BrianCunningham

I was working gate @ the time.
I wondered why this heat was taking so long.

shakedown067

Ouch. I've come through the timing lights sideways twice (didn't even hit a cone the first time). Never close to the lights though. That would be a bad day. Luckily we usually place ours quite a ways out.

rasrboy

But I do love the HUGE track layout. In our area they are all small tight tracks except the old Ford Plant we run at.

BrianCunningham

that was the SHORT course

AverageVetteNut

That the akron Sports car club, or NORA? Was @ Northfield park 2 weekends ago running there.

my 1st event in the Z06 2 years ago ( on the GY tires ) I spun @ the finish and hit the timer... everyone was more worried about my car than the timer head ( and I was the opposite, thinking that I ruined the day's runs ).

NTMD8R

And that is a very good reason to have a STOP BOX !!!!

I noticed this would have been a "flying finish" box.

Why don't track/course designers make it a Stop Box?
Where you MUST come to a complete stop
(someone must remove a LARGE cone) for people to exit.

I've seen so much of this kind of thing happening, because people
feel they need to race through the lights, and then the stop box
is not long enough to accommodate aggressive braking.

Make a true stop box, and people will HAVE to control their driving
to cross the lights, and come to a controlled stop within the box.
Hitting any cone in the Stop Box should be a 5 second penalty.

After all, this IS about "Driver Training".

vettehardt

Hey Aaron, we'd love for you to come over to grissom for one of our events. Plenty of room there and always a great weekend. Just go to www.indianaregion.org for flyers.

vettehardt

Because they are more trouble than they are worth. People will still try to get to the lights as fast as they can. When they go to brake, they can end up loosing it and taking out the lights anyways. Also the cars will sometimes be going so slow through the lights that it double tripps them screwing up the next guy's run. You are better off having your last gate/cone with enough room afterwards for the driver to get the car straight and under control before going throught the lights. Then after the lights having ample shut down room. If there isn't room for that you then can use a stop box, but not something too close to the lights. Whenever we do have a stop box type deal, any cone hit after the finish is a DNF. Also if they don't come to a complete stop it is a DNF.

My dad has is own equipement for timing and do alot of the indiana region NCCC events. In about 15 years of timing, we have only had the lights hit a few times. Luckly every time it was the reflector. We carry backups of both lights, reflectors, and cables just incase.

Last year we had a guy driving a camaro loose it and take out the reflector box. Plastic pieces were every where! Unfortunatly the worst we ever had was the next day we had a guy in a yellow C6 loose it and hit our trailer. In the process he ran over the cords going to the lights and tore those up. The only good part about it was it was at the end of the day and not too many people lost out on runs. I was on the starting line waiting to go out when it happened.

mgarfias

That beats what I saw happen ~ 5 years ago in phoenix. **** poor course design had a high speed sweeper right before the exit lights. And the timing trailer was parked close to the lights. You know how people hang out around the trailer? Yeah, well, a helo flew in to get one of them. I heard he lost the leg. No real surprise there, it was crunched between an S2000's RF fender and the tongue of the trailer.

I don't mess with autox now, and just HPDE and make sure my people are safe (behind walls, etc).

PA Z06

pretty crazy,

c4cruiser

When I set up courses for our association's event I use a stop box. We usually allow up to 75 feet for a straight run to the lights, another 90 to 100 feet for the car to come to a complete stop. The finish gates are about 15-20 feet apart and the stop lane tapers to 10 at the location of the stop cone. The lights are placed about 5 feet on either side of the finish cones.

There is a cone in the middle of the lane that a worker must remove before the car can proceed at 5 MPH out of the lane. Any cone hit after going through the lights is an automatic DNF.

Hitting the lights is a DNF and the driver pays for any costs to repair/replace the equipment.

The Panther

Exact same thing happened at a BMW/PCA event I was at last month. Yellow C5Z did a 180 at the finish and hit the timing gear.

TedDBere

Just put the timing gear 10 feet off the cones, both left and right.

Putting them next to the finish cones is just asking for it. Cones get hit so if you put the gear by the cones then it's going to get hit too.

This looks like poor design. Plenty of room to move the timing gear away from the cones on that runway.

Look at the first two videos in my sig to see where they are placed at National events.

Kubs

The timing equipment should be much farther from the finish cones. I have gone through the stop box sideways before and never worried about hitting the lights because they are usually far away.

It is actually put on by a new club called Vettesports hosted by a buddy of ours. Go to Vettesports.com for details. I will be there the 22nd if you want to come.

grantar2

As one who has spun out at the finish I can feel for the guy. For reasons mentioned a stop box isn't the right answer for a lot of courses. You don't see them used at divisionals, nationals, or pro-solo's. I am surprised at the price, I have been told the components are significantly less expensive, at least the ones we use in Cal Club. The other side of the coin is we have spares for every component, multiple spares for many. Looking at the video the course wasnt difficult, but the guy wasn't reckless, sounds like he had a passenger, stuff happens in racing. There was one comment about not doing autox and only HPDE, but I have seen as many people hurt and cars damaged at driving events as autox, so I am not sure the comparision holds. Safety is the #1 topic in my region, I assume it is in most.

The advantage HPDE is that you get more than 3 minutes for your hard days work. 10-15 minutes if it's a practice event.

Thanks for the post, good discussion.

L98Terror

Damn, I miss that place

RX7 KLR

I think someone was going for dramatic effect with the thread title... That was a single head taken out, even wireless heads are not $1500.

Han Solo

Very common course design fail. Drivers should not be held accountable for that.

As mentioned set timers away from the finish cones. My personal beef is courses that have sharp transitions near the finish. Course designers will argue they are trying to slow the cars down at the finish. I say set the finish far enough back to give plenty of braking room AFTER the finish and have the last transition far enough away from it to allow the cars to be on the gas and going straight at the finish timer.

I've even heard of timing trailers hit with this kind of foul up.

waktasz

Bingo, first thing I thought. Lights are too close to the actual course boundary. Go two feet too far and you smash them.

naschmitz