semsec may 31st

[Minicross424]

Any of you at lydden at the weekend?
I was racing in the sports and saloons.
The second race was good but the first should of been re run after the stopage.
Oil on the track and general mayhem that wasnt delt with too well.

[Rod Birley]

What happened?

[Gnomex]

From a marshal's perspective:-

The rear-engined car in question was seen in practice to be loosing fluid from the rear. This was reported and scruitineers instructed to investigate. The car re-appeared for the race, and again was reported as loosing fluid. Entering the Elbow the car suddenly lost its oil on the track. Despite yellow and slippery surface flags being shown, cars went off at the Elbow. As these cars were deemed to be in a dangerous position, the race was stopped. The Clerk of the Course decided that this was a race result (I believe this was on the basis that the leader had completed more than 50% of the race distance).

Although I was not involved, it appeared from where I was that the subsequent clearing up operation went smoothly (considering the vast quantities of oil reported as being on the track).

Hope this helps.

[Scooby 96]

Highlight of the the day was the smile on Steve Weatherly's face with 2 well earned race wins. In race one the oil was cleared up quickly but as race was at halfway it wasnt restarted.

[chezza]

Well done to Steve for his race wins.

[Minicross424]

I just think it took a little too long for the reds to come out seeing me and Alan Rawlings nearly had a massive crash.

[Chris_w]

Sorry to hear that Tristam, I had to head off very early to attend a wedding.

Here are some pictures from the day:

http://www.tracksnaps.net/gallery/080531/

[driftwood]

Sitting in the comfort of my office having a cup of tea and not being at that meeting nor hearing anything more than what is written here etc etc I can only comment on these 2 facts
1 as a driver it is easy for us to moan at these situations we hate stoppages/delays
but
2 we must be careful NOT to publicly critiscise the fantastic work these unpaid volunteers perform at our race meetings- without them we would all be sitting at home drinking tea!

SEMSEC is a small club with people that give a lot of their spare time to organising the events planning the calender etc and IF there are issues to be addressed it would be best to put them in writing directly to the club representatives and it may assist them in hearing your viewpoint for future situations

Im not looking for a debate here just wishing to throw in another dimension for consideration
Im sure IF it was compulsory for every RAC licence holder to perform at least 1 day per annum as an "official" or a flag marshal you would see things from a different perspective and I am also sure maybe the volunteers could benefit from a racers perspective with some of us giving them a drivers opinion as situations ocurr

[Jamie G]

I had a bit of a rubbish day - despite dad being 0.1 sec off winning the sprint class in the morning, I suffered with poor lap times in the CRX because I couldn't get the power down (whoever said Hondas are reliable? ). During practice for the Handicap race I found out why - the clutch destroyed itself and I ran out of puff. I didn't even make it out for one of the three races I entered



It was good seeing Steve win twice, the car looked very good. Great to see the RS2000 out again too!

IMO the problem at the Elbow was dealt with quite quickly, but it's such a dangerous place to have any kind of incident. Allan was lucky not to get a Midget enema in the gravel, and virtually all the cars slithered around. It's a pity it happened when it did as it cut the race very short.

[tristancliffe]

Originally Posted by driftwood

Sitting in the comfort of my office having a cup of tea and not being at that meeting nor hearing anything more than what is written here etc etc I can only comment on these 2 facts
1 as a driver it is easy for us to moan at these situations we hate stoppages/delays
but
2 we must be careful NOT to publicly critiscise the fantastic work these unpaid volunteers perform at our race meetings- without them we would all be sitting at home drinking tea!

SEMSEC is a small club with people that give a lot of their spare time to organising the events planning the calender etc and IF there are issues to be addressed it would be best to put them in writing directly to the club representatives and it may assist them in hearing your viewpoint for future situations

Im not looking for a debate here just wishing to throw in another dimension for consideration
Im sure IF it was compulsory for every RAC licence holder to perform at least 1 day per annum as an "official" or a flag marshal you would see things from a different perspective and I am also sure maybe the volunteers could benefit from a racers perspective with some of us giving them a drivers opinion as situations ocurr

Good post, totally agree! Without Marshalls our race cars, whatever form they take, would be little more than ornaments. I plan to be a marshall for a race meeting at some point in an attempt to 'put something back into the sport'.

At the end of the day, pretty much ANY stoppage is the fault of the racers. Want less red flags? Then make sure your car doesn't drop it's oil, drive sensibly, and behave as adults on track. They'll still happen, because accidents do happen, but it would minimise the moaning.

[Minicross424]

Dont get me wrong i have no problem with the lydden marshalls who always do a fantastic job and i always donate to the fund as i know they work very hard for us.
I just wanted to point out how the meeting went for me.

[Gnomex]

Originally Posted by Minicross424

Dont get me wrong i have no problem with the lydden marshalls who always do a fantastic job and i always donate to the fund as i know they work very hard for us.
I just wanted to point out how the meeting went for me.

OK, thanks for that. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you for the next meeting! Better luck then. Hope to see you out there.

Best wishes

[BertMk2]

I think there was a similar problem at Brands recently - the view was that the reds were delayed long enough for the race to be declared, as soon as the necessary distance had been covered (behind the saftey car at Brands) out came the reds. Cue much annoyance.

It may be worth raising the issue at the agm or whatever - maybe it could be changed for next season to 75% complete before it's declared?

[driftwood]

Yeah baby yeah gimme 75% any day!!
i once did a FFord race at BH on a lease deal some **** spun at druids lodged onto the rumbles on inside ( no danger to man or car once waved yellas where out) we passed the car once on lap 5 and yes u guessed it the red flag came out on lap 6 and it was thank you and good night vienna to our "race"
i was not "appy" and ive never been a fan of doing a ten lapper at BH again !!

[Minicross424]

Well said Bert

[MiniMadness]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

I think there was a similar problem at Brands recently - the view was that the reds were delayed long enough for the race to be declared, as soon as the necessary distance had been covered (behind the saftey car at Brands) out came the reds. Cue much annoyance.

It may be worth raising the issue at the agm or whatever - maybe it could be changed for next season to 75% complete before it's declared?

Definately worth bringing up. Basically the race was stopped at 6 laps which happened to be half distance of the scheduled 12 laps race distance. Thats convenient. As we all know the race always goes back 1 lap so it was declared after 5 laps.

On the other note I agree every driver should marshall at least once during the season. I've raced and marshalled before anyone gets upset, so I've seen it from both sides of the fence.

[driftwood]

races do not go back 1 lap when did you last read the Blue book?
race is declared there n then

[MiniMadness]

Originally Posted by driftwood

races do not go back 1 lap when did you last read the Blue book?
race is declared there n then

I did check the Blue book G23 the race results will be declared on the previous completed lap. Only cars running at the red flag will be included in the results.

[driftwood]

this was done to stop the leader who had crossed the start finish line and having just been overtaken and punting off the rival ( both can DNF ) and having results go back 1 lap to win the race so to be classfied you need to be running
humble pie is in the oven baking!

[Minicross424]

Points scoring is for kids drift wood.
Perhaps we can bring this to a close rather than going on about something that now happened a few weeks ago.