Why everyone thinks O.W. drivers are crazy!!!

Interesting thread.
Routinely 100 feet off the ground at 8 miles/min (previous life)
Driving ambulance code 3 opposing traffic (not so distant previous life)
Side by side with Wes all the way through turn 2 at Spokane (this life)

Still crazy after all these years!
 
What? Really What?

Back in 1989 another driver suggested that I put my car number on the bottom of the car so he would know who was passing him.

Problem solved.

Should have seen the look on the course workers face when I got out of the car, pulled it out of the tire wall, got back in and drove the last 50 meters to the finish.....18 degrees of castor made those last few meters to the checkered really evil as I recall.

Greg Coffin
Winner of the Last Eloy Grand Prix
Mygale F2000
 
Wes

From the late 70's into the 80's the Arizona Sports Racing Association (formed by 6 guys who got fed up with the "high" cost of racing with some national group) convinced the town of Eloy, Arizona to let them race in the streets. The track was 0.9 miles long, and surrounded the central park/pit. The whole deal was made possible because for years all the cement barriers left over from highway construction projects were dumped in a lot about 2 blocks away. What started as a whim grew into the center piece of ASRA's race season. Over the years catch fences and bleachers were added to accomodate the 5-10 thousand spectators who showed up to watch local racers run through the streets literally within a few feet of the track.

After winning the Mayors Cup sprint race on Saturday, I drove over my friend for the Regional win on Sunday. Instead of dash plaques we gave out 6x8 plaques with a picture of each car and a traffic ticket for speeds in excess of 90mph written by the Eloy PD.

After we packed up the car, onto our single axle open trailer, I stopped to detail my launch and re-entry points to my wife. A single spectator was left in the stands, he got up, pointed to me, and started clapping.

The income from Eloy allowed ASRA to keep their entry fees low for the rest of their schedule. Spectators and a center piece event with racing on both days......I reckon this model could still work......the Historics at PR comes to mind no?
 
westipton said:
It seems like we had come so far from the days of that video Kenny, until last week-end.
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Sad but very true. I was thinking the same thing asI watched the replay trying to figure out what went wrong. The hang time of a formula car at speeds pver 200 mph is really scary.
 
The safer barriers are doing their job, but the fences are obviously still deadly. Hitting those steel uprights at that speed is horrible to even contemplate let alone watch on the constant replays. Thank God he hopefully never felt a thing. One minute you're here, the next second you're gone. I keep going back to the video from his in-car, which they naturally cut away from, but to think he was seconds from death in that shot is very sobering.
 
My son Adam, wearing his Chief of Safey hat for Cascade, is trying to figure out how he can help prepare the Safety Team for a fatality at one of our events. Granted it has been a long time since something like that has happened, but it has happened inthe past and will likely happen again. We don't do anyone any good by coming apart at the scene. I'm sure it will be something to discuss at the off season Safety Team meeting that he is planning. I have never dealt directly with a fatality, but I have been at the track a couple of times when one occured. In the case of the first Molson Indy at Vancouver, I was one of several workers moved to the turn where a group of workers had been hit. It isn't easy to go on after something like that happens. We need to be prepared for it beforehand.
 
You, driver, car. In that order all the time. Just to stay with some fundamentals, because this kinda thing will send you right off the rational logic scale in a hurry if you don't remember the basics to start with. YOU have to get there safely to be of any help to the DRIVER to help sort out the issues with the CAR.

NFPA 610 has some good 'guideline' information.

It's important to have a good working relationship with your ambulance crew(s). Remember why they are there, and reacting to their directives as the professionals in that situation. Or any injury situation. They need to know who the Incident Commander is. That would be the individual that is not just a voice on the end of a radio, but the person there, physically and charged with coordinating efforts on the ground at the incident.

You hear about the "hand-off". Well, it's not very complicated. Once the ambulance is on scene, Safety provides them any information, and assistance necessary to tend to our driver, their patient, and get them on their way to wherever they need to go. Not much different than a Turn Marshall waving at us, and saying, "Thanks for cleaning up that mess they made."

That means closely coordinated, and discretely guarded communications with Base Comm, or other, so that they may keep the Stewards, and Race Chairman, and others informed to provide coordination with those individual responsibilities, like hot pit, grid, and track traffic, (FCY w/Pace, or other EV's on course) to accomodate emergency egress of the ambulance, arrival of Life Flight, and estimated times.

Where is Life Flight going to land? Who's in communication with the bird?

How do you secure the scene (covering the car is more for prying eyes, and 'unofficial' cameras than anything)?

Who gets to take pictures? Who is responsible to take 'official' pictures?

Will the Race Chair(s)/Steward(s) want to inspect before it's cleaned up, or before the car is moved to impound?

When the Race Chair, or Steward arrives, is the Incident Command transferred? That's another 'hand-off' situation. One that should be considered before 'hand' to avoid confusion. It's important for the rest of the crew(s) to know who's has local authority for the 'zone'.

Robby knows I can't resist this stuff.
 
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greg_coffin said:
Wes

From the late 70's into the 80's the Arizona Sports Racing Association (formed by 6 guys who got fed up with the "high" cost of racing with some national group) convinced the town of Eloy, Arizona to let them race in the streets. The track was 0.9 miles long, and surrounded the central park/pit. The whole deal was made possible because for years all the cement barriers left over from highway construction projects were dumped in a lot about 2 blocks away. What started as a whim grew into the center piece of ASRA's race season. Over the years catch fences and bleachers were added to accomodate the 5-10 thousand spectators who showed up to watch local racers run through the streets literally within a few feet of the track.

After winning the Mayors Cup sprint race on Saturday, I drove over my friend for the Regional win on Sunday. Instead of dash plaques we gave out 6x8 plaques with a picture of each car and a traffic ticket for speeds in excess of 90mph written by the Eloy PD.

After we packed up the car, onto our single axle open trailer, I stopped to detail my launch and re-entry points to my wife. A single spectator was left in the stands, he got up, pointed to me, and started clapping.

The income from Eloy allowed ASRA to keep their entry fees low for the rest of their schedule. Spectators and a center piece event with racing on both days......I reckon this model could still work......the Historics at PR comes to mind no?
Click to expand...

Greg:

I would love to race in the streets of .......................... anywhere.

I remember street races in Cuba where all kinds of cars competed in a street course. Back in those days, cars were very minimally prepared. They raced Buick Electras, and Ford Fairlanes; ..... without roll bars or shoulder harnesses. I even watched the local police, with municipal authorization, I am sure, race a 1957 Ford police car, including emergency light bar. The cops always won, ................. they had guns! It was a hoot!!

There were also sport car classes with Porsche Speedsters, MGAs, Triumph TR2s and TR3s, etc. The first race I attended I watched some poor guy stuff a 1958 Mercedes SL Gullwing into a telephone pole. These races were always ran in conjunction with the "Gran Premio de Cuba" where Sterling Moss, Carroll Shelby, and Juan Manuel Fangio raced every year.

Sadly, all that came to a screeching stop when the Communists took over the country. The last "Gran Premio" was held right before Castro took over. That year the revolutionaries kidnapped Fangio in order to sabotage the "Gran Premio". Apparently the communists do not think much of motor racing. Fangio was released the following day. Stirling Moss won that year with a Lotus.

I can not imagine any small local municipality in this country having this sort of thing again unless we change the tort laws in this country.

In my native country the communists took over, ...................... in this country, the lawyers have taken over and we have divorced common sense and the concept of personal responsibility.
 
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Kenny, another thing is that in the event of a fatality, the police may take over, stopping the event to do their investigation. If so, the weekend could very well end prematurely.
 
POINT!

Rob, that is correct depending on the circumstances, for sure.

I can only suppose that if there were anything criminal to consider, then the local authorities would want to be involved. And the Race Chair, with the Steward(s) would probably initiate that response.

Again, we have to trust in the escalation procedures that the Ambulance service provides, and according to their understanding of state, and local laws, codes, and procedures. You might consider why the announcement of a death seems to be sometime afterward, and usually away from the race track.

The Safety crew, after handing off the driver/patient, and providing support as needed to the Medical services, the rest is recovery/clean-up. The Race Chair should provide any 'special' instructions through Base Comm.

Did I mention that having a dedicated frequency for a SafetyNet is considered an essential part of Base Communications in the professional racing world? It's like having the FIA, SFA, SNELL sticker on your operations... kinda.

Rumor has it, that people can interpret communications many ways. Depending on how well some one may be listening at the time. Then rumour has it.

I'm not the only one who realizes how important it is to contain and isolate emergency situations until we are sure that we have full maintenance of control. So I did want to make a point of mentioning that. Communications is our tool for that coordination. It's the tool of the trade... or 'specialty' in our case. And I think Safety is pretty special.

That should give the monkey some more bullet points for his meeting.

Speaking of rumours... and meetings, perhaps the whole "what to do" should be discussed at your next ROD meeting.

If the 'white flag' doesn't take up too much time.... ;-?
 
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One thing very few drivers ever think of is exactly what you and Robby have been passing back and forth here. Life flight, landing zones, ambulance crew vs. safety; man if I had that bouncing around in my melon I would never leave the hot pits.
We rely on you guys to take care of us, and that's pretty much as far as it goes. We have issues, you'll be there. It never really sinks in unless one of us needs your attention, then it hits home hard how dangerous this can be at times. I've personally been there and done that, and while I rarely think about it, I fully appreciate every worker on every corner, and every single volunteer who is out there for us. You guys, and gals, are some of the most professional 'volunteers' I've ever met.
 
westipton said:
One thing very few drivers ever think of is exactly what you and Robby have been passing back and forth here. Life flight, landing zones, ambulance crew vs. safety; man if I had that bouncing around in my melon I would never leave the hot pits.
We rely on you guys to take care of us, and that's pretty much as far as it goes. We have issues, you'll be there. It never really sinks in unless one of us needs your attention, then it hits home hard how dangerous this can be at times. I've personally been there and done that, and while I rarely think about it, I fully appreciate every worker on every corner, and every single volunteer who is out there for us. You guys, and gals, are some of the most professional 'volunteers' I've ever met.
Click to expand...

Thank you Wes. We all know that the big ugly can happen and we all hope that it won't happen on our watch, but it pays for those of us who are first responders to think about such things and view the videos to prepare ourselves. There are lots of us out there that either don't do this for a living or are not combat veterans. We are not necessarily hardened to the emotions that a big ugly can bring. We need to remind ourselves to prepare for such an eventuallity.
 
I was given a 'teething' pacifier of the HAVOC I, II, III...etc. Classics. Some VHS copies are still available on Ebay, and Amazon. Youtube has oodles. You wanna study the dynamics of "wha-happened" there you can spend hours in slow motion now. The tapes wear out though.

And I'll sit parked with a view of whatever real race/qual/practice that's in front of me, on any given weekend at any given race track, with whatever tools that I have available, and say,
"THESE guys are crazy?
What am I doin' here?"
Is it any wonder why I'm smokin' cigarettes, and throwin' down coffee
to sooth the high anxiety of 'nothing' happening... YET.

Charlie-Sheen-smoking.jpg

Are you kidding me?​
 
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That's it, Robby.

Around the track, and home again.
Take the safest way.
Keep our fingers, all our toes.
We survive the events of today.
 
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