Re: OT: For those waiting breathlessly for news of my racing weekend.

On 2024-09-14 22:28, Alan wrote:

Well... ...it came to an abrupt end at about 1:25pm today,
 Our race had only just started, and at turn 3 of lap 1, the car immediately ahead of me spun, and while I was able to get my speed off to the point where all we did was bump tires...
 ...there was nothing I could do about the Formula Vee following me...
 ...who hit might right rear tire hard enough to fold up and/or break every piece of the right year suspension...
 ...and who ended up half on top of my car with his left front tire immediately beside my head.
 I haven't seen the video from his car yet (we have to have video cameras now), nor have I heard from the steward of the meeting about his conversation with the Vee driver, but to my mind, this was just a racing incident.
 Conditions were marginal--there had been rain for qualifying but it was drying out, but all three of the fast(ish) FF driver determined that we would all go out on the same tires, and the very last-minute choice was to run on slicks. 15 minutes before our race, it looked like the better call would be rain tires, but then the sun came out, and with other race groups before us dissipating the water on the track,  we call changed to dry tires.
 And this change proved too much for Martin's traction in turn 3.
 With me running close behind him, he spun 1/4 of the way around, and there was just no way I could have tightened my line to go to his left. So I moved as much to the right as I dared (with a wall preventing a complete off-track avoidance, and hoped for the best. And I nearly pulled it off.
 Unfortunately, the FV running behind me had opted for wet tires, and so had better grip in the mid-corner phase, and (despite not having seen the video or heard the report) I don't think there was any way he could have tightened his line enough to avoid me.
 The end result was this:
 <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y9CbWveqC2PS5R3yR0vahcfqMSQ7cV4d/view? usp=share_link>
 Bottom of the line: bad luck.

When I wrote those last parts about the FV driver, I did so without knowing a few things about the FV driver who hit me, and now I'm not certain "bad luck" is an accurate description.
Apparently, this particular driver had already had his license suspended for (and this floored me) "deliberately bump drafting a car ahead". Bump drafting—for those who might not know—is (gently) putting the nose of your car into the rear end of the car ahead, and it is absolutely against the rules in SCCBC/VRCBC/CACC racing.
I don't think I'm going to get a chance to see my incident from the FV's perspective, but given that the same driver was involved in a second incident in a different race that resulted in the complete destruction of the left side of Dave McKay's car...
...and which resulted in a call for the ambulance to come out to the site of the crash!...
...I hope that that particular FV driver has his license pulled...
...permanently.