The FIRM forced to reconfigure due to recent FAA audit

You'd think this sort of discrepancy would have been discovered much sooner.

What does this do to your time attack competition the day after the Challenge?

Jerry From LA said:

What does this do to your time attack competition the day after the Challenge?

At this point everything is still on at the track, they'll just be using a truncated configuration until this can be resolved. We'll have a few people there tomorrow so hopefully we'll have some additional info to share, but here's a few educated guesses:

Turn 6 is like 200 feet from the end of an active runway. That's likely the main source of contention. It's likely that a new track configuration will have to be devised that eliminates T6 and gives the runway some additional room. There's a few things they could do that would require minimal additional pavement, but paving anything also comes with wetlands considerations, so it may not be as simple as just laying a couple hundred feet of asphalt.

In the meantime, there's an existing cutthrough that makes it easy to run a shorter, but also super fun, loop. Some additional precautions will have to be taken for track days (smaller groups), but it should be business as usual for anyone wanting to do laps there.

What likely won't be business as usual—at least long term if not already—is our lap chart. The highest likelihood here seems like some sort of reconfiguration, so that would toss a wrench into our legacy lap times. But, hey, that's motosport. I mean, they repaved the Nurburgring last winter. Time marches on and you make adjustments. We're fully confident our testing at the FIRM will continue, we may just be starting a new leader board. It'll be fun to build a whole new dataset.

When you make a mistake with the government, the government expects you to pay for it. When the government makes a mistake with you, the government expects you to pay for it.

I plan to be there several times in the next  fee months.  I am still going and would support a gofund me if necessary.

In reply to Colin Wood :

Likely an audit of landing spots in Florida for the president? 

I know there are a lot of runways elsewhere in the world where the end of the runway is closer to a public road than this runway is to T6, can anyone think of any in the US? Practically speaking a lightly used road that may have some small cars on it in an area surrounded by trees doesn't seem like much of a safety problem, maybe it's some weird technicality?

I'm guessing that runoff areas after the ends of runways may be getting more closely scrutinized after the Jeju Air disaster, but again this seems like a super-minimal safety risk.

JG Pasterjak said:

Turn 6 is like 200 feet from the end of an active runway. That's likely the main source of contention. It's likely that a new track configuration will have to be devised that eliminates T6 and gives the runway some additional room. There's a few things they could do that would require minimal additional pavement, but paving anything also comes with wetlands considerations, so it may not be as simple as just laying a couple hundred feet of asphalt.

Seems kinda BS that the FAA can come along and impose restrictions on what the FIRM can do with their private property after the fact.  I wonder if this isn't a 5th amendment "no takings" case?

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Seems kinda BS that the FAA can come along and impose restrictions on what the FIRM can do with their private property after the fact.  I wonder if this isn't a 5th amendment "no takings" case?

 

The story above says the property is leased -- The FIRM does not own it. 

I'm headed over to the track in a few minutes--will let you know how the new layout drives!