PA Hillclimb

withdrawn

I would be curious to kno what your talking about?

PM sent

I too, am curious about the incident.

So what happened?

I withdrew my original comments and will get a better understanding after talking to those actually involved. I will get back to this thread after I'm sure I have the facts straight.

Dave Y

Dave - you know we all love your enthusiasm but I'm confused as to why you feel this is any of your business. #1 You didn't run the event #2 You aren't the BMR RE or even their PHA rep. Why do you feel the need to stir this up on the forum? With just innuendo? And YOU'LL be the one to deal with the offending party? If a driver or crew has a problem, THEY have channels for resolving the issue, privately, without escalating the situation. Sue

I agree with you Sue.

Someone complained to someone and they talked to me. They were not the drivers, just bystanders who thought the conflict was not justified. I reacted quickly because I thought it was being ignored. I need to get my facts straight.

Everybody needs to understand, you don't have to be the Grand Puba to speak up. This is an organization run by it's members. In the past, so many stayed silent when they did not like what was going on. You don't have to be anybody to ask the question, why is it done like this. Therefore, I will keep stirring the pot as long as I and a few others don't agree with what goes on. (99% of what goes on is good).

I admit, I was hasty and need to get the facts straight.

More later

Dave Y

I am no Poobah, but if the incident involved a novice, I would like to know, because I will follow up.

Hmm, I was verbally abusing the Mach when the axle seal was leaking and caused us to lose some laps on Saturday. I used some pretty choice words and the car responded by running better on Sunday after it was fixed. It did, however, run hotter. So I guess I upset it a little. Coolant was 230 and oil was 250. But when I got off the track, I took a quick ride to the entrance and back to allow it to cool off a little. By the time we got back to the pits, the Mach had calmed down a bit and we were back on track.

Seems as though the car NEEDED a little verbal abuse to get it to go faster. If that doesn't work in future races, I'll be considering giving it a beating. Mustangs need this every once in a while so don't take offense when such treatment is applied. Oh, stay out of the way when it starts. They seem to want to run things over when they get mad and I am not responsible for that behavior.

Steve - fun way to hijack this topic! Abuse may work for American cars but be very careful around anything British. Gracie only cooperates when properly praised & respected. Every mechanic who cursed her tight engine compartment has been bitten severely. David will show his scars/ burns. She is a lady however & does not pee oil to mark her territory like male MGs. I always take care to gently pat her ass & tell her " big is beautiful". Particularly before removing the 16 brass nuts that hold the exhaust manifolds - the back 4 of which are invisible & unaccessible to all who are not true cat worshippers. Small hands help too! Come on guys: how do you talk to your car? Does it have a name? Sue

FV95 wrote:I am no Poobah, but if the incident involved a novice, I would like to know, because I will follow up.

John, I’m not sure this is the time or place to bring it up but in may pertain to a novice mistake. I have always questioned the procedures for getting a Novice Permit and finally a TT license. Please, I don’t mean this as a refection on the instruction side of it. It’s the lack of a regimented process that should require novices to do more than just show up at an orientation and off we go. In fact how do we know they were at the orientation?

Perhaps this incident involves red flag and off track procedure. It is my understanding that the offending driver missed the Sunday morning drivers meeting, a big no no in itself. I have heard that the red flag and off track procedure was covered at that time. Was that the first time? I remember in the past that Lynn DeHart would cover the red flag procedure and getting directions from the corner worker (flagger) at every drivers meeting to ad nauseum. In fact I thought she was treating the drivers as infants to go over it again and again. Off track, as far as I can remember, has not been really concentrated on in TT. I hate to bring up the Road Racing comparison again but red flags and flag station importance in the driver school are probably concentrated on and tested practice of any part of the school. Also, instructions on reentering the track after an off and flag station control are also stressed.

At this point, one might bring up the experience level of our corner flaggers. That could be an area needing big improvements as well. Not and easy task but it needs to be addressed.

Getting back to Novice Permits, to get a Competition License, you have to read the entire GCR (less the class specifications). You take a written test on it. You must complete so many hours of classroom instruction and so much on track time and perform up to standards just to get your permit and then be monitored during actual races before getting signed off. I’m not advocating such a strict program but perhaps the process should be more involved than just show with gear and listen to an instructor speak for a short period.

One thing that has improved is the standards set to get signed off in the TT permit log book. Unsatisfactory performance will be noted and will be considered before signing off. Besides the normal things to be watching a novice for is car control. I question the logic of allowing a novice to slide their car around corners (thinking it’s the fast way) until it deteriorates into a major incident.

Like I said, maybe these issues had something to do with it, maybe not. I still didn’t hear the whole story but I will get more information.

Thank you John for setting up the soap box for me. I’ll get down now.
Dave Y

First of all, I wasn’t there when the ‘conflict’ took place and it isn’t my place or anyone else’s(that wasn’t there) to comment online. Sorry Dave, no reason for this thread to be started unless it was started by those involved. As one who is not shy, I wouldn’t have any issue with bringing something up if I didn’t like it or if I had a complaint.

As far as the sliding around the track thing (completely unrelated to why this thread was started) that’s how some drive. NO ONE is telling Merlin to stop sliding around. And his time was pretty damned fast at Duryea. While this isn’t a complete comparison to the slide and wreck after 4, that turn has also bitten experienced hillclimbers. So whether you are driving sideways out of a corner or not, crashes can happen. Novices aren’t typically the issue anyway. We had a ton of red flags in group 2. So watch targeting the novices with nonsense about how they should have this instruction or that. John handles this very well and I wouldn’t change what he’s doing as it’s perfect. Most conversations regarding hillclimbing include the very real possibility of destroying the driver’s car. It exists on every single run. Pushing the limits WILL put you right there as so many of us know. As in road racing, you push the limits, you risk a wreck.

Sue, I will be sure to pat Gracie on the ass next time I see her.

Dave that is a lot of veiled insinuations within one post, particularly for someone who rarely attends any events and hears everything second or third hand. My response may come off as somewhat harsh but I take the operation of our events very personally as I spend a lot of time thinking about what we do well and what we can do better. I do agree there is always room for improvement and I am always willing to listen to ideas from the people that are spending their time and money to participate, either as a driver or a worker. But your questions feel a lot like potshots from the sidelines based on hearsay and incomplete information. As usual there are probably some constructive nuggets within the crap that you sling up here, but it just comes across poorly. I would have preferred that you come out and talk to some of us about solutions. Particularly as many of the concerns you have mentioned have already been discussed at length at meetings, events and offline. There is no shortage of awareness or even proposed solutions, the gap is people with the time to help step up and implement those ideas.

As for the incident that I believe you are alluding to, although I was not present for the incident I spoke to several people (officials and experienced drivers) that had provided guidance and suggestions to the driver before hand. However, in the end it is their car and their responsibility behind the wheel. Many times in the past I have heard people say after an incident that "we knew he was going to crash, we should have done something. But, I also hear a lot of those comments about people that never do, frequently those are the ones that break records or hold FTD. My point is racing IS driving on the edge and sometime that fine line is going to be crossed. To think that we can avoid ever having crashes by having stricter rules or more oversight is ridiculous.

Neither I nor any other person can know for sure on a given run if someone is going to crash or set their best time and the only control we have from outside the car is sending them home before the run even starts. Except in egregious cases I'm not going to tell someone (novice or veteran) they can't drive because we think they MIGHT crash. I would ask if anyone here would listen if I told them "Corner 3 reports you keep washing out right to the edge of the track, either back off a little or you can't race anymore". Yes, we can talk to them about a concern but it's unrealistic to think an official does or should have any control over how they drive their car. In the (paraphrased) words of Jim Cosner "We're not here to tell you how to drive your car, only point out some of the hazards along the way". These words may come back to haunt me (and if so it's probably deserved) but the day I send someone home because I think I know how to driver their car better than they do is the day I quit being an official.

As for the red flag procedures, in all the years that I have talked to drivers after they missed a flag or didn't follow directions to the T the reasons have never been that they didn't know the procedure. There is always some mitigating factor, of which I have always been clear that those excuses don't matter and they need to follow the procedure. I can't think of any repeat offenders but my point is knowing the rules don't seem to be the problem, In fact since we stopped repeating the same information 9 times at ever drivers meeting I have been told we get better attendance, listening and have fewer problems where people didn't know something that was covered at the drivers meeting.

Ditto on Steve's remarks. I have raced on many hills outside of PHA, and I can tell you nobody has better novice programs and finer workers than PHA. A committed and well run organization that has no equal in America.

God Bless America and always remember 9/11.
George Bowland

Ditto to Steve and George. I have been hill climbing off and on for 47 years both in Europe and the US, and I've never seen novice and safety programs as effective as those in PHA. NEHA also does a fine job with the novices.

Brgds,
Bob D'Amore

I am going to repeat the second post in this thread, What are you talking about? There has been a lot of discussion about it and no one has said what IT is.

How about giving some details so the rest of use can make sense of the topic.

Or - - - - - tell me it is none of my concern. If that is the case it should never have deen started on this Public Forum.

Either bring it up in its entirelly or let it drop.



Stop talking in code.

Well, after reading all of this I would like to take the time to thank the PHA and everyone of the officals involved with all of the hills we race at throughout the year. Since becoming a hillclimber I have stopped all of my street racing and "playing around" on the streets. I now have a safe enviroment to hone my skills as a driver. Yes, sometimes I might screw-up a little (polish) but I figure it's better to learn my limits at a race than to find them on the street. I know that if I was told to curb my driving enthusiasm I would leave the PHA and find another group to race with so I could continue to learn and practice my craft. I've never seen anyone intentionaly put someone at risk at any of our events, or try to keep someone from growing as a person/driver. Just my way of finding some good out of this thread.

And Sue, I too will give Gracie a love pat next time you bring her out.

Sorry, but I think I have confused and mixed messages with my last posting. The sliding and crash was not intended to be, or included with the accusations of mistreating a driver.

I believe I did not make myself clear enough and perhaps the the veiled comments were not specific enough about giving praise to the level of instruction and adherence to the current standards. In my last post I went off on a tangent to express my veiws on the current procedure and perhaps getting the National program to consider incororating higher standards. Personally, I think Matt Rowe has done a fantastic job of elevating the TT program to the CR division level. He has had walk a fine line to satisfy saftey demands while not upsetting the balance of the program. My appeal is to the national office (I know he is it) to consider increasing the criteria of TT Novice Permit and Licensing.

My reason for bringing this issue up was because I was contacted by a party (yes, with second hand information) that was upset by the way a driver was treated. Perhaps they knew that I would be the one to speak up since others did not. Perhaps they did not know what was going on and took the address out of context. I promise you, I will not make any other accusations until I get the whole story and turn it over to those that have the authority to address it or I will publicy appologize here for not getting all the facts in the first place and blowing things out of proportion.

Dave Y

Well I think I probably received more verbal abuse this season than anyone else in the PHA. It started at Jefferson in the Spring when I forgot to put my gloves on and caused the course to be red flagged. Every time I went to the start line everyone held up both hands. Then to top that I forgot to turn on my water pump causing the nick name of "OLD SMOKEY." Then at Weatherly when Bowland found out I went over the jump full throttle and almost crashed he yelled at me saying, "I DON"T WANT TO TALK TO YOU ANYMORE." At Duryea Kurt said I was a "REAL PAIN IN THE ASS", in regards to the terrible mood I was in. At Polish Mtn. Various drivers called me, "NO RUN WILSON." for not staying around on Sunday. And at Fall Jefferson one driver who I will not mention chewed me out for having all Budweiser instead of Yingling Lager. There were a few comments also made that at least with the "Bandit" not having reverse I should head up the Hill in the right direction. I also think that one of the officials stated to me,"YOU COULD PROBABLY TAKE THOSE HUGE WINGS OFF THE CAR BECAUSE WITH YOUR WEIGHT YOU HAVE ALL THE DOWN FORCE YOU WILL EVER NEED."

AND GUESS WHAT? THEY WERE ALL RIGHT!
1. I will never forget my gloves again.
2. I also will never forget to turn on the Water Pump again.
3. I will not go over the jump Full Throttle, at least not for a while.
4. I will try very hard to not be a "pain in the ass" and to be more positive when things go wrong.
5. I will give Kurt my car keys and try to stay for the whole event.
6. I will have Yingling Lager from now on.
7. I will always be heading up hill from now on.
8. I am trying to loose some weight so I do not have so much down force.

So as you can see in my case the VERBAL ABUSE was indeed a good thing, and I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for the constructive abuse. Keep up the good work!