Has SCCA road racing gotten too rough? And, if so, who or what are to blame?

I don't know who all these people are that can afford to bang into each other constantly during a race. They must live a different life than I do.

Racing at the club level is EXPENSIVE for the average person, of which I consider myself one. Racing a spec sedan class was (five years ago) a $1200 per weekend expenditure. I built the cheapest car possible for the class I ran in and had $10k wrapped up in it. I had some good close racing and my car never got touched, thankfully. This was NASA, not SCCA.

But, one of my spec class buddies had a lapped car drive onto the track after going off with no regard for my friend's oncoming car. That car was totaled. He is no longer a racer. He couldn't justify the cost of buying or building another car. Put his money into a vintage street car instead.

I gave up road racing simply because of the cost. I'm a upper-middle class income person with no kids and a lot of paid-for stuff including my home. I still couldn't justify the cost/benefit ratio of club racing with the risks of driver stupidity that exist, and this was with an organization that (IMO) does a superior job of policing it's drivers than the SCCA.  If I were ever to put on a driver suit again, it would be to run with a vintage club.

Pretty sad when a series like LeMons that is nothing but a bunch of crapboxes running around a track can run mostly incident free but so-called 'professional' drivers in a major club aren't made to behave themselves.

johndej said:

Lol, I pulled up some of the video from that VIR race and looks like quite the cluster. Also everyone gets to mouthing off later on the Facebook groups about it as well so can definitely see there's some open hostilities between drivers who state clearly they won't back down to certain others. Here's an especially bad example of driving from an earlier Sebring race.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vpHwfvn_yeg?rel=0

 

Dude in the orange car deserves several cans of whoop ass opened on him.

Showed this to my wife who has been with me racing. Been to many track events. She summed it up quit nicely. 
 

"The drivers suck. "
 

That one comment made me realize that we are over thinking this and making up a lot of excuses for all this. 
 

The bottom line is a "good driver" has mastered all the skills.  Not managing contact, overly aggressive tendency's and a disregard for your actions on track means you have not mastered all the skills required to be a good driver. 
 

You may be a fast driver with amazing car control but that is only a small part of what makes a good driver.

Using the waterlogged sponge between your ears to make good decisions while on track is also a skill and sadly it seems to be one that is lacking more and more these days.  

ddavidv said:

Pretty sad when a series like LeMons that is nothing but a bunch of crapboxes running around a track can run mostly incident free but so-called 'professional' drivers in a major club aren't made to behave themselves.

At least around here (SF Bay Area) incident-free Lemons and other crapcan races seem to be mostly mythical.

In the old days in Nascar, they'd just beat each other up after the race.  Driving aggro on track? See how it is when you don't have 4000lb of car around you...

I grew up with SCCA  it was gentlemanly racing where inch perfect was the standard. By the 1980's some of that had gone away but then the rules took over.  One guy lost the Championship because he had his SUN visors tie wrapped to the roll cage instead of    Properly screwed in place.  Engine tear downs just became part of the weekend. 
   Finally for a brief time SCCA  was actually cheaper to race then Vintage events.  
       But then the rules.  I couldn't race my Black Jack special because my steering wheel had a wood rim. 
    Now with the demo derby mentality I won't risk my cars. 
 

We're beaten on this topic harder than an orange Miata

At the end of the day  it comes down to this:

Why do drivers behave badly?

Becuase you let them.

In reply to dean1484 :

I'd second that. What a crapshow. It's embarassing for the sport.  

Sounds like several drivers sent to the hospital from a big ol wreck on lap 1 of the spec Miata race at road America so obviously no one got the memo.

We've been through the 'orange Miata' diatribe in another thread already.

I'll say this about racing, and it applies to so much of life, I've found...  People with money ruin everything.

johndej said:

Sounds like several drivers sent to the hospital from a big ol wreck on lap 1 of the spec Miata race at road America so obviously no one got the memo.

What the hell???

I can see a lot of people seeing that kind of behavior and deciding to avoid road racing.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

First video to come out, not directly involved, party starts ~1:30, passing back through the aftermath at 6:30

johndej said:

Lol, I pulled up some of the video from that VIR race and looks like quite the cluster. Also everyone gets to mouthing off later on the Facebook groups about it as well so can definitely see there's some open hostilities between drivers who state clearly they won't back down to certain others. Here's an especially bad example of driving from an earlier Sebring race.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vpHwfvn_yeg?rel=0

 

That orange guy was hell on wheels.  Goodness 

Too many kids. Too much money. And too little humility. Also too little concern for your fellow man.

"It is a pledge to be the driver that you want everyone else to be." 

kids today DGAF. About themselves, and that translates to their fellow man. "Send it" is exactly why I stopped watching Hoonigan. They are a poison to our community. 

dean1484 said:

You may be a fast driver with amazing car control but that is only a small part of what makes a good driver.

This is going in my signature. 

frenchyd said:

 

I'm not sure cash penalties will end the problem.  

Cash penalties just screw grassroots teams, not the rich guy teams. Here's a comparision: In rally, we have recce (course reconnaissance) with strictly-enforced speed limits (sometimes). These are, after all, public roads and/or leased private roads. In any case, getting caught speeding on transit gets you a fine of several hundred bucks, so most of the teams make a good effort to not speed (plus it pisses off the locals). But there's always a few teams that just haul ass (cough cough certain major factory team, among others), and when they get caught they just pay the fine, no big deal to them. No competition timing penalties, no nothing. Fines are meaningless to guys racking $100k cars and stuff - they only mean something to the guys racing $5k cars. 

Competition sanctions are what bites....loss of position, loss of laps, major time penalties, exclusion. Without those, penalties are irrelevant in almost any type of racing. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Huh. When I used to do TSDs, getting caught speeding/driving recklessly was an expulsion from the event.

The problem was that a lot of times the people running the event were also competitors and they had a big cup of IDGAF.  This led to people at the back of the field getting roadblocked or shot at by irate locals.

See also: the past tenseness of my TSD career

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

This goes back to my "why do drivers behave badly?" "Because you let them" comments.

When we ran our small little stage rally / rallysprint we did recce. We made it very clear anyone who ignored the speed limit would be expelled.

I've been an SCCA member for 33 years and this has been an on and off problem (mostly at larger events).

Vintage racing seldom has this problem; three weeks ago at an event several drivers got out of hand. Two of them made no effort to slow down as they went whizzing past the safety crew. We ended up with a Sunday drivers meeting where the Chief of Fire & Rescue said he send his crew home if people didn't calm down. After that everyone was well behaved.

If SCCA is having an issue the leadership need only look in the mirror........they might find my assessment harsh but I don't see it any other way.

I'd love to hear Randy Pobst chime in on this one.

Don't think this was posted yet, here's a video of the latest accident mentioned. Pink car guy is OK but had some back injury, kid in black car is 16 and hurt worse. Scary seeing the car stopped like that with so much of the field yet to come, was just a matter of luck which car hit him I think, someone was going to though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wf3oUGFyHQ

Time to put Spec Miata on a 185/60-14 400tw tire.  Slow the cornering speeds down.  Just have to find a way to get the drivers who are auditioning for a drive with Penske from their 28th starting position to move to another class.

In reply to spedracer :

Drivers like the kid in that black Miata is why I stopped racing cars.

Since I'm not a road racer, can someone else confirm - my assumption is the black Miata should not have tried to reenter  the course at race pace, should have slowed down and gotten back on pavement after the pack went by?

Defined motorsports said:

Also too little concern for your fellow man.

Societal issues have long term pervasive consequences.

spedracer said:

Don't think this was posted yet, here's a video of the latest accident mentioned. Pink car guy is OK but had some back injury, kid in black car is 16 and hurt worse. Scary seeing the car stopped like that with so much of the field yet to come, was just a matter of luck which car hit him I think, someone was going to though.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wf3oUGFyHQ

Jesus, that was hard to watch.

Vid Johndej put up looked like people were trying to do live-action Mario Kart.

eastsideTim said:

Since I'm not a road racer, can someone else confirm - my assumption is the black Miata should not have tried to reenter  the course at race pace, should have slowed down and gotten back on pavement after the pack went by?

He wasn't.  Pause the video at about 0:12-0:13.  Wheels are pointed towards the grass, he was trying to stay off the track