2021 SCCA Runoffs at Indy

G

Greg Amy

Administrator
Staff member
It's aaaaawful quiet in here...are you ready? Packed? Sobered up (we can fix that)?

Here we go...
 
Just a final clean of the car and pack and I'm ready. A few more dyno sessions and should be out of here Thursday afternoon for an early Friday arrival. Can't wait!
 
All finished. Car is packed and loaded. Started putting necessities (cases of cider) into the coach. Just need to go shopping this week and then dyno session early Friday and hopefully over to Indy before registration closes Friday evening.
 
Gordon, do they need to bring their gear for Express Tech? What is the status of the new black & white SCCA patch?

Have fun.
 
Hello Jim, What is your question about the patch? I believe a letter was submitted for the change in 2017. It was in red italics in the GCR for 2018, changed to black lettering for the January 2019 GCR and has not changed since.

Everyone,
Please pass the information that is found in the 2021 Indy Runoffs Supplemental regulations along to other social media outlets:

9.3. Express Tech (Check In): Competitors need not present their car for technical inspection if the car has a current annual and there are no unresolved notations in the vehicle's logbook. Competitors that have a 2021 Helmet sticker need only to bring their logbook to Express Tech. The vehicle logbook must be presented at Express Tech to receive their Runoffs® Event Stickers

Oh YEAH!! Packed and loaded. See you all at Indy...
 
At several of the later SEDiv Majors, we reminded drivers about the black & white patch. Many had the look of deer in headlights. I know we sold almost all we had at tech several times. So, my comment was about the patch was a reminder that the black & white SCCA patch is now the only one compliant other than the pro patch.

Earlier this year, several drivers had heard a rumor that all gear was going to be required for express tech. Just wanted to be sure nothing had changed.

Thanks for the response.

BTW, want to make a bet on the number of old SCCA black & red or red, white, blue patches that are still the only ones on driver suits at the Runoffs?
 
On schedule to get final preventative maintenance, checks, align, clean and load with a departure time of Saturday morning.

Looking forward to next week!
 
WTF was Valentine thinking splitting those cars?
I hope there was some reason he could not see them, because that isn't cool to do...
 
chois":3j4gk4lr said:
WTF was Valentine thinking splitting those cars?
I hope there was some reason he could not see them, because that isn't cool to do...
Click to expand...

I've been holding my tongue on this. Been trying to cool down a bit on it before I said anything. Needless to say, I'm extremely disappointed.

I'm sure you saw it from my video and I can tell you I lifted to safely avoid - but not by that much. He must have been full throttle thru that wreck in order to pass me like that - THEN continues to pass Jack. He literally emerges on the same area of the track as where Vesa's car was half a second after I am passed his car. I can't imagine how close he was. Jack and I both had time to react and avoid safely, he has zero excuses.

I won't get into the legality of it, I don't care about "picks" or "yellow technicalities". His maneuver is mind blowing to see. I made evasive actions around him on 3 separate occasions (opening lap t1, lap 1 T6 he comes down onto my nose, and T1 on after the restart he runs me off the track to complete a pass). Those other three don't bother me alone. He was willing to take both of us out to make a pass and I had to be the one to back out, which I was, but thrown on top of what he did in the vesa/eric incident, I was fuming.

I'll just say, if I am ever in an incident on track similar to Vesa, I don't want him anywhere near me. Glad he's on the other coast.
 
It was also completely blinding in 6A with the sun... Let's let Ben weigh in, but I have to believe lack of visibility, glare, pupils dilating, etc. led to some of that.
 
chois":156vh5bt said:
WTF was Valentine thinking splitting those cars?
I hope there was some reason he could not see them, because that isn't cool to do...
Click to expand...

Jason - that would be less egregious to me.
 
But then he proceeds to race all the way to turn 7 passing two cars along the way.

Doesn't scream mistake/poor visibility to me.
 
Bad move from the stands for sure. But until we see the view that he had , hard to tell what choices that he had .
Passing the next cars was perfectly legal , bad form maybe but legal . The 66 continually chopped and drove cars off track . Just like F1 ..
The Gauper vid has a few Hondas acting like Q balls . as bad or worse than this IMHO. I see that Copeland was removed from standings to the rear.
 
BLinn":2g1j65v9 said:
rekcik15":2g1j65v9 said:
In-car video: https://youtu.be/__YNeqVg0tU
Click to expand...
Great video, like how you merged you in-car with the official feed. You had a very busy race!
Nice drive and happy for your results.
Click to expand...

Thanks Brian! Appreciate that :D I had enough racing in my 7 laps for an entire race length.

Also, video is all thanks to some free video editing software and video production class in college both coming in handy.
 
Erickz":3g2oz309 said:
Any word from the stewards re Vickerman’s incident?
Click to expand...
Rumor I heard was "racing incident".

And I (putting out my my two cents that may drag this into a cat fight) agree with that, from what I've seen.

We had a very disparate pair of cars racing each other, one that had killer handling in the twisty bits and one that had good engine (and decent handling). When you put these kinds of cars together, you end up with different cars doing different things in different places.

Add into that mix cars of different physical sizes, and you end up with issues trying to maintain visibility of the smaller car.

Eric had to take high-risk monster move in his area of expertise to get around Vesa (I was damned impressed). Vesa, for his part, likely did not see that move coming; frankly, I sincerely doubt I would have either. So Vesa had no idea Eric was out there and drove his line, ultimately squeezing Eric off the track where he had nowhere to go except into a converging tire wall. Vesa couldn't see him because the car is so small* and his vision was upstream to the next corner. The end result was a squeeze play again a tire wall.

Nothing there was intentional, and IMO nothing there was negligent. Just two hard racers shooting for a championship position: a racing incident.

I will offer commentary that this is the inevitable result of combining ~1400 pound handling really small cars with ~2400 pound bigger power cars, and this is only increasing with the addition of larger-displacement 2L cars. I'm not saying we "cannot" race together, but I sincerely hope that we look around and recognize this disparity and ensure we're considering this as we drive around each other -- being passed and passing. Let's not let this happen again.

GA

*I actually chuckled watching the replay of the start of the race on the streaming broadcast, noting that not only did Eric get swamped by power at the start, but he looked like he was driving among monster trucks...I, for one, have raced against Eric this year and more than once lost track of where he was around me. Fortunately in my case, he was so much more faster that I just drove the line and he just drove around me and went away.
 
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