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| Metal to Metal Incident http://forum.44cup.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=314 |
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| Author: | Director [ Sun Apr 25, 2010 3:15 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Metal to Metal Incident |
We had a serious metal to metal incident this past weekend at Summit Point. Two cars came together going T10 on the last lap of Race 2 of the weekend. The contact caused both cars to leave the track, run up on a burm outside of the racing surface, with both cars rolling over. Serious damage to both cars. Drivers shaken but not injured. The purpose of this post is more for instruction purposes to all Cup drivers rather then for all to second guess the drivers or the decision. The report from NASA for the incident concluded this was a "racing incident" assigning sole fault to neither driver. No penalty was assessed by NASA. For 944 Cup purposes, we saw this is as one of the worst metal to metal incidents we have experienced in 9 seasons, from the standpoint of car damage and driver risk of injury. Considering the seriousness of this incident we feel compelled to assign fault to one or both drivers as I think this was an incident involving drivers capable of avoiding contact in this circumstance. The account from each of the drivers differs as to who initiated contact and who is at blame. One driver feels he left sufficient room and the other driver feels he was not allowed sufficient racing room on the track. Over the years we have found it is not unusual for the drivers involved in incidents to differ in their recollection of what happened on track. Unfortunately in this case there is no video tape to verify which driver is correct. One driver didn't have a cam and the other driver's cam was not taping at the time of the incident. There were no other drivers that saw the incident first hand. There were spectators and officials on the frt stretch and in the tower that saw the incident. These accounts are inconclusive to assign fault for contact as they differed from that of the drivers. In the end, we were unable to determine who initiated the contact with an reasonable amount of certainity. All this leaves us with a bad incident and not enough info to make a precise decision in assigning blame for contact. Accordingly, for purposes of the 944 Cup, the decision is to let both drivers share the blame for the incident. While the inclination is to think the overtaking car would be more likely to cause the contact, we were not reasonably certain in this case. Therefore we assigned both drivers a 13/13 violation. For penalties, the one driver's penalty we considered to be the loss of positions as a result of the incident. For the overtaking driver, his penalty will be changing his finishing position to that just behind the driver being overtaken, i.e , where he was just before trying to make the pass. Not a perfect solution but the best we think possible given the facts available. To help in the most accurate resolution of incidents in the future, we encourage all drivers to have a cam in their car, and operating during all sessions. Video footage will in most cases lead to the most accurate and fair resolution of racing incidents. |
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| Author: | Director [ Mon Apr 26, 2010 7:53 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Metal to Metal Incident |
PS. NASA has decided to take this case under further review. A changes to the original decision will forthcoming shortly. |
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