Don't know if anyone here heard the news. Someone told me at lunch today who used to instruct. So sad. :wtc: http://www.roadraceautox.com/showthread.php?t=28100 Didn't a few people say this track is a good starter track too? Just goes to show you that it doesn't matter where you learn to drive, anything can happen.
Its a great starter track. Its a shame and my thoughts are with his family. Keep this in mind when you have an instructor in the car with you. I know the risk when I get in a car with someone else and thats why I don't do it that often anymore.
I've done it before and really didn't like not being in control....especially with a n00b and fast car. No thanks!
i used to do track days with sport bikes. two absolute requirements.. tape up or remove glass or plastic parts and replace antifreeze with water (almost everyone used water wetter and water). was said over and over, anti-freeze was worse than oil.. something about it was harder to remove.
SO I have done exactly one open track session (in my stock Miata) and a decent amount of autocrossing in the past. The debate on the forums linked to seems to be centering around two things, lack of safety features at some of these tracks and inexperienced drivers in very high performance machines. It seems this particular incident might have more to do with the former than the later, but still, what do you track guys think? Any validity to these debates?
that track doesn't seem to have the greatest of safety personnel, and I can see where they are coming from in terms of high power cars versus inexperienced drivers. The majority of the people on that site (I know it well) are SCCA road racing and NASA road racing guys. (This is hoppe's site, ironically)
I thought Scott Giles started when he got kicked off of some honda forum. I stopped doing track days after too many close calls; DE and track days can sometimes be a bad mix of bad driving, egos, lack of safety equipment and too much HP. I really won't go back until I have a dedicated car with some safety equipment.
I've always felt that CMP is a very safe track. The bottom line is that accidents can happen anywhere. They said he was dead on impact so there is nothing that having more safety people could have done. Students in high horsepower cars can be scary to some people and if they scare you then you shouldn't be instructing them. Being scared of your student sure doesn't help teach him or her anything and they can sense that you don't trust them. I took my buddy Jack out to Little Tally in a C6 Z06 making 590whp on Street tires and he did fine, it was his first time on track but with a little instruction he did great and I wouldn't even think twice about climbing in the car with him at Road Atlanta.
Ball it was a 930 involved, and you and I know that spells disaster with a driver not familiar with the handling characteristics of that car. That factor along with anti freeze on track is not good with even an experienced driver. We all know the risk when on track, and thankfully this doesn't happen as often as it use to because of the advances in safety equipment and training of personnel.
I don't care what you are in , if you hit anti freeze in that turn you are going to make it a long way, I'm still suprised they made it to the woods though
The thing I keep thinking about is... Your allways told on these forums about the dangers of street racing... keep it on the track! keep it on the track! (which is correct of course).. But then, you take it to the track and it still goes to shit... Scary stuff.
put it in perspective, though...one death (RIP) on track vs. the many many many that happen each year on the streets. Not to mention, on the track it's just the driver and passenger, on the street it's a minivan full of kids
Thoughts and prayers are with Tom and his family...really tragic accident here. Overall, HPDE style events are far safer than driving around aggressively on the street. Each year, there are a very small number of injuries, and an even smaller number of fatalities. It's still extremely rare but is an unfortunate aspect of high performance driving. As mentioned CMP is a very safe track overall, but I now notice that that tree line is too close for comfort between T8 and T9. Even low powered cars will see close to 100mph in this area. I am sure CMP will make changes to make the track even safer, but this is a very sobering reminder of how fragile we all really are.