IMSA Race 2016 Rolex 24 at Daytona

[joeb]

Max has been released from the hospital. Pretty scary stuff imo, the car made the last two drivers sick, one requiring hospitalization. What if the race was 5 minutes longer? Would he have made it?

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2016/0...-hospital.html

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by joeb

Max has been released from the hospital. Pretty scary stuff imo, the car made the last two drivers sick, one requiring hospitalization. What if the race was 5 minutes longer? Would he have made it?

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2016/0...-hospital.html

Happy to hear he's been released. I too would like to know what was the cause. That's pretty scary.

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by joeb

Max has been released from the hospital. Pretty scary stuff imo, the car made the last two drivers sick, one requiring hospitalization. What if the race was 5 minutes longer? Would he have made it?

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2016/0...-hospital.html

Good news.

[schmidder]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

FCY or not, we come back to the problem which plagues the entire sport across the globe - drivers not respecting yellow flags.

You get parked at your local go-karting track for ignoring a yellow and failing to slow down, and when you're racing lawnmower-powered karts you're talking about minor injuries. At this level, you're talking about human lives.

You slow down at your local kart track because there is a disincentive. You have paid for the experience and you want to get the most out of it, and you don't want the fun to stop early. So you abide by yellow flags.

In the real thing, the stakes are higher but the punishment isn't proportionate - the culture seems to be that if you lift and coast a little earlier than usual, listen to what your spotter tells you, and don't set a personal best in that sector, then you're good.

Waved yellows should mean that you should slow down and be prepared to stop. Aside from the DeltaWing, how many cars were prepared to stop in the incident we're talking about here?

Racing drivers are hard-wired to calculate risk and make split-second decisions in order to complete the race distance as quickly as possible, or in the case of Daytona, cover as much distance as possible in a day. Andy Meyrick chose speed against the possibility of hitting a stationary car and ending his race and someone else's.

That suggest to me that there is not enough of a disincentive for ignoring yellows, or failing to take necessary precautions. The only real punishment under the current climate seems to be actually hitting the thing which caused the yellow.

This isn't an IMSA issue - it's one for the whole gamut of road racing.

Add to this that imsa encourages drivers to go pretty fast under yellow so they can get the field bunched up and start the staggered pit stop process. Beaux discussed this with hindy a bit during the broadcast..

[Obizzz]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

drivers not respecting yellow flags.

This isn't an IMSA issue - it's one for the whole gamut of road racing.

I 100% agree with your entire post.

[MaskedRacer]

Imagine how fast the GTD cars would have been if they were on Michellan tires.

[MaskedRacer]

My favorite pic from the collection I have seen from the race so far

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

- drivers not respecting yellow flags.

which is the big issue. Everyone hates FCY, but that seems to start to bring things under control--forget about manipulating the race and such, the normal FCY moans-and think about a rescue vehicle or two, along with potentially workers on foot trying to deal with a stalled car in a corner in the dark. The video of the Deltawing slamming the pc car is bad, but do you want people on foot in that? Can you imagine how bad that could be?

There was a grandam race at Watkins Glen several years ago-there was a sudden rain shower and car after car hydroplaned off the last corner at fairly substantial speed, either into the tire wall, or into a car that went off moments earlier. I am sure yellows were flying, and at the same time rain was pitching down and car after car was flinging bodywork and bits as they slammed into things, and it just went on and on....

[joeb]

IN SC636 post race notebook it says:

**IMSA has impounded the engines from all five Lamborghini Huracan GT3s, as well as the GTD class-winning Magnus Racing Audi R8 LMS and Flying Lizard Motorsports’ previous-generation Audi R8 LMS ultra.

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by MaskedRacer

My favorite pic from the collection I have seen from the race so far

Incredible GT field. Epic, if you ask me. Nice pic. Thanks for sharing.

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

FCY or not, we come back to the problem which plagues the entire sport across the globe - drivers not respecting yellow flags.

...

This isn't an IMSA issue - it's one for the whole gamut of road racing.

How and when does this ever get solved?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRPC8OLxNn0

[BullMan]

Beaux Barfield said during the race that he tells the drivers to bunch up as quickly as possible.

That seems like a terrible idea, especially if there is a car on fire or an injured driver. You want the emergency crews there as fast as possible, and it seems like a bad idea to have the cars whipping around the circuit at near race speeds.

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by BullMan

Beaux Barfield said during the race that he tells the drivers to bunch up as quickly as possible.

That seems like a terrible idea, especially if there is a car on fire or an injured driver. You want the emergency crews there as fast as possible, and it seems like a bad idea to have the cars whipping around the circuit at near race speeds.

It's common in every series. You bunch up as fast as possible in the CLEAR areas of the track and respect the waving yellows or areas with track personal on them with a reduced / safe speed. It's done for the fans to get the race going green as soon as possible.

edit: just to put it in perspective, one of my top-3 scariest moments ever in a race car was at my first Daytona 24. it was the middle of the night, I had just been given a wave-by and had to catch back up to the rest of the field (after being told in the drivers meeting to catch up as fast as possible). i kept asking my spotter where the back of the field was and i didn't get a response. i came off the nascar banking into the bus-stop straight at full speed (180+mph) and there was a WALL of red tail lights of 2 rows of cars basically stopped. the pace car came to almost a complete stop in the bus-stop in order for the rest of the field to catch up so it could go back to green that lap. nobody told me on the radio. On the banking, you can't see more than 25ft in front of the car and you can't see out the side window except for about 50yards of grass on the infield (because the car is tilted so far). I blew by half the field at almost full speed while trying to slow down in the marbles along the wall (luckily, everyone was smart enough to leave a car width there). I told them team on the radio I had just shat myself but the car was fine and I'd explain it after the race. After the race was over I went and looked at the car and there was white paint on both the front and rear fender flares of our Porsche. It was that close....

-mike

[chernaudi]

Yellow flags and light boxes might not have been in the best places, but allowing for that, I'd assume that when you're told that there's a stalled car sitting on the track near the racing line, you'd slow down when you get to that area to maximize your ability to take evasive action.

I always thought that a local yellow on a road course meant slow down in that area of the track and be prepared for a full course yellow.

Not the best place for a spin/stalled car by any means, but when you're being asked to slow down and warned of a car or debris on the track, you'd think that the drivers would take note, at least in terms of self-preservation of themselves and their vehicles.

But then again, I could be an ass and say that if racers cared about self-preservation of themselves and their equipment, they wouldn't be racing hard and, of course, this is probably why NASCAR doesn't use local yellows on road courses, while we and most road racers understand and get the concept.

The WEC doesn't seem to have major issues with local yellows, because I assume that if you're too fast though them or gain a position unfairly, there's significant penalties. And even then they have a system where if they need a quick full course yellow but not a pace car, they have their own version of Code 60.

But even with all that, unless the driver doesn't get the message that there's an issue on track and he indeed was totally unsighted in terms of the yellow flags and yellow light boxes, and they run into another car and take themselves out, it's their fault for ruining their own race, writ large. Not to mention if they injure themselves or someone else.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Mike Hedlund

How many laps have you done at Daytona? How many in the dark during the 24?

-mike

lol, right. If we're going to take that attitude then what's the point in any fans discussing anything?

Car in the middle of the road, at night, stalled, for an extended period of time. No yellow. And people think that's just fine. Nobody has excused Andys driving or the overall attitude of drivers and hazards, but we ALL knew that accident was going to happen if race control didn't step in. I can't really think of a more appropriate situation for a FCY than a car stuck in the middle of the road in a corner.

Andy should've avoided the car, 100% agreed. Race Control should've had control of the race. During that incident, they did not.

[Akrapovic]

Initial braking area taken from some onboards. Obviously it's a long braking area with the corner here and there are a variety of different lines, but this seems around where most cars begin corner entry.

Wall marked as it obscures the sight line. Yellow flag we can see on the video is marked. If anything it might be further up about 10m or so, but obscures it more behind that wall, and there's a stopped car marked as we can see in the videos. According to the IMSA Radio/RLM commentators, there was NO yellow flag boxes shown on the entry to turn 1. There was a yellow directional arrow but that was displayed during the entire race. Some say there was a yellow on corner entry, so that info may be wrong, I'm just going on what the commentators said.

There is no line of visibility from the start of the braking area to either the yellow flag, or the car. They obviously become visible as you near the corner, and the stopped car is going to become visible first. Other factors are that the yellow flag being displayed was not lit, and out of the drivers sight line. The stalled prototype at the point the DW appeared had no functioning rear lights either, so it wasn't like there was a pair of red dots to avoid. Oddly it seems to have headlights on, but not tail lights.

Of course Andy was not the only driver to ignore the warnings from the team. Several other drivers took avoiding action, but those drivers got out of jail free in this incident because they didn't have bicycle wheels bolted to the front of their car. If Andy gets a slap (which he should), then a bunch of others need the same. The crime committed was the same, even if the outcome was different.

But of course, none of this would've happened if race control had controlled the race and threw a caution for a car sitting stuck in the middle of a road, unlit. Is it acceptable to cover that sort of situation under waved yellows? Not in any other series.

[chernaudi]

I've seen the WEC and LM do fine with local yellows when a car was stalled on track or near the track surface. But then again, they've also been trigger happy on FCY stuff when a car was stopped well off the racing line and only needed to be pushed to get into a good direction because the steering lock on the car wasn't enough to allow it to make a full turn without nudging a wall.

Every case has to be treated on a case by case basis. Most if not all teams do have access to the TV feeds and radio from race control or corner workers warning of a stalled car.

If things are as depicted in the photo, then it would've helped that the flagger or light box was near the access road as an earlier warning. But still, if you're supposedly being told that there's a stopped car somewhere, IMO, it stands to reason that at least a local yellow is to be expected, and drivers should be prepared to take evasive action and be prepared to slow for a FCY.

Overall IMO, it's a case of driver error compounded by other circumstances.

But what does determine where the positioning of the flaggers and light boxes are in IMSA? In know in the WEC they use the three main timing sectors and sub-divide them into smaller "safety zone" sectors. I'm not sure how if IMSA does that.

[FormulaFox]

Originally Posted by MaskedRacer

Imagine how fast the GTD cars would have been if they were on Michellan tires.

No faster, hoenstly. IMSA would make sure of it.

[Accident]

Originally Posted by Ephaeton

GTLM.. guess the story of the race is the kind of scum move you do when you're corvette and your opponent is not corvette. Also looking forward to actually analyzing the sector and lap times myself, I have the slight suspicion that corvette's performance envelope during the final 45 minutes was tighter and higher up than the rest of the field. And I reckon that's as much a coincidence as Aston Martin's WEC "target performance" driving. In other words, I believe not only are they acting like scum on the race track, but also off the track. Curious to see what the data will be hinting at.

Silly comments in my opinion. Look through the GTLM field and find me one car (aside from Scuderia Corse obviously, since they are new to the class) run by any of the teams that hasn't given someone a nudge or ran someone wide over the last handful of years. Funny that when a yellow car does it everyone seems to get real worked up.

Curious what your thoughts are on Porsche's golden boy Tandy, after the way he ran the Risi car off the road and then Auberlen (twice was it?) at Laguna Seca a few years back? Don't remember many people too terribly upset about that.

"Scum" off the track because you think they were playing the BoP game? While it seems that excessive sandbagging is probably pretty difficult with the systems IMSA is using, you would be kidding yourself if you think any other team wasn't trying to do the same thing.

Seeing as how you most likely don't know the state of the setups on the vehicles at the end, or what sort of condition the cars were all in, looking at some data available to the public isn't likely to lead to anything terribly concrete given there are plenty of variables at play.

[Ephaeton]

Originally Posted by Accident

Silly comments in my opinion. Look through the GTLM field and find me one car (aside from Scuderia Corse obviously, since they are new to the class) run by any of the teams that hasn't given someone a nudge or ran someone wide over the last handful of years.

Yeah and for the races which I've watched you'll most likely find a complaint about such respectless and unprofessional driving by me in the respective race thread with similar reactions to Matt's, HORNDAWG's etc.

I cannot understand how producing a case where the "crime" hasn't been dealt with by race control suggests lack of punishment for further such "crimes". "Unavoidable contact is fine if you can find an unpunished case in the history of your racing series" ?? I don't understand how Beau's alleged fallback to self-policing is acceptable either (does "lynch" ring a bell?). Rule application needs to be objective and consistent. So there's no "light" touches or "intentional" touches. There's avoidable contact (by definitionem any of it) and you will find a(t least one) culprit for it. Punish any and all of the culprits. Justice, whoa.

Produce me a (ny/GTLM) car that "nudges" another out of the way, and I'll tell you, this guy/gal needs to get a penalty.

Regarding the numbers/bop game ... well, statistics can hide, and can unveil everything.

[carbon_titanium]

hi all, could someone tell me the exact size of continental tires of DP/LMP2 cars?

on imsa.com is reported a very generic/indicative 14'' as width and 28'' as diameter

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

a car was stalled on track or near the track surface.

It seems to be common now to stop on or next to the racing surface when the car goes 'pfft' Seemingly to cause a FCY and get rescued without losing too much time. I have no idea, nor have I heard why that PC was stationary in the first corner, pretty much on the racing line. It seems odd. Did he spin and end up stalled there? Apparently the engine was running when he was hit, but I don't know if it had been before, and the driver had to recycle everything to get running again and get moving, but the Deltawing just got there too soon. I am not blaming the PC, just speculating. If that car had just trundled to a stop there it must have been going fairly slow in the tri-oval, which would have been cause for yellow corner flags too. Weird situation all around.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

lol, right. If we're going to take that attitude then what's the point in any fans discussing anything?

Car in the middle of the road, at night, stalled, for an extended period of time. No yellow. And people think that's just fine. Nobody has excused Andys driving or the overall attitude of drivers and hazards, but we ALL knew that accident was going to happen if race control didn't step in. I can't really think of a more appropriate situation for a FCY than a car stuck in the middle of the road in a corner.

Andy should've avoided the car, 100% agreed. Race Control should've had control of the race. During that incident, they did not.

If drivers obey local yellow flags, there's no need for a caution in situations like this!

[chernaudi]

That car reportedly had it's headlights on, but it's taillights might have been out, too.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Here's footage of the crash.

https://youtu.be/R6I-UThjabk