Last night after the event, it was pointed out to me that some drivers had been abusing track limits on the outside of the track on the exit of turn 1. I hate track limits abuse, but when I make a fuss I hear complaints from drivers that fussing about the rules all the time ruins the fun. Well track limits abuse ruins the fun for the majority of club members who are happy to abide by and observe our
Racing Club Rules. The guys telling me I'm spoiling the fun are often the guys who are happy to.... shall we say
bend the rules.
When citing track limits the first reply I always get is "I didn't gain any Time". Well if you didn't gain any time, what was the point of abusing track limits on the same corner 6 times in one race? AND Furthermore, which part of rule 7 of our
Racing Club Rules says "Do not deliberately cut the track, unless you're not intending to gain any time" Because I can't see that part. Please correct me if I'm just being blind.
The next reply to track limits on corner exit is always, well the real life drivers are allowed to run wide on that exit. Yes and the real life drivers have a drivers meeting where things like that are explained to them. Can you imagine me trying to get 20 guys to attend a drivers meeting prior to the event. The real life drivers are racing to their set of rules and we race to RD
Racing Club Rules and once again, rule 7 doesn't say it's ok to run wide if RL drivers do. No need to check, I've done that for you.
Now, there will be occasions where you run wide accidentally. You'll notice that in post #2 of every one of my event threads, it says that if this happens you should lift the gas pedal. This is a request, which everybody ignores, even me these days tbh, because I was the only person doing it, so I'll drop it. However, running wide at the same corner multiple times in one race is completely avoidable - as I'm about to demonstrate.
I only have the full replay for race one of this event and I only have so much free time to give. So, I counted the times each of the top 6 drivers on the grid ran wide at T1 in Race1. I was generous and counted the whole of the kerb as part of the track. The tally is shown below.
Luca - zero
Andreas B - zero
Me - 1
Paul - 3
Dean - 5
Stig - 7
I use 3 times on the same corner in one race as the maximum for accidental track limit transgressions. This is just a rule of thumb but I feel that number is aplicable here.
So as you can see, Luca and Andreas were very quick without breaking the rules, which I think demonstrates my point. Paul's 3 outings were all caused by him clipping the kerb on the inside, which threw him off line - not deliberate in my view.
So there you go, I'd like everybody to please take care to abide by the rules in future. There is a system in place penalise track limits abuse and I will be using that system in future if/when I deem it necessary for the good of the club. Fair warning.
Whilst I'm here, I wanna talk about corner rights and overtaking etiquette. We race historic cars (obvs) which can be tricky to drive, can squirm around a lot and call for more than average room to be given to other drivers. Therefore last of the late brakers, throwing it down the inside from a car and a half length back, is just gonna end in contact. It's likely to spoil somebody else's race and lead to bad feeling. That's not what I want to happen in a club that I'm running.
Historic racing is famous for the gentleman racer era and that is the kind of atmosphere I want to foster in the club. Please take time to read these web pages and try to get an understanding of what racing in this club is/should be all about.
Thanks
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