Nashville Tour

[Steve E]

Anyone hearing any news from the Nashville Tour. Sounded like they had a cold, long day yesterday.

[OZMDD]

Yeah, autocross in Nashville in (almost) Nov doesn't sound fun to me. Of course, most would say the same thing about autox in Texas in August...

[Davidss]

2 cars wrecked, an STR S2000 and a ASP Vette. Then in the third heat Wortham's car blew a radiator hose and blew coolant all over the course. So with daylight running out they just decided to end the third heat early and everyone lost their third run.

[onething]

Did they collide on course?

[Davidss]

No, they hit the wall.

[ratt_finkel]

Crap! Eventful event!

[altiain]

Two cars hit a wall? Were they in the same general place?

[Davidss]

Two cars hit a wall? Were they in the same general place?

No the S2K hit the hardwall near the slalom. They changed the course to make the entry a little harder. The ASP vette hit a tirewall somewhere else:


I'm sure Mark Wortham or Mark Sipe will fill us in tomorrow when they get back home.

[Davidss]

Here is a post from the S2000 driver. While I don't think anyone should jump on his back over a wreck (it's part of racing). If you hit a wall you made a mistake.

Hey guys! I'm the one that put the S2K in the wall. I appreciate that people are not jumping right away into calling it driver error. I'm keeping the in-car video of the whole thing close to the vest, for obvious reasons, but I've showed it to several people and they all cannot see anything I did wrong. [scratching my head]

One thing to note is that I was the 1st driver to have a run on the tires, so I was driving to put down a strong time. Who's there to drive like a granny, right? Of course I'll be the 1st to admit that I am no expert, but the theory that seems to make sense to me is that my car got loose when the front tires got in the banked concrete while the rears stayed in asphalt. I counter-steered before the video even indicated that I was starting to slide. Once I saw it was going to not be recoverable, I was just waiting for impact.... then BAM!!

I just can't say enough about the how great the S2K, STR, and SCCA folk are. I had keys thrown my way to finish the event, and that was even right after putting the car in the wall. Pretty amazing! I just decided to focus on getting the car home ASAP, just in case I got too sore the next day. Yeah, I'm old. LOL

When I got it home and put it in the garage, I popped the hood for the 1st time. At a glance, nothing seemed bent at or past the front axles, so there is hope. I can say that I will have to replace both airbags, seat belts, and controller... along with a variety of panels stuff up front. I will likely know more next weekend when Mark can take a closer look.

I've been asked a few times if I was going to see if insurance would cover it. My response is that I made a choice to play/compete in it, so I am going to just suck it up. Plus, this would let them know that I autocross, so I didn't want to risk of them putting me in a higher risk bracket.

My goal is to get back in the seat ASAP and continue as if this didn't happen. I personally don't care if it is in my current car or in another one.

-Dave
The last driver to put a car in the wall at the Nashville Speedway

[OZMDD]

Impressive. That's how a man takes his medicine without expecting someone else to pay for his mistakes.

[Solo RX-7]

[QUOTE=I'm sure Mark Wortham or Mark Sipe will fill us in tomorrow when they get back home.[/QUOTE]

Mark W is on a plane to Ohio tonight so I'll jump in - we got back a little before noon today.

Saturday was a long day for sure, and despite the crowd of villagers with pitchforks chasing Mark and I after the coolant incident, we weren't the only cause of the shortening of the day. First car out was very late due to extremely thick fog. Nashville has a layout just like TMS, so imagine standing at the pit wall and not being able to see the grandstands and you'll get the idea of how foggy it was.

The aforementioned contact incidents didn't help the time line either, with the S2000 one taking the biggest chunk out of the planned schedule. Neither one of us saw what happened first hand, so our accounts would be just more speculation. I saw the skid marks for the S2K, but that's as much as I know. I'm not even sure where the 'vette went off, but it was much less serious as the car continued for the rest of the event. The delay it caused was proportionate to the seriousness, but it was an unplanned delay just the same.

The other thing that hasn't been mentioned anywhere is the geographic location of the speedway. It's close to the very eastern most point of the Central Time Zone, so it gets dark really early (~6:00 pm). It's 700 miles or so north east of DFW. Add in a parade lap for every competitor before every heat and you can see why it was a long running event.

With the sun already very low in the sky I took off from the start for my third run. The car was really squirrely at the first Chicago box and I picked up a whiff of vaporizing coolant. After unsuccessfully trying to get the car to turn I began to think something was wrong. A second or so later I noticed the cloud of steam following me, and got off the track as soon as I could. When we went back to help clean up the mess we could see that it let go less than 50 feet from the start timers, and put down a decent line of coolant until the first left hand turn back into the infield.

Contrary to the belief of a couple of jokers in the grid ("Got everything tight today?"), it wasn't a clamp that let go. There was a hole in the hose that was big enough to allow nearly two gallons of coolant to escape in a really short amount of time. The hose was soft and mis-shaped where the hole was, likely caused by oil sucked up from the PCV valve leaking out of the intake snorkel onto the hose itself. The weak spot in the hose was out of sight and impossible to detect with only a visual inspection.

Our apologies go out to everyone in the third heat, but we were the last straw, not the root cause of the two run format. Course setup for the next day went well into the darkness even without finishing our third runs. The course wouldn't have been able to be set up and blessed if they hadn't stopped the event, thus carrying over to Sunday making that another really long day too. As it was we didn't finish running until after 3:00 on Sunday. The TN folks worked their tails off to make the best of the situation.

The event was a blast, and despite all the issues I'd make the trip again. The course design was different than our road course event - mostly because the layout of the track was different and a lot wider in most places. It seemed to be more open, but at the same time it wasn't as fast as ours. Having the NASCAR garages available for paddock was waaaay cool, especially on Friday when it was raining.

[Davidss]

They did parade laps?

[Solo RX-7]

Before every heat, both days. The logic was described to us as a safety measure - allow a look at the course because there wasn't a lot of time to walk.

One other thing that was lost in all the hubabaloo...

The Marks - Wotham and Sipe - both put down some very impressive runs. Mr Sipe especially on Saturday and Mr Wortham especially on Sunday. I continued my recent trend of being very fast and not clean on day one, and off the pace on day two...

[ratt_finkel]

Ugh, I so wish I could've made this.

[mwortham]

Overall this was a great event and it was worth the long drive. The courses were long and fairly technical. In SS they seemed to favor the smaller and more nimble Elise. Or maybe it was just that they favored the better drivers... When I was working course in heat two, there were just two drivers that really stood out to me - Jason Collett in an XP S2000, and Tim Smith in an EP Civic. Those two were noticeably faster than everyone else in that heat. I mean, they were REALLY flyin'! Sure enough, they ended up 1 & 2 in PAX.I didn't see either of the crashes, but I don't think either was really all that bad. The S2000 definitely was a harder hit though. Hopefully it's fixable and won't cost the guy a fortune. I certainly know firsthand how it feels, and I'm bummed for him.My only regret was that I didn't replace the hoses in the car before now. The rupture could have been prevented, and we could have avoided the disaster. But as Matt said, it was just one of many issues that occurred on Saturday that ultimately lead to all of third heat being forced to forfeit their third runs. Even still, I felt largely responsible, and apologized in person to many of the third heat competitors. Not that it really makes it any better. Oh well, we live and we learn I guess.

[nomadtrash]

My oil filter bottomed out at the LaGrave dip and sparyed teh course with oil. That shut the event down for an hour. I still hear about that from some disgruntled people. For some reason, every time Bob Neff gets near my car he checks my oil filter.

I don't think you can expect or prevent a hose from rupturing. I've seen brand new hoses rupture and stock hoses that have lasted 200k or more.

[mwortham]

I found a sequence of shots showing my car making a mess of the course...https://picasaweb.google.com/1165117...72118080532130

[slowchildmiata]

I vote we hold a grudge and penalize all of Mark's times at local events.

[mwortham]

lol... You would like that, wouldn't you?

[slowchildmiata]

I would, but I would feel bad about it. Especially if/when you still beat me.