Serious Motorsport Question

[rick vaux]

Toca has some serious explaining to do over this incident....I just can`t believe what i have been reading.
Shakes head from side to side..

[EvilPumpkin]

Oddly enough, the reaction from the people posting to the TOCA board has been similar - but the question has been put (politely) to Mr. West's forum and the silence is deafening......

[jase]

Autosport even mentions the event, I quote:

"Sunday's RT2000 race was chaotic to say the least. The weather caused numerous safety car incidents as cars went off in all directions. It was even deployed at one point to allow traffic to leave the circuit."

I doubt toca will admit to being in the wrong, although, from what has been said above they certainly are. And I seriously doubt you'll get an answer from richard west.

[AndyF]

Well, I have been in touch with Liz, and she has agreed to pen an official ten-tenths letter to TOCA as our press officer. We would like your input in the letter, so if you wish to suggest a contribution to the letter, please let us know.

[EvilPumpkin]

Cool - many thanks Andy and Liz

I think I said everything I had to say in my first post - although I have to say I think WickedWitch's post to the Toca board says it best.

Basically my own personal feelings are that putting the safety car out for this race shows the following:

1. The officials involved appear to be incapable of basic management if they can't figure out when they need to leave the circuit to get their flights.

2. The officials involved showed no respect for the role of the safety car in motor racing or for the safety of drivers on the circuit, or indeed their own safety. This is ably demonstrated by the fact that the SC had not picked up all drivers in the train by the time they were exiting the circuit - nearly resulting in a collision.

3. The officials involved showed a total respect for Irish Motorsport.

I realise that this also needs to be dealt with within Irish motorsport as has been stated earlier in this thread. However, the very fact that a request like this was made caused all subsequent problems and my issues with that are as outlined above.

Hope this is of some assistance and thanks once again for your support.

[EvilPumpkin]

oops - Item 3 should read LACK OF respect for Irish Motorsport

[wickedwitch]

The following is what I posted on the TOCA board:

I would also like to express my disgust at this incident and would request a reasonable explanation for it.

I would like to point out the following (although it should be pointing out the blatantly obvious).

1. The Safety Car should never be abused in this manner. Safety is an important issue in Motorsport and one that can never be taken seriously enough...

2. The crossing vehicles created a dangerous situation that was unneccessary and avoidable.

3. Most of the spectators (many of whom were looking forward to this particular race as it is the premier saloon racing class in Ireland) where disrespected and disappointed.

4. Most of the Irish drivers of that class felt disrespected and abused.

5. Most of those involved in Irish Motorsport felt that this visiting class was disrespectful to the host country, it's facilities and it's own classes.

This is an issue that will not go away until it is properly addressed. I would ask that those TOCA officials involved explain themselves to the satisfaction of their Irish fan-base, while they still have an Irish fan-base.

[Speedworx]

I say yes.

It happens in Champ Cars, when they race on road/street courses. If the safety workers need to to on the track to get to the accident scene, the a full course yellow is called.

If they don't need to go on track and can get there via the grass, the its just a local yellow.

[EvilPumpkin]

Hakkiman have you READ the thread. This was not to allow marshals to work trackside or cross the track.

It was to allow Toca officials to drive their cars across the circuit so they could leave and catch a plane.

Not the same thing.

[Carrie]

Have you seen that Richard West has replied on the TOCA forum. He says that he didn't know about this until afterwards and is investigating.

[EvilPumpkin]

Yes I saw - it will be interesting to see what he comes back with - at least he bothered to respond which is more than I expected!

[Paul Rayner]

Originally posted by EvilPumpkin
Yes I saw - it will be interesting to see what he comes back with - at least he bothered to respond which is more than I expected!

He does answer all questions that go on there, especially if there's a lot of debate about them.

Thinking about this, I wouldn't be surprised if we have a long wait for any fuller answer, because what could he say? When it is found out who is to blame for this, he can't name names and say "it was done because x acted badly", I think the most we can expect is an apology, and a promise that it will not happen again. This has been damaging to TOCA, as well as being insulting to the Irish, and I do not believe that Richard West and TOCA will let it happen again.

[EvilPumpkin]

Well an apology and an undertaking to have more respect for the Irish race classes for the future would be satisfactory as far as I'm concerned anyway. Mainly, I'd like an apology directly to the RT2000 racing class - they deserve it.

I wouldn't expect any good boss to name names of employees who have misbehaved - although I WOULD expect that someone would get a large slap in private!

[Adam43]

This is pretty disgraceful really. How long was left in the race? Couldn't they have waited?

wickedwitch I think you have summed it up well. You could also add that the drivers in the race had presumably paid an entry fee and had some of their racing laps deprived (I assume they weren't added on to the end of the race).

[EvilPumpkin]

Hi Adam, the race was a 15 lapper and RTs lap anywhere from 59 seconds to 1:03 on that circuit config IIRC. That means that barring incidents (which would then require a safety car anyway - or so you would think) the longest this race was likely to last from start to finished was 15-20 minutes. In addition, there was an approximately 10 minute gap between the previous race and this one so it's not like there was no opportunity to leave the circuit before the race started.

Laps were not added on to the end of the race and I can think of two drivers specifically who had their final positions affected by this decision - not to mention the driver that had to take avoiding action because the Safety Car hadn't picked him up and he was going down the main straight as they were crossing.

[TimD]

Adam raised an important point - the entry fee. Every driver would be resigned to losing race miles under a safety car if it was an issue of Force Majeure, but in this case, if I was one of the RT2000 drivers, I would be looking very seriously at ways of recovering some if not all of my entry.

Class action against TOCA, anyone?

[Dan Friel]

Surely this can't be true?? At what stage of the race did it happen?

Can't see how the race can be classed as a championship round.. totally unacceptable, and if I was one of the drivers - it would definietly be money back time.

[wickedwitch]

Dan, as far as I am aware it was not a championship round race - but that does not detract from the severe lack of respect for all parties and for their safety. It happened about 4 laps into the race and you are quite right in saying that it was totally unacceptable.

Plus, it was only one of the many unsafe practices instigated by TOCA that weekend - most people who were there will remember things like the hi-speed course cars and the unannounced chase cars.

We actually had course cars dicing with each other in ways that might get them black-flagged had they been competing in an official race.

[rick vaux]

As the boss of Toca, Mr West as in any business, should take full resonsibility for actions taken by his staff with regards to this and any other incidents, be them on track or otherwise..

[rick vaux]

And DEAL WITH THEM IN THE CORRECT MANNER....

[THR]

wow they really did that? *shocked*

id be REALLY ****ed off with them! sounded dangerous to say the least...

[redshoes]

follow up from Richard West on the TOCA forum

Hi All,
I have checked with Leinster Motor Club re the safety car and now have the facts. The safety car was NOT especially put out to facilitate the exit of TOCA officials.

Gary Manning of Leinster looked into this and came back to me stating that 'The safety car was put out in the RT2000 Race, put on on my instructions for purely operational reasons'. 'The fact that the TOCA officials were able to cross the track was purely coincidental'.

'I would like to thank Toca Tor for coming to Ireland and Leinster Motor Club look forward to working with TOCA and BARC again in the future'.

I hope this clears up the matter for those who posted.

Cheers,
Westie

[AndyF]

Still doesn't really give a reason for why it was put out

[EvilPumpkin]

Yes that's the next question - since most of the people who have posted on this were marshals present at the circuit, we would ALL like to know what these "operational reasons" were - particuarly in light of the fact that a safety car was denied a couple of laps later.

[wickedwitch]

I read an interesting post on another site from somebody who was in the control tower at the time. This person claims that the ONLY reason the safety car was released was to allow TOCA personnel and vehicles across the circuit. This person should know, he was listening as the decision was being made by the people standing beside him. This person also confirmed that there was no other reason to deploy a safety car at that time as there were NO incidents or track safety issues reported at that time.

Obviously the "operational reasons" is Garry speak for "allowing vehicles across the track" and so "purely coincidental" must mean that TOCA officials were driving these TOCA vehicles and so crossed the track at the same time by coincidence rather than by design. Simple really - just got to understand the lingo!