Update on PIR turn station drivers left on turn 6.

john_rissberger

john_rissberger

John Rissberger
As most of you know on this forum, there has been talk/requests for a turn station drivers left on turn 6 for over 2 years.

Well nothing was getting done so I went to the top and contacted Portland Commissioner Mr. Nick Fish with our request.

He passed me on to Mr. George Hocker Jr., the Public Advocate, who passed me on to Mr. Mark Wigginton, PIR Track Manager.

Now here is where it gets really interesting to me!!!!!!!!

NOT ONE of these people knew or had heard of our request for the turn station drivers left on turn 6.

HOW CAN THAT HAPPEN, WHERE WAS THE BREAKDOWN IN COMUNNICATION ????

I have an invitation from Mr. Wiggintion to meet with him at PIR to discuss the turn station on turn 6.

If anyone would like to attend this meeting just let me know and I will post the time/date.

John Rissberger
# 10 A/S Camaro
ICSCC & SCCA
 
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Any chance he'd be willing to head out there on the morning of the 15th during the Cascade Enduro. Moving the turn 6 station to drivers left is a much needed safety improvement IMO....

Bill-
 
If somebody builds a station that will fulfill the visual requirements for flagging and communications from the entrance to T6 to T8, I'm sure Mark would be happy to have it placed at T6 DLeft.
 
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Please post the meeting time and place. I'm sure those who are able would love to be there.

(I hate the current turn 6 station.)

Additionally, who do we talk to about ORP-- the turn station drivers left, up on the hill, as you go through the first part of the half-pipe. Yeah, right. I tried to look up at it once or twice as I entered the corner, so as to make sure there was no yellow before passing. Just about broke my neck and almost messed up the corner. It's worse than turn 6 at PIR.
 
The physical placement, and concrete foundations for of the towers at ORP were considered, and installed by the track staff and management.

Team Continental operates the ICSCC events at ORP, and this last season Russ Newhouse was the Flagging Chief. The unfortunate issue is that there are only so many people to put in so many places. But the same could be said with any track, and with any sanction.

The T7 station at the beginning of the half pipe is sacrificed to T8 because there has been no one at T9, so there is no line of sight.

And line of sight is key here. Turn stations also take their ques from each other. T6-T8-T10 works where T7-T10 does not.

We can only use the tools that we are provided to do the job that is described in the regulations.

ICSCC PPN:

15.3.7 The sponsoring member club shall provide the equipment and personnel to
adequately provide emergency response to all areas of the race course. The sponsoring
member club shall assure that there is an ambulance on-site capable of advanced life
support emergency response and transport during all periods of practice, qualifying, or race
activities, suspended until it is again free or replaced by a second ambulance.

15.3.7.1 Turn stations shall be located and manned so all areas of the race course are
under observation at all times.

15.3.7.2 While more is desirable, no fewer than two (2) workers will be assigned to
each manned station around the race course during any scheduled practice, qualifying,
or race.

And of course, includes all race tracks where ICSCC sanctions events.

The SCCA GCR:

5.5.3. Corner Stations
A. Number
The number, location, and staffing of corner stations must assure that
the entire course is can be seen at all times and that areas of the course
not immediately visible to oncoming race cars are covered.

B. Location
Corner stations will be located according to the following criteria:
• the corner personnel have a clear view of the area to be covered
• the oncoming drivers have maximum visibility of the flags and
corner personnel
• corner crew have maximum protection from out of control automobiles

Any help from participants to enhance our abilities in these areas are most appreciated.
 
Just saying--that station at ORP is bad--hard to see in the very brief time it's in line of sight, and nearly impossible to look at as the car draws abreast of it (which is a good idea in order to not pass under yellow... ) Ken, you make sense with the description of why they use these stations.

Additionally at ORP, it is an added degree of difficulty to have so many stations but only have about half of them manned. For the driver, it is one more thing to have to process--whether or not the absence of a flag is due to "no flag" or "no person". Because the track is not straight almost anywhere, most stations normally get only a brief look.
Maybe for ORP, where there are so many more stations and hence more unmanned ones, and more stations in odd places, could we hang a flag (like a large white one w/ a black X--hook it to the front of the station) to designate unmanned stations? You could even make them vinyl and leave them on the stations that are rarely manned.
I suppose alternately, we could make a larger effort to attract flaggers to ORP.

I've meant to find the right person to address ORP's issues with. Guess I'll have to get it in gear and do that.

Be lovely to fix both stations--PIR and ORP.
 
Understood, Karen. And I don't disagree. The terrain is the boon, and bane of ORP. The stations are up high for that line of sight station (flag) to station (flag), and observation of the surface of the track over the those hills and dales.

Per regulations a white flag is displayed on the out-lap of every practice session. Unfortunately, that is a driver's only opportunity to 'mark' the stations that are inhabited.

If you go to the ORP website, you may get the track manager's phone/email and start a dialog. Bill Murray, or Michael Conatore may be able to help also.

Of course contacting the Mayor of Grass Valley probably won't help. ;-)
 
I don't believe there is a rule against going higher tech.

For those stations like T6 at PIR, use electronic signaling.
Place a signaling device (an old traffic light retrofitted with LEDs and run by a small gel cell) at the offending corner. It could be hung on wires so we don't need a pole.
Or imbed LEDs into the pavement.

And yes, I'm guilty of passing under yellow at T-6 when I just flat didn't see the flag ...
 
Funny you should mention that, Bill. PIR mgmt has investigated an Wi-Fi controlled LED lighting system. To the extent of a nearly realistic quote from an outfit based in Ireland, I believe. It was last year sometime, and I haven't seen, nor heard of any progress on that. In the future, humans with flags will be obsolete.

Very fancy stuff though. With local, and remote operation, the whole she-bang with about 6-7 stations is ~$30K+. Add to that the cameras all around, and all we have to find is the operator for all of the buttons. I'm sure there are lot of 'control' freaks that would like to manipulate a whole race track from one seat in the tower. Of course, they'll be mandated to read all of the instructions first.

It reminds me of a sci-fi movie.

A bad sci-fi movie, with a sequel that puts those LED's right in the cockpit with the drivers.

The facility must, of course, raise their service fees accordingly, whether the initial purchase is subsidized by local users, or not (tell me when it hasn't worked that way). Thus increasing entry fees to feed the little shop's new 'flower'. <"FEED ME!">
 
I didn't want to clutter up my post, but the thought of a trip wire running across the track signaling the car to display the status of any given turn did occur to me.
But additional costs/requirements would probably irritate the drivers.

But I think you went one step further than I would with respect to T6 or similar turns. We don't need it at all turns. Just the visually impaired turns.

A simple transmitter would be at the turn station. It could be wired or wireless. The turn worker would activate it.
Nothing too fancy -- just a way to get the signal to the driver closer to the track.
And it would use exiting parts.
Source a surplus traffic light, change it over to LEDs, put an easily accessible battery from a Motorola radio in it, hook it all to a mutlithreaded wire or go wireless.
I think I could make one, which means a good sparky or radio guy could make a militarized/weatherproof version that would really last.
 
My next 2 cents--I'd really rather rely on people than electronics.

On the other hand, having lights that are triggered by a person at the turn 6 station has some merit. If you could show that the lights would be more eye-catching than a flag on a bright sunny day (yeah, I know, PNW rain and all, but...), then it's a great idea.
 
Karen,

You should talk to Mr. Bockman in regards to any progress, or even thought processes involved with the project.
 
Regarding the electronic system, for those who ran the Cascades Enduro how did the lights at night work. It is a simple system that can be located remotely, enhancing the corner station.

As far as talking to drivers and taking this to the Cities Commissioner I'd rather you not represent me in that way with letting me know first. I speak for myself.
 
kyle_nickels said:
Regarding the electronic system, for those who ran the Cascades Enduro how did the lights at night work.
Click to expand...

Lights are a GREAT idea if and ONLY IF they are 'controlled' by real people located AT the turn station as we are today.

If they corner lights are controlled by some Wi Fi system or hard link to race control in a tower then that is VERY, VERY BAD!

You really want a genuine human being on the scene making decisions about how to signal, what to signal and how to 'respond' to anything wrong around that area.

Some big time forms of racing can get away with lights because they only use one or two 'colors'. Like Indy with the green, yellow. Or F1 that uses ALL flags but has lights around for full course yellows and MASSIVE radio links to all cars.
 
Kyle,

Did you look at the Chumpcar lights. Modified hand-truck with the batteries mounted on the base. The light board had LED 3" round lamp assemblies mounted with a cover welded to the the top of the hand-truck. Three yellow lamps with three red lamps under those.

Wheel it to the station, and hand the 'hugh-man' the switch box that had a pretty good length of wire which was wrapped around a couple of hooks welded to the side of the rig. At the end of the race, just wheel it away and stash 'em in the container.

Your set up is a great phase one and just as simple to operate. Being able to mount it to something stable, and still be portable is probably your next phase.

Good job.
 
I did see them Ken. And thanks for the compliment.

I did think about a hand truck. Only problem I see with anything we do to improve that requires buying a battery is that they will be dead because we will likely only use it once a year.

Making the system easier to transport, set-up and use is my next step.

Thanks for the thoughts.
 
Then get the right kind of batteries and charge them up once a year. Gel-cells come to mind. Small, not too expensive motorcycle/ATV-type that don't weigh much and for the CSCC event you'll only be using them for a couple of hours anyway.

Just more thoughts.
 
They are $$$$ and for 5 that's out of reasonable. Still working on it though. I usually have enough around my place. Just need to replace the ones I was using before next year. MY need to put all my trucks on a trickle charge system over the non-use period
 
Use batteries for which you already have a charger?

My first thought was the radio batteries. There are a lot of them around, chargers are everywhere
and you can steal one out of an unused radio. I found one for my Motorola for under $20.

I suppose you could steal it out of the your radio while you're maning the corner, but that kinda defeats the purpose of all this, doesn't it?
 
Radio batteries are not going to fit the function. They wouldn't have the capacity.

We're talking lamps that need to be seen for up to ~.25 mile in the dark. A motorcycle Gel-cell can run from $60-$100 each depending on where you shop, and hold sufficient charge to run LED lamps for quite a while. Each 4" LED Brake/Tail lights pull something ~.5 Amp using the 'brake' circuit. You can do Ohm's law from there to figure how long it will run about 1.5 Amps. A 30Ah battery should run 1.5A for about 10 hours of constant on.

Gel-cells, when stored properly will last a very long time. I've got one in my Seca that's been in there for over three years now, going strong, and I've never had that kind of life with a conventional wet-cell. CSCC has a lot of equipment to maintain, and this idea just adds to that, but we're just solution finding, and good ideas are good ideas regardless of cost. The cost isn't really that extreme, and the club might easily afford it. Maybe cut down to one golf cart per weekend... or a bicycle. They've already cut the Chase truck so check it out.
 
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