1, and after a couple of laps of yellow, another car collided with the parked car, killing the occupant.
So here's the take aways that we would discuss after a major incident.
Cause.
The Porsche blew a tire in the tri oval, during an international GT practice, scattering debris into turn 1 and coming to rest on the inside, basically at the end of pit lane.
Racing on banked tracks is very hard on tires, the extreme loading does not come into play anywhere else. These are a good place to have your act together mechanically as well. The last Daytona GS race EVERY Porsche blew tires, until they added pressure and took out camber. The BGB car finished 2nd or 3rd in the race. As most of you are aware, the bank at Homestead with its short radius makes me crazy, due to tire deg. Daytona is not near as bad, but it still comes into play.
Yellow flag,
The caution came out immediately, but the car was not in a position to be reached by turn marshalls, while ( this part is an assumption on my part) a decision was being made on how to recover the car several laps went by. Whether or not a red , or black flag all should be thrown might be controversial, the car was intact, the driver was apparently OK at this point, the drivers were aware of the problem, so time was not an issue. They simply needed a way to recover the.car safely.
After several laps another car came into the scene crashing into the parked car, killing the driver.
How and why this happened is completely unknown. There was conjecture that the other car tried to pass under the yellow, but this makes no sense, the track was under full course yellow at this point, and it was clear to all that a recovery operation was needed. Another thought was that the other car may have hit debris and cut a tire and this caused the secondary wreck. I'm not sure we'll ever know since the second car was also badly damaged.
Stay in your car.
The mention was made that the driver of the original car tried to get out of it under the long yellow. While this makes some sense, since the track was under yellow for a long period, and the track temp was over 100 degrees, maybe the driver thought it was a safe move. Again, we don't know the mind set, or for that matter that he actually tried to escape the car. I think that generally we all know that unless the car is on fire , you stay in the car until the marshalls get there.
None of this is to point fingers.
As with any incident from the Titanic to this one, a chain of events has to happen in a specific order, for the event to take place, remove or change the timeline, the event doesn't happen .
You can " what if" all day long, but in the end racing can be a deadly serious business, so play safe and have fun, but always keep safety in.mind.
Be safe out there people.
