evotino

Great write up man. I'll be there for TDE in January. You should sign up!

Do you know what instructor was there in the Evo this weekend?

Berserker

His first name was "Stuart". I forgot his last name already, sorry. I suck with names. I got a good vibe off of him.

Funny thing: Before I knew he was a TDE instructor, I mentioned to him that I was planning to do an event with TDE before that Evo got totalled last year at TWS during a TDE weekend. He got kinda defensive about TDE without mentioning that he was an instructor. That factoid only came up later.

Still, though, I do want to try one of their events. It sounds like they put a real emphasis on instruction.

Incidentally, FWIW, his opinion was that the single biggest handling improvement that could be made to an Evo was a rear sway bar. I think he said he had a Perrin adjustable something. He also had coilovers and adjustable front camber thingies and slotted rotors and who knows what else.

UFO

iTrader: (7)

Nice meeting you too .

It's funny: I made a post on the SVT forums last night regarding the problems with the location of the pits/pit wall also and had exactly the same complaints as you. I also ripped the video from the camera and timed one of my unobstructed laps. Want to guess the time? Yup, 2:04. Hahaha.

MSRH was a blast. I only had 2 hot sessions but thoroughly enjoyed it regardless. I'm a little miffed that I missed Sunday but I was way too hungover to put up with loud cars . Even though I only had 2 sessions I still went through a half tank of gas. When they finish construction there it will be an even better venue too. It would also be better if they had a few low speed corners in the mix but I'm not complaining about the layout as is.

Mister2zx3

Can't wait to check that out in a few months! Sounds like a nice track. What's the Y in Yump for?

Ran some "paced" laps yesterday on the new front section at MSR-cresson. Fun. Still under construction, curbing and such still not in place, and we'll hae to see how the pit area factors into safety as well here.

2006 should be a very interesting year!

texas911

The pits concern me. Did you guys hear about the Carrera GT that crashed because of an unexpreinced flag man at the pits waved a car in the path of the GT? He was going fast down the straights and he made an adjustment and lost control and hit the wall and he died, as did his passenger.

Mister2zx3

This was at MSR Houston? This is the first I've heard anything. When was this?

Berserker

I got that from some WRC coverage of the Rally of Finland, where they called the jumps "yumps".


I think he's referring to the guys who died several months ago in California:
http://forums.corner-carvers.com/sho...hlight=Carrera

IMHO he misrepresents what happened. I read a bunch of threads about this. The bottom line, though, is that they appeared to be hauling *** in an incredibly fast car with only OEM safety equipment.

Jay Leno recently spun a Carerra GT at 180+ mph because he got spooked and lifted. He joked about it later, but the stoopid @#%$ could have died. People just don't respect cars enough.


Damn....I suck. Just kidding. But it's "on" next time we're out there together. I'm thinking of doing the January TDE event....

evotino

Stuart was my instructor at TDE--very nice guy and a great instructor.

If you're thinking about doing January you better sign up yesterday. : ) It will fill up fast, if it hasn't yet.

texas911

How did I misrepresent the crash? I said it was a Carrera GT. Did I imply that it was a race car?

I should have clarified it as happening at a DE.

Berserker

Basically, it was the words "crashed because of an unexpreinced flag man" that I was referring to. The flagman story was the first to circulate on the 'Net. But from my reading about the incident, and from more and more stories I've read about Carerra GTs in general, it was an "inexperienced driver" who caused the crash, and the death was due to the car being just too freaking fast.

The Carerra GT really seems to be just too much car for mere mortals. I've seen quotes attributed to Walter Rohrl saying pretty much the exact same thing.

But this is all IMHO. I meant no offense.

As penance for having inadvertently offended you, I'll share a couple of interesting - but creepy - side stories about the crash:

1) I found a link to a photo album the driver had posted online. They seemd to be of the "look at me I'm a badass because I have a $400k car" variety. But one photo showed his infant daughter lying in the driver's seat, with a caption that was probably funny when taken but creepy in the current conext; something about inheriting her dad's estate. It sent chills down my spine.

2) There was a long thread on one one forum about what a tragedy it was that the two guys had died. It went on for pages. Then someone posted that the dead passenger had made his fortune as a Internet spammer, and the poster said that the spammer guy had been filling up his inbox with spam for years. He concluded by saying something like, "I won't miss his spamming *** one bit." That pretty much killed the thread.

texas911

OK, I'm a Porsche owner and I was on the boards when it happened. But this guy with the CGT was a god like figure in the Porsche circles (not to me, I didn't know him) and I stopped reading the thousands of posts on his accident. I read the first day's posts and moved on. I was still under the impression it was the flag man.

I just signed up for the Porsche event in January, hope its fun.

Berserker

Yeah, those threads went on and on and on. I followed threads on a few different boards for quite a while. There were a few different stories about what happened, most discredited.

The main thing I got out of it, though, was that the Carerra GT is just too much car for anyone with less than Walter Rohrl's skillz. And even with Rohrl-like ability, it shouldn't be driven at its maximum potential with only OEM safety equipment.

If I had a cost-is-no-factor choice between tracking a Carerra GT with only OEM belts or a Miata with spec-Miata suspension bits, a good seat, a 6-point harness, and a welded cage, I'd take the Miata. Because I'd be more likely to go home alive and because I'd learn more. Hell, I've already driven a 500-hp BMW M5 at Lime Rock; a faster car isn't necessarily a funner car.


Hope you enjoy the PCA event. The PCA event manager guys I gave parade laps to a few months ago seemed like nice folks. But I had to choose between PCA and TDE for January, and I went with TDE. So I'll get to meet evotino.