CNJ

A fun weekend. COTA is an amazing facility and the track is very technical to drive/learn, which is cool. The PCA team did a great job for a first event with very few problems and deserve incredible credit for investing huge number of volunteer hours and in some cases, personal finances.

The racing looked solid and I enjoyed walking around the garages and dreaming of racing a cup car. Probably not viable on my current racing budget.

Clearly some felt frustrated with the DE schedule and the speed of driving. Fair enough - but I also heard from many how enjoyable the weekend was.

I was one of the instructors and had the privilege of riding with 9 or 10 different people over the weekend. They were all great and eager to learn this complex new track. I was out most sessions and got to see a lot of driving. Big improvements over the weekend and the next time (hopefully there will be a next time) the quality of driving will be significantly better as the comfort level increases.

There seems to be some impression that the CR guys got given time at the DE'ers expense. Maybe, maybe not.... Some of thier sessions seemed pretty short to me when there was a clean up. I have raced quite a lot and have also done a lot of DE's. The racing weekends have always had unpredictable schedules with sometimes very short sessions. Not defending anything, just saying that a DE runs a lot easier than any race weekend. I suspect it is possible that a future COTA event may be a DE only event which would be great, but there was no way to make this first event such a deal and we easily could have been a one DE group only weekend - which would have given more track time. However there would have been even more complaints then from the many who were not the chosen 60.

Incidently I don't think that COTA is ever going to be a very friendly DE track simply due to the lack of likely passing zones between 1-10 and the fact that smaller and lighter cars (such as my SM) will kill through 3-9 and 13-15 but not be able to ever pass the fast cars between 11-12 and 20-1. In general I'm pretty mellow about it. If if need to pass (or try to pass...) a lot I'll race - which I do. Passing on the outside of 2 or 18 is fun.

I met some great people and hope to see you again.

CNJ

Bryan_H

[QUOTE=Veloce Raptor;10459540]Two things:

1) What was ACTUALLY said in the meeting was "the schedule is controlled by the race stewards, not the DE folks, and that is the way it is, we can't change that". Please, if you are going to quote me, please quote me accurately, in context.

I knew it would not be a popular thing to say, but it was the fact & the reality. I would rather tell you the truth and have it not "sit well", than ignore it & pretend it was not happening.



Actually this is not correct . The Stewards do not make requirements on cutting DE time and actually at this event left the controll room during DE sessions. Obviously there has to be some give and take within the schedule as things happen at the end of race sessions and DE sessions that must be cleaned up and thus cause loss of track time in other sessions. Racers here have mentioned their shortened sessions as well as DE participants.

I do knot know what happened during the DE sessions. I was not there. The racers actually got in some good racing although it was somewhat shortened in the sprints. The Enduros on Sunday were normal and they started and ended basically on time. DE missed a huge amount of time due to a DE incident Sunday.

Fixing the Tech pro walls takes a bit of time as well. There are some cost although what has been mentioned here is not accurate. The up side is what would the car look like if the walls were concreate like many tracks. My bet is even with the cost of the wall the crashes are cheaper to repair than hitting concrete walls would be. I know one driver told me the $2400 wall saved him a $50K motor.

Bryan

analogmike

Right on, Bryan. Infinitely more important than the saved car costs, is if the expensive wall saves one life....

russo

This is my first DE with a PCA club race, I am sure that this will be my last. DE track time in all of the sessions were less than 14 minutes. The last run before the cancellation, I was expecting to get some make up time but to no avail. That last session lasted all but 16 minutes. Then came the final on track incident and what was supposed to be a combined session, probably 100+ cars, was cancelled. Did I get my money's worth? Heck not even close. I am very glad I ran this track back in February with MVP. We were able to get every session within the allotted time with half the amount of cars. I knew when I signed up and saw the size of the roster that this was not going to be an MVP like event; however, I chose to participate. What I didn't expect is to get short changed on the amount of track time to the extent that I did. I know the PCA folk put forth a great deal of time and effort, and for the racers, did a great job; however, the DE group was treated like the tourist class, pay your fee and be glad that you can regale your friends and family that you drove COTA.

eclou

well, to be fair the Ferrari guys were getting offers to run a COTA event at the special price of $2000 per day. $600 for 2.5 days is a bargain by comparison

Veloce Raptor

Bryan, my apologies. All of us in the volunteer group for the DE (instructors and classroom leaders) were informed that race control dictated the schedule, which is what we passed on to the drivers when they complained. If that was in error, we passed on incorrect information, which is unfortunate.

Nizer

Did all races get through T1 start clean? If so, that's a major positive in and of itself.

ProCoach

Yes. I observed most, if not all, the starts and while it got a little dicy watching the potentially intersecting geometry of some of the lines in (as well as four abreast, for several rows), everyone got through fine.

There's plenty of real estate, but the fellow I worked with recognized and was not seduced by the "herd mentality" to go to the inside. To good effect, I might add, as the outside several lanes were open, often.

TXE36

I drove all day Sunday, and drove home 160 miles, and drove to work on Monday on the gas I bought Sunday morning. Still 3/8 of a tank left.

To put "Our first race on Saturday was 10 laps." in perspective, as a Green DE participant, I got 6 green flag laps for all day Friday. Getting 10 laps in one session would have been nice, but never would have occurred even if we kept on schedule.

-Mike

Bryan_H

The quote I copied used the term “Race Stewards”. That position is not “control”. The Race Stewards do run the show during race sessions. Control is a position that communicates with all of the cornerworkers and controls the track with the guidance of the Steward. As others have noted many of the race sessions were shorted as well. During DE session the stewards do not control DE sessions. DE personnel do that. The Stewards in most cases leave the control room during DE. We had separate logs at COTA. I do not even have access to information from COTA about what happened in the DE sessions. When you use the term Race Stewards to say who was controlling the DE schedule it sends the wrong message to folks who now are sending nasty messages to the “Race Stewards” and National Officers about what the Race Stewards did in DE.

The issue of track time at COTA was largely the result of two things cars hitting the safe barriers that take 10 to 15 minutes to repair and cars running the checkered flags. Resulting in an extra cool down lap and sometimes two. Each extra cool down lap seemed to take about 4 minutes from the schedule. Racers received a blasting about that issue in a drivers meeting and in the following drivers meeting were told that running the checkered flag would result in a stop and go penalty in their next session which were almost all races. That seemed to work in that racers stopped running the checkered flag.

Veloce Raptor

I hear you and understand what you are saying. Yes, I used the terms "race control" and "stewards" interchangeably, as differentiated from the usual "control" which runs all on track operations regardless of race or DE. Again, apologies for any confusion in my use ot terminology. No, I never said that the stewards or "race control" ran what went on during DE sessions, only the schedule. To be crystal clear, we were told that the people controlling the race sessions--the stewards--also were controlling the schedule, which is what we passed on to the DE drivers. We were not told that the stewards controlled or ran the DE sessions, nor was this ever stated to the DE drivers, at least not by me, either in person or here.

Again, we were told the stewards dictated only the SCHEDULE. I guess you are saying this is untrue, so we passed on incorrect information. But neither I nor anyone else I know said that the stewards controlled what went on during the DE schedule. So I am being entirely misquoted there, and am very sorry anyone would send the stewards any "nasty" messages.

Doug007

Wow, Mike Globe's whine glass should be overflowing. Funny thing how there are lots of complaints before and after but not during visits to garage 23

I considered doing the DE but have been driving a lot recently and decided to crew for friends instead and had one of my best weekends at the track ever without ever turning a wheel!

There was plenty of lost track time for all groups between all the cleanup, full course cautions, and issues getting groups off the track and the grid out. I'd ask those griping to consider where you would have pulled the time from if you were running the show. There's only so much the organizers can do when a car goes into a wall and significant cleanup/repair time is required.

The event was first and foremost the inaugural PCA club race at COTA. The DE was added to recognize the support DEs in Texas provide to the regions to be able to organize events like this. You never have a guarantee of hot laps in a DE and a new track makes it potentially much worse.

I've heard that the Texas regions are hoping for TWO dates at COTA next year. One for the race and one for a DE. That would be fantastic and I really hope COTA plays along and was impressed by this event to make that a reality in the future!

Also major thank you to David Gross of the Hill Country region for bugging COTA relentlessly for months to make this thing happen at all. For a long time there was serious doubt this would ever happen and that COTA would cancel the weekend after the change in their track rental policies. David and the other organizers made it a reality and a great success IMHO!

dizzyj

Bit of a frustrating weekend for me. Got my a** handed to be in the blue group for what little I ran. I was going to change my number for 121 to 21 to reflect that I simply was the 21'st corner.

Then had mechanical that kept me out of the races. Still had a blast and was fun to be around such a great group.

Matt Romanowski

Huh?

Doug007

I said hot laps not green flag laps.

It's a DE not qualifying. You are going to get held up at some point and can likely get clean, hot sectors but rarely laps. With so many drivers on a new track with very curvy sections it's not surprising that folks were getting held up.

Trust me, I was plenty frustrated at the last event at TWS by being held up most of the weekend. Something about a miata just doesn't garner much respect from 911S and GT3 drivers