Excessive contact at Autobahn??? (Page 2 of 6)

Yes, there was a lot more contact at Autobahn than has been typical in (post-Altamont) Lemons events. I think the wet weather was a bigger factor than aggressive driving, although I did notice that things got a lot calmer after we took the half-dozen most troublesome teams off the track via third-strike three-hour timeouts.

As for the Condition Orange MR2 that took out the CRX, I talked to the team after the incident and they took full responsibility for their driver's screwup (and they offered to buy all the parts and do a fabrication all-nighter to get the CRX back on the track Sunday; though I had my doubts about whether such repairs would pass our tech inspection, their willingness to try to make things right was the kind of thing we like to see).

They weren't violating the No Nerf Bars rule, because all the structure was within the original body lines of the car. However, we're starting to take an increasingly disapproving view of cut-down and/or "naked" cars in LeMons- those factory engineers that designed all those energy-absorbing crumple zones sort of knew what they were doing.

i applaud this decision Judge Phil.  i wholeheartedly agree cars should be left intact as they were built.

Damn, I just lopped a part of the roof of the Audi, aft of the b-pillar.  Good thing I left all of the other crumply stuff there. I will stop cutting as of this writing.

My teammate was driving the orange MR2 when he hit the CRX and, apparently, pushed the CRX into the Datsun. As we said over and over and over again to the CRX team, Jay, Phil, and anyone who would listen afterward, it was an accident but it shouldn't have happened, and we are all very sorry that our team was the cause of problems for other teams. We've gotten wrecked out of races too (MSR-H, Feb. '09) and it sucks, there's no two ways about it.

To put an end to any speculation, here's what happened. A component inside the car had gotten fixed too-quickly and the tail to the zip-tie didn't get cut off. Our driver kept grabbing the tail when he went to shift and was worried that he was pulling a wire loose. He looked down to figure out what was going on with the shifter apparently just as all that traffic checked up. As is evident on that video, traffic was snaking along and then everyone checked up quite suddenly. Our driver looking down at that exact moment was unfortunate bad timing, but it wasn't irresponsible or neglectful. It was an accident. For what it's worth (and I know that's not much), our driver volunteered his wrist band to Jay.

Tullamore, I apologize to you for your injury and to you and your squad for the damage to your car. Until seeing this post, I hadn't heard that there was substantial damage to any car but the CRX. If you'd like to discuss it directly with me, please feel free to email me and I'll be glad to share my phone number with you. The same goes for anyone else present on this forum. In the future, I invite anyone to please feel free to visit with me in person at the track. I'm not usually very hard to find and I'll be glad to visit with you about this or pretty much anything else in LeMondom. As I think is pretty clear by now, I love this series and it makes me sick to think that my team would do anything (even inadverdent) to hurt the series or the other teams in it.

We've already apologized profusely to the CRX team, and I'll reiterate that here. Again, my apologies to all affected in this incident. It was an accident, but it was our fault, and I'll personally make sure that it doesn't happen again on any car with which I'm involved.

Our team did get a black flag for contact with another car but the driver says it didn't happen and we had no marks on our car, we took our penalty and spent our time in the penalty box.

The fact that your team was worst infractor of car contact and did not get penalized or even inconvenienced with damage to your car is what has us steaming more than your team not even coming to talk to us.

After the CRX smashed us I pulled into the penalty box with the rear of the car rubbing on the tires and had Jay about jump down my throat because when I explained what happened he thought that I had cause the accident by going to too slow.

The communication at this event did not seem to be working like it had in the past.

No, we hit the blue Honda Accord that had a dinosaur theme (I think) I can recall the number. You guys were pitted across from us, your car kept bringing me college flashbacks as I drove a 88' 16V Scirocco then.

Well, that's not exactly correct. I spun the car twice in the downpour at the start of the race (freaking MR2's) while going like 25 miles an hour, so we had 2 non-contact black flags in the first hour and served a Denver Boot penalty with me sitting in the car, and then we had to serve about an hour penalty on the second one trying to fix the right rear window on the LeBaron Exec Limo. The incident with the CRX was our third black flag of the day, so our penalty was to park the car for the last 3-4 hours of the race on Saturday.

We did suffer some damage to our car (like the right wheelbase was shortened about 1.25") so we had some work to do to repair the left front suspension so that we could drive again on Sunday. Not that it's any comparison with the damage to the CRX or even your car. And as I said above, I didn't know until this forum post that your car was damaged in that incident. I'm sorry that I didn't come over to talk to you then. Had I known that you'd been damaged while I was at the track, I would have personally been in your paddock apologizing to you there and offering whatever assistance we could provide to get you back on the track, as I did with the CRX team. Again, my apologies for the incident.

This is one of the drivers of car 166 (orange pumpkin ramtegra with dog hanging out window). We were one of the "troublesome teams". We received penalties for aggressive driving and 2 for contact. 

First off I would like to apologize if we caused anyone problems with our aggressive driving. Below is a listing of our  penalties.

Saturday:

1) I spun out in the rain (did not hit any cars but out drove my talent spun and had all 4 tires off the track) I definitely deserved the black flag and the penalty.

2) Our 2nd driver was black flagged for passing under yellow (which he 100% did not do) We got the tire on the roof.

3) Our 3rd driver did pass under yellow (a car waived him by). This ended our Saturday.

Sunday:

1) Our 2nd driver passed on the outside of turn 2 and the driver on the inside apparently turned out and "purposely hit our car"? Our driver was lectured for aggressive driving and had his wristband cut, and the car was pitted for 30 min.

2) Jay told me I could go out after 30 minutes. I fueled car set tire pressures...checked oil ect. My dad told me I was good to go, and I went back on the track. This was only after  16 minutes(I thought my dad had checked the time...I don't know what his deal was...thus we did not follow jays 30 minute penalty and rightfully got penalized 2 more hours.

3) On the start of my second lap, I went under a car on turn 2. I was all the way inside with a tire almost off the track and my front tires were even with the car i was passing. He continued his normal racing line to the apex and we rubbed. I don't think he saw me ...and this was " a racing incident imo........ and we were done for the day by 1:05pm   I could have avoided this if I was less aggressive.....but this should have been a normal pass

This was my 2nd Lemons race and for the second time I thought almost all the teams were awesome!

We deserved the majority of our penalties...I have 2 questions for Phil or an experienced lemonizer would like to answer are. Is it common for teams to get penalties for passing under yellow when they definitely did not? Are wristbands normally cut on a first black flag penalty for contact even when the contact is not the driver fault?

longest post ever.........

Since this is my first race so I'm not an experience lemonizer but for the yellow flag, since Jay talked about having a discussion about the rules with the flaggers I believe that there were some problems the first day with some of the flaggers not understanding the Lemons rules for how yellow flags work.  You might have just been unlucky there.

As for getting the wrist band cut for contact, Lemons HQ didn't see it so it is all according to what the flaggers call in.  Also how long was your driver arguing and what exactly was he saying.  Driver attitude was probably a contributing factor.

For me this race seemed to have a few more aggressive teams.  I raced the 2 gingerman races and those were raced clean. 

I personally had one incident that involved contact, i spun trying to make a pass in the last turn in the rain an hit bumpers with the brown volvo sedan, got flagged took full responsibilty for it and had to do the pink undies walk thru the pits behind the honorable judge. 

Another member of my team got side swiped by a crown vic and took off one of our side mirrors.

We did have a slower car out there and if we got in anybodys way i do appologize as we tried our best to stay out of the faster cars way.

I am sorry to see such an accident and that a Z was involved.  Although it sucked a lot more for the CRX.

I know Pat too but that doesn't make it any better.

I am surprised by the bumper on the MR2.  While within the body lines it is kind of a battering ram.

We have a tube bumper too so I guess I can only say so much.  We have this bumper because our car is a 1973 and it didn't have 5 MPH bumpers like the 280Z the got hit by the CRX.

Unlike the MR2s double tube bumper, ours is a single bar in place of the original bumper.  I wish we had an extra upper bar since our car is so low but that was getting into nerf bar territory.

I am sure the bumper helps but we have two Zs with similar bumpers and both have some front end damage.

Our rear bumper is much the same type arrangement.

Unlike the CRX & the 280Z, our roll cage goes all the way back to the top of the hatch opening and then down to plates on the floor that are welded over the frame rails which is where the rear bumper ties in.

We have a large tube welded across the back right along the hatch opening in case we get hit by a larger and taller car so it doesn't come over the back, rupture the fuel cell and cause more trouble.

Unfortunately, as others have stated, we have almost no rear crumple zone.  Our front bumper still uses stock bumper brackets and the front of our car can fold in a hard impact.

This whole incident is unfortunate.  I know Mulry is a very good participant and I am sure they are all very sorry for the incident as well.

The black flags were BULLSHIT on Saturday.  The corner workers were incorrectly calling in people for passing under yellow all day long.  That was only fixed on Sunday morning.