Speedweek 2014

[hawkwind]

Now we ALL have a recovery vehicle at the start ther should be no excuse not to have water and shade in the line.

Please explain .....I hope this is not what I think it is

[club animal]

Now we ALL have a recovery vehicle at the start ther should be no excuse not to have water and shade in the line.

Please explain .....I hope this is not what I think it is

Hi Gary it has been suggested that every race vehical should be towed to the line not driven as they do at Bonniville at this stage it is only a suggestion with a lot of for and against it happening, some people drive to the start line to warm up componets [gearbox diff tyres ect] other problems like vehicals having problems with starting, gear changes,and being comfortable with your vehical could arise i think this should be discussed at full to work out the pros and cons of a ruling like this
regards
Animal

[David Leikvold]

It doesn't sound like much of an idea to me, what is the advantage? How does this help run the meeting more efficiently? If there's no good answer to BOTH of these questions then there's no point mandating a procedure that adds no value. One size does not fit all. It really irks me that people have such enthusiasm for adopting SCTA rules that don't add any value. Nobody had any trouble getting to the start line by their chosen method. There's no need for a rule. If a competitor can't get to the start line then at least that keeps them off the course and they don't delay the meeting.

We must focus on the most important thing, which is getting the maximum number of runs for everyone. If an SCTA rule doesn't help with that then it's not worth having.

Cheers
Dave

[JonB]

I am against adopting a rule to implement towing too and from the track, as others have said there's no real benefit for most vehicles.
If someone is doing something foolish deal with them individually.


I am for adopting a rule to implement towing around the pits, most vehicles have very limited visibility to be driving in a pedestrian area.

jon

[rgn]

Towing bikes will damage fairings, people will fall over and break bones when being pulled through soft patches of salt, or happen to get jerked by the tow vehicle.

How do you release if the tow becomes awkward? Are we going to have to do some sort of training prior to being cleared to tow? (joking)

Full faired bikes can only really be towed by attaching something to the forks, in the tiny space between Fairing and front guard (this affects steering) Towing affects steering on any bike, they are not designed to be towed, it is dangerous.

I don't know about a tow rule for the pit area either, for the same reasons. In my mind the pits is an area for race and service vehicles, not spectators and children. The pits are located centrally to allow vehicles to move freely from pit-box to start-line on either course.

Where can these new rules be accessed? Are they in PDF anywhere? Cheers.
Ralph.

[ROSS BROWN]

I think we are all jumping the gun a bit here...

For why this became an issue....

Some vehicals were turning up to the start line without their support vehical .
they would go off on their run and then have an issue (breakdown blow up or whatever) and their support vehical was then needed..
this sent officals and people searching around the pits for that competitors support vehicle and its crew..
TRACK CLOSED
This became quite an issue on the GPS track..losing about 20 minutes at a time..
There is no need for a rule change .. just RULE ENFORCEMENT
This issue was at its worst on tuesday..
Came wednesday and Rob had it basically sorted .. No vehical left the start line without a support vehicle in sight..

All as I see it. it is just streamlining of the current rules..
When you bring your motor cycle to scruitinering next year. Not only will the support vehicle box need to be ticked..
I will be asking and writing down the name of its driver.. so they are known and are contactable over the CB if some issue arrises..

I realise some people turn up by themselves , and having a support vehicle becomes an isssue.. We will endeavour to help you through this problem
at scruitennering... my ute was the support vehicle for 5 dirrerent motorcycles this year.. ther are others that will help you.. all you need to do is ask..

Ross..

[David Leikvold]

Don't forget what happened to Wink Eller at Bonneville in 2011. Google it. He was being rope towed and the bike fell over when the front wheel got caught in a rut at only 15mph. He was trapped by the leg under the bike and dragged for quite a distance because nobody in the tow vehicle knew he was down. Rope towing is dangerous and serves no useful purpose. Let the riders decide.

Dave

[David Leikvold]

Ross, your point is very valid, down time on any track means wasted runs. We need to come up with various ways of minimising down time to keep the meeting running efficiently. Perhaps encourage bike support crews to use a purpose built front wheel clamp fitted to the tow bar to quickly retrieve their non-running bike. Maybe someone could lend their big open trailer to be used as a recovery platform for damaged cars and have it hooked up and ready to go as soon as it is needed.

Mark Dunn with the orange 2212 lakester was well organised. He always had an open trailer on the back of his push car so he could retrieve the lakester asap without outside assistance. Mike Riddell had a tiny trailer for Dorothy the postie bike that was just an axle with a couple of diagonal braces and a bit of C-channel to run the bike onto. It worked like a charm. Some cars with a reasonable departure angle could use a bolt-together, assembled onsite, front wheels only trailer that could retrieve a broken down car very quickly. If more people had these sorts of things always hooked onto their support vehicle it would go a long way to minimising downtime.

I also think that every support vehicle, whether it's a push car or not, should follow their car or bike down the chase car road until they're at least level with the far end of the pits. If something goes wrong they'll be close enough to just keep going and expedite the retrieval. If not, then they're almost back to the pits anyway. For people who don't have a support crew a loaned vehicle at each start line, with a front wheel hook and some tie-downs and a tow rope for cars, could do the chasing and then return to the startlines when it was obvious they wouldn't be needed. Driving that would be a good job for a volunteer.

Cheers
Dave

[ROSS BROWN]

I also think that every support vehicle, whether it's a push car or not, should follow their car or bike down the chase car road until they're at least level with the far end of the pits. If something goes wrong they'll be close enough to just keep going and expedite the retrieval.

I struggle with that idea on gps track, 'but the long track will naturally work that way back to the pits at least.
A traffic situation could quite easily emerge on the GPS track...A wounded returning vehicle going one way.. and a nut case in a chase vehicle doing a 100mph the other way
Unneedeed traffic I think .. let the situation unfold ,then send the support vehicle.. NORTHERN RESCUE.. has e response time.. they should hopefully coincide..

Yes a specialised motorcycle low load ,easy load trailer has crossed my mind .. then Trevor informed us of the mat situation during pack up...
that gives it 2 uses.... any body else think of a use..

[David Leikvold]

Yes, my experience relates solely to the short/long course, I didn't get the chance to see what happens at the GPS course. I wasn't thinking of just having the trailer for bikes, if it was made big enough for cars as well it could easily take all the mats back in one trip. Another thought would be to make it a fair bit wider than legal for road use, so as to reduce its desirability to thieves and make it easier to drag a wrecked car onto it. The winch would also come in handy for dragging the mats onboard. Maybe it would be safer if it was of some use on the farm and could be kept with all the other farm machinery.

Cheers
Dave

[rgn]

If you are going to build it oversize, it would make getting it there difficult.

It would probably pay to have anything you get made Gal dipped? Perhaps we should start a trailer thread? I can probably help in this area. I can start the thread... (that's a joke).

What size does the tray have to be, and how much weight are you planning on putting on it?

[Rob]

Anyone that tows a bike with a rope wants their head read. Make a towing jig like Bones was using and the job is done.

There's already something in the rulebook about support vehicles but it's never been enforced. I brought it up at the meeting and was told we'd be enforcing it from then on so I did.

Some people b*tched but when told flatly, "No support vehicle, no run" they all seemed to find one quickly. Not all were correctly equipped but they will need to be next year..

I won't go through a ton of cases but I will cite two. A vehicle broke down on the track, they DID have support crew but they sat at the line, walked around, looked at other vehicles and didn't have a radio with them. We called and called on the radio, northern rescue were with the driver so he at least had some shade and some of their water. Finally the support crew in question asks someone else "Have you seen vehicle # XXX" and learnt that the vehicle he was "supporting" needed him 20 plus minutes ago.

A second case, this time a bike. Went fine, made it to the end and turned onto the return road. For reasons I am not aware of, it then expired and the rider was pushing it, alone, 2 plus miles back to the pits. Thankfully another crew made the call and we arranged Animal to go out and pick up bike and rider.

There were a lot more cases but not after we enforced the rule. This year we allowed two bikes to share a crew but this isn't really acceptable assuming both are running a few vehicles apart and could lead to confusion.

Non-racing speeds on the lake are legally limited to 60km/h and we need to post some signage along these lines. Some people were obviously exceeding these speeds and were chastised politely. It was raised at the rookie briefing but the numbers there were rather limited. if drivers/riders kept left and did 60km/h I don't see it as an issue. One the main track on the Friday there were a number of cars well into 3 figures on the return road...... and that's mph not km/h those people definitely know who they were...

To my mind, obvious exceeding of the posted limit and an official should add another green sticker. People will sure slow down fast then.. but we need to post some signage first

[internetscooter]

thought: wouldn't there be an opportunity here to pool resources and have something better - I could take the bare minimum to qualify (current situation) OR I could pay extra (probably at the same or lesser cost than supplying my own gear, but more I don't even mind) and be in an official support system - this could include carrying an emergency wireless buzzer (which I am sure can be bought).

Current system has the issues highlighted.

Th better system has a support vehicle rushing off the second someone is in trouble, with something that is dead easy to get a vehicle on and racing gets back on track super quick - everyone happy

Added advantage is you could force substandard support set-ups to use the pooled one if they muck-up or aren't paying attention.

[hawkwind]

quote
Hi Gary it has been suggested that every race vehical should be towed to the line not driven as they do at Bonniville at this stage][/quote]

The club (committee?)( illuminati?) seems to have an agenda of becoming a clone SCTA in everything. prove to me im wrong!

I have been comming to Gairdner and racing since 2000 always by my self never had a crew or could get one (sad I know ,whos arse do i pull crew members from anyway? ) so now because of these new rules can I still race?

Ross Brown wrote

When you bring your motor cycle to scruitinering next year. Not only will the support vehicle box need to be ticked..
I will be asking and writing down the name of its driver.. so they are known and are contactable over the CB if some issue arrises..

As I understand it to race from 2014 I need a crew oF X persons (plural), a support vehicle (mandatory) which some are pushing rule changes for to tow you to the start line and pick you up at the other end, a means of towing you ie trailer or ? ...is the purpose of all this to make this last bastion of amatuer racing so expensive only the rich mofo's can do it ?Is it to push out the small one man teams? are the small one man efforts expendable? seems so!

Any other one person teams out there? maybe we need to form a co-operative. Maybe each team needs a lawyer, some engineers,a Dr and ( add your own expert).

[rgn]

How long does it take a support vehicle to get to the other end of a 9 mile track after the course is called clear at 60 kph?

Hawkwind, If you can put up with my group, you would be welcome to run with us. Two bikes being towed behind one vehicle... What could possibly go wrong?