I didn't get my picks in for Baku this week, and a big part of the
reason as that I was working to get ready for my one race weekend.
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 Formula Vee 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.
Or so I thought until the same driver forced another FF competitor off
the track and into spin that put him in the wall and completely
destroyed his left side.
The end result was this for my car:
<
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y9CbWveqC2PS5R3yR0vahcfqMSQ7cV4d/view?usp=share_link>
And this for my buddy, Dave's car:
<
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CX7HmLymYCg_q9obYjWTQdk6GGXyTCYG/view?usp=share_link>
And today, I'm more than a little pissed off, because Dave is now saying
he's done with racing with us in Mission, and that's a huge loss for our group...
...but moreover, I discovered that these two incidents were nowhere near
the first for the FV driver.
He has already had his license pulled once for an incident of deliberate
bump drafting, which is absolutely against the rules in SCCBC/VRCBC/CACC racing.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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