Another saftey car result!!!!

[amiers]

firstly congrats to Murphy/kelly,


again the safety car has decieded the race. how long before they change the system to allow the drivers and cars to win or lose.? i mean no disrespect but lowndes had 8 pit stops he should have been an also ran. the winning car should have had to make 2 stops to everyone elses 1 and that even with the safety car comming out again would have put them at the back of the pack.

they should change the rules so that you cannot pit during a pace car this way if anyone stuffs up thier stops they are stuffed as they should be. if by change someone gets caught out and they have to pit during a pace car because they are running out of fuel they get some form of penalty, not sure what but i'm sure they would think of something. i am just sick of the pace car selecting the winner.

[bestfit]

So a team should be penalised because a safety car was dispatched at the same time as their SCHEDULED pit stop?????

[Kerri]

Why is it that at some Rounds they can pit under a safety car and others they can't?

[Dirk]

I think look at we should be looking at how 'The Rat' parked the car on the edge of the track. He could have made more of an attempt to park it out of harms way! Don't blame the Safety Car because it is deployed for the safety of the drivers and the officials.

[Chappelli]

Exactly Dirk, I'm pretty sure The Rat passed a whole lot of safer spots to stop on his way up and over the top of the mountain. Driving standards should include drivers doing dumb stuff like that.

[mmciau]

Dribble, dribble dribble!
How many laps were fought over in the last stint please and who had tyres that could mount a challenge?

Mike

[amiers]

i dont disagree with any of you.but i think the main point is something needs to change. why should someone lose a 1 min lead because someone crashs while they are in last place? as for a scheduled stops maybe they only take fuel? i dont know the answer thats why we have a forum. as for the lead car having the speed, i agree 100% but it should have never been where it was nor should have the Lowndes car. also the rat could have parked it safely in a lot of other places.

[Driver]

I was thinking about this on the weekend as well. What about close the pits the first lap the safety car comes out and then open it?

Also, isn't this what Champcars do?

[deeks6]

Originally posted by Driver
I was thinking about this on the weekend as well. What about close the pits the first lap the safety car comes out and then open it?

Also, isn't this what Champcars do?

This probably the smartest suggestion of all and the fairest ... it means you are not severely penalised for green stops - you, in fact, may gain track position. It allows different strategies to come into play.

But let's dispel a few myths about the race:

1. SBR chose a risky strategy with the early stop. It worked once (by fluke) with Bright in 98 and they seem to be obsessed with it. Its dumb - you should always go with the conventional 33 lap stints and use the safety cars when they are near your window.

2. The safety cars made no difference to the result at all. Lowndes had to keep filling up the oil (so he HAD to use the SC periods) and, from the smoke billowing out of it at the end, I doubt he could have gone much further without another stop.
Ambrose car was chewing its tires and the during the last stint the car just was not fast enough (because they had to finish).
Bowe's car also developed a problem and he had to back off it a bit too. The SBR cars were shot and Bargs only looked quick because the others were so slow (he was only running 2:11's).
The problem with the Fords is that they had to wheels driven off to stay in touch early.

3. If you look at the times during the last stint, Murphy ran 14 laps under 2:10, including 9 in a row. None of the Fords were in the same ballpark as this - and it's quite likely he could have gone faster still ... he looked to be cruising.

4. In case anyone has forgotton, Murphy led for 100 of the 161 laps, 79 of the last 100 and the entire last 28. He had 33 laps under 2:10 for the race, 14 in the last stint. The next best Ford was Lowndes (18 laps under 2:10 but only 4 in the last stint).
Quite frankly, Murphy could have started that last stint behind all 6 Fords and still won - he had way more pace than any of them.

If Ford fans keep dilluding themselves that they can keep pace with Holdens (when nothing goes wrong for either), then we have no hope for a fair contest.
Apart from Frosty's spin with Tander and Jones getting punted by BPB, the Fords ran as reliably as they could, nothing went wrong and they were superbly driven. Only one Holden ran reliably, nothing went wrong and it was superbly driven ... and we know the result!

[Bimmerhead]

So are you saying that Roland Dane is right about the inequality of the Holden and Ford cars?

[lcfp2297]

Deeks,

This thread is about the safety car. Please stick to topic.

There IS a thread for your parity obsession...

Cheers

[deeks6]

So you missed the opening paragraph and points 1,2,3 and 4?

I'll try to keep it to words of 2 syllables or less for you in the future ...

[lcfp2297]

Originally posted by deeks6
So you missed the opening paragraph and points 1,2,3 and 4?

I'll try to keep it to words of 2 syllables or less for you in the future ...

Apologies Deeks, I'll spell out exactly which part of your posts I'm referring to in future...

Lets see if you stick to your word this time...

[Sandgroper]

Another saftey car result!!!!

Not likely...You could say this about all the races throughout the year. It Happens !

[hoffy]

I'm pretty sure that when the pace car was first introduced to bathurst in the mid 80's, the rule used to be that once the pace car was deployed, pit lane was closed until the field had grouped up behind it. Once this happened the pits were then opened. I'm pretty sure that this is how they do it in champ cars as well as NASCAR. I'm also pretty sure that back then, once the pace car went passed pit entry, the pit exit was closed, until the pace car and the cars directly behind it were clear of the exit.

To me this is the way it should be. Then you will get interesting situations where teams will notice a situation that could cause a safety car trying to rush cars into the pits before the car is deployed

[amiers]

deeks6 2. The safety cars made no difference to the result at all. Lowndes had to keep filling up the oil (so he HAD to use the SC periods) and, from the smoke billowing out of it at the end, I doubt he could have gone much further without another stop.

how do you come to that? if he stopped 8 times during green racing he would have still been finishing now.! even allowing that with each saftey car he could get back on the tail of the field he still would lose out as there wasnt enough safety cars to save him.

[lcfp2297]

Originally posted by hoffy
To me this is the way it should be. Then you will get interesting situations where teams will notice a situation that could cause a safety car trying to rush cars into the pits before the car is deployed

Exactly what HRT used to do...have "spotters" around the circuit tell the pit crew when an incident occured that would more than likely result in a safety car...HRT used to have their cars in pit-lane before the SC was deployed...so beat the pit lane closure.

In a time of cost-containment, should we go back to this?

[racer69]

I'm someone who regualrly complains that the safety car is overused. But in all fairness, of the 7 safety cars on the weekend, 4 of them were fair enough. Radisich's one could probably have been left there (as could Bright and Muller), but you could also ask why Radisich parked there is the first place, he had parked ample places to park the car safely.

Why not bring back the safety car rule that was used between 1987-1990, where if you pitted under the safety car, you had to get your stop done before the safety car had passed the pit exit on each lap. If you failed to do so, you lost a lap, thus discouraging safety car pitting. Or we could always bring back the second pace car.....

Again he race was decidied by safety cars which is a great shame, as Murphy/Kelly can thank it for putting them back in a winning position

[cavvy]

The safety car argument is as close to the mark as my assertion that GT was headed for the podium - wrong!!

[malarky]

Originally posted by racer69
I'm someone who regualrly complains that the safety car is overused. But in all fairness, of the 7 safety cars on the weekend, 4 of them were fair enough. Radisich's one could probably have been left there (as could Bright and Muller), but you could also ask why Radisich parked there is the first place, he had parked ample places to park the car safely.

Why not bring back the safety car rule that was used between 1987-1990, where if you pitted under the safety car, you had to get your stop done before the safety car had passed the pit exit on each lap. If you failed to do so, you lost a lap, thus discouraging safety car pitting. Or we could always bring back the second pace car.....

Again he race was decidied by safety cars which is a great shame, as Murphy/Kelly can thank it for putting them back in a winning position

racer,

I'm not clear on how this idea would help?

Most normal stops, (fuel, tyres and even pads) take well under the 3 or more minutes that a SC takes to lap the mountain. So closing pit lane would really only either hurt those well down the order (far away from the leaders on the track) or those with mechanical problems.

The system's not perfect, but you'll always have SC's. AVESCO and the other promotion's companies would never get liability insurance otherwise...

[racer69]

If you were one of the leaders and chose to pit under the safety car, you had to get in and up to the exit of the pitlane before the last car in the immediate chain following the safety car had passed the pit exit. If you failed to do so, you would have to sit there for a lap and wait for the chain to come around again.

It is nearly impossible to do this, Larry Perkins lost the 1990 Tooheys 1000 as he failed to get out in time. It discourages pitting under the safety car, and relying on safety cars for race strategy.

[Eurosnob]

Can someone post an explanation for why the field doesn't reform in running order behind the SC?

Is this the norm or was it just for the 1000?

[racer69]

The safety car worked the same at Bathurst as it has all year and previous years.

If your referring to what i think you are, ie.... the leader not always being the first car at restarts, this is because the safety car attempts to pickup the leader first, allowing all cars infront of it to pass by and regain a lap. Once the leader is found and they decide to pit, then the next car in line, whether they are in second place or not, will lead the field to the restart. Which is why some backmarkers were leading the retstart. Been that way for years.

[amiers]

i think the point is being missed here. we all want an even playing field and as long as the pace car system stays the same. and please dont say its the same for everyone because its not. for example had Lowndes won i would not have been real happy if i was the team that did 4 stops and ran at the front all day only to be beaten by a car that had done 8 stops and was running out of oil!!!!

pay the winners not the lucky ones. i wonder how the last 30 years winners list would look if we had pace cars? we have a parity system lets make it equal across the board.

[racer69]

Your point isn't being missed by me. I totally agree, safety cars reward the cars with no pace or have misfortune, and harms to people out front who work hard for a big lead.

But seeing as we a re forced to have these pace cars, there doesn't seem like there is much to be done.