I’ve just returned from the SCCA Runoffs at Road America, and I am horrified. I saw three enormous incidents, all for the same exact reason, one witnessed with my own eye, another by my very capable coaching client Patrick Utt, and two of which sent drivers to the hospital and gorgeous, expensive GT2-class race cars to the scrap heap.
And all of the above was immensely avoidable.
Drivers, everything you do with your car sends messages to the drivers around you. Street and track. This is a fundamental understanding we must all emphasize to others, newbie and experienced. Cars in front, beside and, most dangerously of all, behind and bearing down on you are affected by what you do and make decisions based on those moves or non-moves.
Let me tell the crash stories: Patrick was in his TA2 Camaro, a powerful, rear-drive Trans Am car, and I was watching from Canada Corner, looking up the bending “straight” that follows the incredible high-speed Kink. I put quotes around straight because it is flat out in every car ever, but it has a gentle bend the whole way.
I know he’s coming soon, when suddenly there is a nuclear holocaust of exploding car parts. An aging but highly experienced champion has just slammed the wall as he came into view. I shout, “Crash! Crash! Track blocked!” over the radio, and Patrick slows and picks his way through.
Next day, Patrick himself is coming out of the Kink–exact same place–catching a much slower car. Later I watch the in-car video and see the slower car coming over and wrapping itself around the nose of Pat’s Camaro. By a pure miracle from the racing gods, the other car immediately locks the brakes when sideways and no one hits the wall.
Next day–same exact spot, same exact reason–an old friend and competitor from my World Challenge days tangles with a slower car and slams the wall. Again, the faster driver is hospitalized, and his car utterly destroyed. That makes three times in two days.
Here’s what happened: Each time, a much faster driver caught a much slower driver through the Kink. And each time, the faster car slowed a bit, wisely, waiting to see what the slower car was going to do after the Kink.
Now, the following “straight” gently bends right, then even more gently curves back to the left, all the way to the brake zone for the next real turn, Canada Corner. Each time, the much slower car tracked out to left, logically, out of the Kink. Each time,…
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