rock on, Onasled! I'm with ya.

I just viewed that Joey hand crash, an event that could happen to any car. How do you think a safety-waived mini would fare in that circumstance?

 

This might be a good use for the 10-20 or so JCW GP that were built for the press??

 

Racing with lax safety requirements must not be a work-in-progress. Make no mistake about it, fixing this problem is a one man job - adopt serious rules and enforce them, without exception! This comes from the top-down, and is a PW decision. If that were done, this would not be an issue that bothers so many.

Likewise, this is not an "us" issue. Putting this snafu of an effort on others is offensive and disrespectful. Don't even go there. I have volunteered my time to groups and organizations that I'm proud to assist, because of what they represent. I cannot in good conscience associate myself with an outfit that allows safety to be less than what it deserves. I started with a clean slate here... as I was looking to attend one of his Schools. My feelings have been forged to what they are now by actions and expressions of PW...

With the exception of onasled, the PMs I've received have not been by posters in this thread. It's no conspiracy, but given the volume and weight of the criticism, I bet it feels that way. Being wrong is one thing, but being obstinate and callous on top of it is truly another. Folks are getting pissed-off!

It will be "enough" when this is remedied, and letting go of this cause is not an option for some, and this may actually be the beginning if we see more of the same. Summit is the next opportunity to do the right thing...

 

My gosh, what a pitiful response. I'm a Phil Wicks fan and a PWDA alum (Autobahn CC); I would love to see the NAMCCRS succeed, but your insulting and flippant attitude is just a big bowl of wrong.

 

Wow, I've been watching this thread kinda closely, didn't realize how far the question about the wavier would go. RECOOP seems to have brought me back into this I now also understand now why it was such a big deal when NASA teched the cars at Sebring (was there and heard the grumblings first hand); I had orginially been under the impression that it was over differances between rule (like SCCA standard to NASA standard; different way but equally as safe (more or less, I don't need flames on this one)).

Frankly, I find it quite dissapointing to see the responses made representing NAMCCRS; they convey a lack of concern from the sanctioning body that should be most worried about driver safety at the track.

If you ever run at Boneville, you are told four things before going down the course.

1. Be safe
2. Have fun
3. Go fast
4. Do it in that order

Being young and niaeve, I thought that this was something that applied across the board to all sanctioning bodies and any type of go fast or racing enviroment open to the general public (Pro-racing transposes 2 and 3). Based on your posts you have made it clear to the NAM crowd that Safety is not the top priority on the list (we'll see if things change this weekend) and that additude, even the suggestion of overlooking safety is highly discouraging when someone is looking for track time, be it racing or DE enviroment.

If your goal really is saftey I'd suggest you stop the name calling (which is prohibited by NAM coincidentally) and start trying to work constructively through this thread and at the track this weekend and in coming events and start showing us you want help, will use help, have strict rules, techs and enforce them as such (Didn't even have my helmet checked at a Wicks DE, just asked if I had one, it was assumed of the proper rating and up to date). I know that many here, even though voicing their concerns are helping make this and other series sucessful (in my eyes) because even if a driver sits out a few events because they have learned to take the extra time and to spend the extra money to make sure they are safer, then the rasied concern was worth it, because a sucessful event is one where everyone gets to go home at the end of the day, which doesn't always happen with lax saftey standards.

I know Onsled has helped both myself and Brian make safer descions about when and how we track our cars. And I'm sure many others have benifited from this as well; and for the orginaization to come out and say that all that is being done is discrediting a series then perhaps you need to take a look how the actions of the orginization, and what has been posted by the orginization here come across to the individuals, because this thread has already done what the NAMCCR techs did/does not accomplish.

 

Jerry

I have raced (and done very well) the past two seasons in the Spec MINI series here in Arizona. I have 25 years of racing experience and attended my first of three Race Car Driving Schools (Bondurant) in 1980. I feel I know a bit about racing.

I am a Safety ****. I have a Compression Fracture to my L-1, (due to no fault of my own) sustained during a racing incident earlier this year. I wear a HANS and feel that if I had not had it, I would not be writing this. My car has none of the "safety conserns" as noted above, yet I was seriously injured. If my car had not been prepped to the highest of safety standards....

I was sorry to read your comments on the above posts. Is this the type of response you should be sending to a number of possible customers? Of note, four of the Spec MINI's from Arizona attended the inaugural race at Laguna Seca in support of Phil. I am not sure about future events if safty issues are not addressed.

I agree with Rich, the only way to get this series off the ground is by posting rules now and follow the existing "Spec" rules. We all love the "tuner" cars but to build a series with them I feel is not a wise path to follow. Also, the cost to drag our cars across the country is expensive and for the cost, I would rather just go Grand Am racing.

Mark Congleton
#07 Spec MINI

 

We've gone from whiners to now being accused of ****-like tactics

And then the audactiy to ask for assitance .

Seriously, this is very disturbing. NAM, if you are sponsoring PW and/or this Series, I highly encourage you to consider otherwise. If you are not - DON'T, please.

To humor you... The dictator here is not onasled or us. To the contrary, we are the masses, the proletariat, and we are saying that enough is enough! I suppose a 911 reference is coming next...

Conform, or you will cease to exist!

 

That you choose to associate those on this forum, who are asking for safety to be the number one priority, with Hitler and the ***** is not only offensive, but morally opprobrious!! How dare you suggest or imply that PW and the NAMCCRS are victims of a NAM-based ****-like cabal.

That you would cite the SWC and Martin Niemoller in your defensive posturing is beyond credulity and an unforgivable insult to the millions of Jews and non-Jews who died during the Hitler era. If you indeed represent PW on and/or outside this forum, then you have placed a very dark blanket of dishonor on his organization. For shame....

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Some combination of this thread, the video of that beemer flipping over and over and over and the interview with the driver afterwards, and my dwindling budget makes me not so enthusiastic about doing more track days.

 

snid great link!

A paragraph from it, for those who are too lazy to click:

Godwin's Law (also Godwin's Rule of **** Analogies) is, in Internet culture, an adage originated in 1990 by Mike Godwin that states:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving ***** or Hitler approaches one.[1]

This adage was formulated because many people compare anyone and anything they mildly dislike with Hitler. There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the ***** has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.

It is considered poor form to arbitrarily raise such a comparison with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized codicil that any such deliberate invocation of Godwin's Law will be unsuccessful.
Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to Usenet discussions[2], the law can be applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and so on.

 

The topic of safety in the North American MINI Cooper Challenge is topic deserves not to be sidetracked with inflammatory **** references.

Everyone here cares about the subject and many are heavily invested in it having built cars for this series or others. Let's try to treat one another with more respect and try to move the ball forward, not just get stuck in the muck.

This thread has been very educational to a lot of us reading along (myself included). It would be nice to see it return to being constructive.

One request: can someone who has some real knowledge on the subject (potentially a NAMCC participant or maybe someone who has a strong background in race safety practices) call Phil? I don't have the background to ask the right questions otherwise I'd do it myself. That seems to be the only way we're going to get that side of the story. Otherwise, after all that has been said to date, I can only imagine that the subject of the concerns in this thread may be raised at the Summit Point event. Maybe someone could report back from that.

 

Phil has a NAM ID, and could very easily adress the safety concerns raised in this thread. Even just a public acknoldegement of the concerns would be appreciated at this point.

 

True
Given that the Summit Point event is tomorrow and he isn't a very active poster on the forum, someone giving him a call would seem to be a better way to get his side out. It has already been stated a couple of times that he preferred the phone to the internet. Working with that would seem to be more productive than beating the drum for him to post. I'm not taking his side, just trying to be realistic given the timing and his expressed desire for a way to be contacted.

 

Just to keep this on topic (as it has evolved to this point), I just split out the discussion on the Summit Point Race Results from this thread.

The new thread is located here: Summit Point NAMCC Results

Dave