Matt Romanowski

Double Yellow does not indicate a safety car on track according to the rule book.

PCA flag rules.

ProCoach

It CAN mean the pace car or safety car is on track, if you are RACING.

It DOES mean FULL COURSE YELLOW, as outlined in PCA CR Rules.

Smdh... Get a license and go racing, will you?

winders

Yep! Even if they were trying to catch up to the field behind the pace car, there is no way in hell they should have been going as fast as they were. Especially 2 laps into the double yellow.

pdxjim

^ That was TWO laps into the double yellow? I thought it could only be the first observation of a double yellow at the first turn station.

Gary R.

Great post Colin, you really need to look and PLAN way ahead when trying to catch the pack under double yellow. Those two were simply going far too fast for a DY situation when they couldn't see far enough ahead. The other side of the coin are the drivers that drive 20 mph while the entire field drives away, neither is good practice. Also agree with Seth that the Pace car's speed can add or detract to the danger, and apparently was going so slow it caused the lead cup car to stall out?

Topher06

Yes, the FCY had been out for a few laps for a multicar incident at Turn 1. The back half of the track was clear.
Yes, the velocities of the 2 pursing cars was too high for the situation that presented.
These cars are so capable, and we are so used to having them on the edge that being at 50-70% feels like you are walking.
My throttle tracing (2nd car) is a 10-20 for the entirety of the esses. It is a long straight and the velocity builds quickly. Ever look down 'crawling' behind the pace car and the speedo says 80?

For the sake of the argument- add 2 more cars to that train. Another 30 feet less of stopping distance on a downhill. How slow would the next car have to be to avoid a collision?

I , personally, have never been on track and had the field come to a complete stop behind the safety car. Only during Red flag situations.

Like many near misses, there were a multitude of factors compounded.

Corrective actions taken by the club:

1) The pacecar was instructed to maintain a higher speed to keep the cup cars from stalling
2) The drivers were instructed to pass disabled cars, even under FCY
3) The drivers were instructed how to safely close up the gap to the safety car under FYC

Corrective actions take by me:

1) New underwear
2) Keep an eye on my speeds when under FCY
3) Never approach a blind corner under FCY without executing #2

Robert Nixon

From the very start of the video I couldn't tell if the station on the RIGHT was waving any flags, but saw the double yellows on the station on the LEFT.
As a HPDE driver I'd be thinking "double yellow or yellow DO NOT PASS" so that could lead to STOPPING if the driver in front of me stops, because I don't want to be THAT GUY passing on yellow....HOWEVER, in this case with no other info and likely seeing the cars ahead continue, hindsight is 20-20 and maybe the rest of the pack passing the guy that stalled (or whatever) would have been safer.

I passed a car that was slowing to a stop into a corner at another track, and it felt uncomfortable since it was an HPDE no-passing zone, but the driver had an obvious issue and was parking it so my instructor reassured me to keep going. The rules might cover 99% of the situations, but maybe not always 100% (like if you stop, stay in the car....unless there is fire)

38D

Thanks Seth. I agree there are lessons learned here for the stewards and track as well.


While true, it seems to be more complex than that. They hadn't caught the pack after 2 laps of double yellow so were rightfully trying to catch-up. They couldn't even see the pack after coming under the bridge before the climbing esses. Their speed was totally fine up thru T9, because they could see far enough ahead. Had there been a waving yellow at T9 and they had slowed at this point, it all would have been a non-event. Ultimately, I think it took a series of mistakes to cause this near miss.

Frank 993 C4S

I think it’s time to reflect on what the flags mean. A double yellow in a race means that the pace car is out on track because there is an incident somewhere on the track that requires the Steward to control the speed of the field. Frankly, a stopped field under FCY happens all the time. It happened in the Yellow Enduro too as we had a track blockage at Madison Ave. The problem is with blind corners like T10 at VIR or the uphill at Lime Rock. Under FCY be prepared to stop suddenly. I once had a rookie crash his car on his first race weekend at Lime Rock for just that reason.

As to passing disabled cars, that is something people should learn in DE. This video is very educational. Let’s all learn from it and slow down as you are trying to catch the field under FCY. If you are the leader, reduce speed to 45 mph and let the pace car come out ahead of you.

smf32s

Someone mentioned the waving yellow so be aware. The issue on Saturday was with the high winds, the flaggers/corner workers were hard pressed to control the flags as is usually the case. So maybe when it's real windy we need to be even more on our toes.

I don't remember seeing a cup car stall. Mine stalls real easy and I was fine during that yellow. I was in second overall and all seemed ok but me and the leader were a few cars back from the pace car.

Stu

69911s

Stu is quite correct about the wind making all of the flags look like they were waving and if you look across to the back straight at the top of the hill which most of us tend to do, you will see the front of the pack moving along at what looks like normal pace car speed which would give you no indication of the stopped traffic. Most of us would take that to mean the pack was moving and have no reason to expect the stoppage. Just another example of the need for all of us to be on our toes constantly.

Veloce Raptor

I think it is also time to reflect on who we use as pace car drivers. Often times, I have seen various officials from the local PCA region or club being asked to drive the pace car as an honorary position. In the vast majority of those instances, those people have never been on a race track before other than in a parade lap setting. To be blunt, they have no concept of what they're doing nor the speeds that are required in the corners in order to maintain momentum and tire temps. And they are clueless about the accordion effect happening behind them in slow corners. While the race steward determines the pace car speed overall, the pace car driver is solely responsible for maintaining those speeds in corners, and that requires some amount of skill. Those with no skill tend to come to nearly a stop in a tight corner because that's what they do on the street. I have seen this type of pace car driver bring a long field nearly to a halt in a tight corner because they were not comfortable taking the corner any faster than 10 mph. While I was not on site for this incident, I am guessing that that's what happened here, given how tight a corner Oak Tree is.

Topher06

^ this. Who is going to be our Bernd Mylander?

Gary R.

Yessir. I was P1 overall in a race where 944's (and my buddies 924) kept blowing up and crashing out every 10 minutes. It got so bad they sent out a pace car (which I had never seen at a PCA race after the start at that point). I came flying around T4 at NJ TBolt and there he was, with a couple cars behind him. Driver had his hand out the window waving the cars by. The (lapped) cars in front of me went by him and I got behind him. He kept waving me by frantically so I, never being in that position before but thinking I should not be passing, finally passed him and joined the group. Yep, you guessed it, he didn't know who was in P1 and they had to Black Flag us and line us back up in the hot pit, what a friggin mess, and I (deservedly) got screamed at for passing the pace car. I went from having a 40 second gap on P2 for an overall win to getting flustered and flying off in T3, got passed and finished P2 overall...

911ted

Gotta ask if a black flag for the whole race session was done as a reset?