Topic: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

Or was mine the only car with a big target on its butt?

Nothing that resulted in a black flag, but got rear ended hard enough to knock stuff out of the dash, got sideswiped just in the right spot to chop the valve stem off a tire (whoooooooosh!) and finally put it on the trailer when the alternator bracket snapped in two (can't think of a non-impact way to do THAT) mid-Sunday.

I have no bone to pick with any culprit in particular, mind you, but seriously, that race was a grinder.

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Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

New race teams?

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

It seemed to me that there was a lot less contact in the usual suspect areas like 9 and 11 and when I was out there, I thought there was a lot better cooperation through the esses than the last several times I've raced here.  However, I was parked at the top of the carousel right under the corner worker station under a waving yellow with about 15 other cars and got smoked from behind by a car that was completely oblivious.  Same car (not a new team) flew by me and several others under yellow heading into 7 earlier so not surprised at all that they ended up in my bumper under caution

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

I was only out for Saturday morning in the rain. But watching the flow in the P-box, the tows, and on track it seemed like less contact than some previous races at Sears Point.

There were a bunch of rookie teams that BF-ed out on Saturday and a few more on Sunday.

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Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

I kind of separate the races out west into two groups.  Sears Point and everything else.  I haven't had or made contact there but go into it with the idea that we're more likely to sustain damage there than anywhere else we run.  Particularly at the December race.  I suspect a number of factors in no particular order or weight.
1.  The flagging "A-team" is at the 25hr that weekend
2.  The number of cars
3.  All the elevation changes, track layout where cars bunch up and terrain make sightlines difficult. (like the dude above who got blasted)
4.  I usually discount the newbie factor when it's veterans who do most of the wrecking but it may also be a factor at this track.  Sears probably has more places than the other tracks around that take balls/confidence to fly through and veterans bombing through areas where newbies are tiptoeing may be a bad combination.

It's just a tough place to race with the things I listed above all working together to turn it into a bad day for some.  I've just sort of moved into acceptance over what happens there.

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Gone bye-bye
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Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

I’ll admit Sunday abt noonish I trunked a black car pretty hard in turn 7, bent his exhaust tips and he flipped me the bird...  we were having intermittent brake booster problems, I’ve been wanting to remove it from the car for a while, but my team is against that..  I went from no power assist to the brakes locking up and not releasing right away and me sliding into a car that darted in front of me at the last second to run the outside line of 7..

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

One way to tell if the race has higher-than-normal carnage is whether the staff holds a drivers' meeting on Sunday to calm things down. No meeting this year.

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

mobius911 wrote:

One way to tell if the race has higher-than-normal carnage is whether the staff holds a drivers' meeting on Sunday to calm things down. No meeting this year.

True. But I've been to a few of those races. And got hit MANY more times than at one where Jay got truly vocal on Sunday morning.

Tradewinds Tribesmen Racing (The road goes on forever…)
#289 1984 Corvette Z51 #124 1984 944 #110 2002 Passat
Gone but not forgotten, #427-Hong Kong Cavaliers Benz S500
IOE (Humber!) Hell on Wheels (Jaguar)

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

cheseroo wrote:

I kind of separate the races out west into two groups.  Sears Point and everything else.  I haven't had or made contact there but go into it with the idea that we're more likely to sustain damage there than anywhere else we run.  Particularly at the December race.  I suspect a number of factors in no particular order or weight.
1.  The flagging "A-team" is at the 25hr that weekend
2.  The number of cars
3.  All the elevation changes, track layout where cars bunch up and terrain make sightlines difficult. (like the dude above who got blasted)
4.  I usually discount the newbie factor when it's veterans who do most of the wrecking but it may also be a factor at this track.  Sears probably has more places than the other tracks around that take balls/confidence to fly through and veterans bombing through areas where newbies are tiptoeing may be a bad combination.

It's just a tough place to race with the things I listed above all working together to turn it into a bad day for some.  I've just sort of moved into acceptance over what happens there.

I don't disagree with this, but I don't think the track layout / elevation changes should be an excuse for contact.  Contact usually comes from either poor judgement, lack of situational awareness or some mechanical failure, all three of which probably occur at roughly the same percentages from track to track (to be fair, this is not scientific so I could certainly be wrong, just based on what I've observed over the years).  If the corner stations were hidden or hard to see, I could maybe buy the track layout / elevation changes, but we've been hit as many times at relatively flatter circuits like Buttonwillow or Thill and mostly because of poor judgement (either ours or those we are racing around) or a complete lack of context (ie. picking up flags). 

I would definitely agree though that the track layout and specifically how close the walls are at Sonoma amplifies the potential for more damage as a result of contact.  In the case I sighted, everyone else was able to whoa it up and you can pick up that flag station before you get to the exit of 4 so if you are paying attention, it's not a big deal.. especially there where you have the benefit of a positive  elevation change to help slow the car down. 

I also agree that newbies get unfairly characterized as wreckers, as they are usually not the ones trying to stuff their car in a tiny hole though a newbie with an ego and a high balls to brains ratio in a HP car is probably a recipe for carnage...

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

I usually have no contact. Probably 3 or 4 times in 16 races.

I was hit on the inside rear in turn 4 on Sunday.  Our E28 was faster than most cars all weekend (2:01:03 fastest), but at this point I got caught up behind 2 slower cars that wouldn't really pass each other so traffic started stacking up. I was trying to get around them--trying to pick which one was going to be faster-- and of course so is everybody behind me.

Going into 4 I move to the inside to pass and at about the apex I got tagged in the rear quarter by a red A2 Golf.
It's possible I cut across his line but I think he just got over-eager.  No harm no foul though.



13:40 in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9g7Atv … &t=784

Honestly the majority of the race seemed slightly tamer than the over Sonoma races I've run.

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Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

We've stopped running Sonoma because of the amount of times we've been hit there. Most of it comes down to the car count and the difficulty of the track I think. It routinely has 180 cars on a 2.52 mile track.

This video says all:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq54o67hVev

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12 (edited by billybobster 2018-12-05 08:56 PM)

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

On track, things seemed less crazed than usual for Sonoma. One reason (maybe), car count was down a bit. 148 cars actually set lap times, 154 listed total on Speedhive. AIso, I thought the flaggers were doing a better job of putting up yellows in advance of stop/go backups for a "real" yellow.

On the other hand, my unscientific sampling indicated more crashiness. Both cars on either side of us in the garage had non-trivial contact, in one case more than once. For me and my A&D team, clean sailing re contact. Not so much in engine longevity.

25X Loser - Delinquent Racing - '86 Rust-Tite Merkur - 9 years (when do I get to stop?).

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

aventari wrote:

I usually have no contact. Probably 3 or 4 times in 16 races.


Going into 4 I move to the inside to pass and at about the apex I got tagged in the rear quarter by a red A2 Golf.
It's possible I cut across his line but I think he just got over-eager.  No harm no foul though.




Honestly the majority of the race seemed slightly tamer than the over Sonoma races I've run.

That same Golf T-Boned me going into 11. Takes quite a bit to spin a Crown Vic all the way around. I was guest driving with the Clown Vic folks so was being extra cautious with the car but ended up the victim anyway. Regarding the contact question - I see a post similar to this after every Sonoma race. I think Sonoma is a big draw for folks because of where it's located and the appeal of the track itself. I can usually spot the trouble makers or noobs about fifteen minutes into a stint and can avoid them for the most part but as they say...rubbin' is racin' apparently. Had a great time regardless and glad the rain mostly missed us the whole weekend. See y'all next time. Here's the video - posted by a teammate...hopefully it shows here:

https://www.facebook.com/roger.and.maya … __tn__=K-R

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

I did notice the course marshaling was a bit sub par this time around. We had a car tag us around T10. Also noticed that the white Subaru station wagon got a black flag early Sunday morning and simply ignored it for several laps until the flaggers just gave up.

Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

reflexgti wrote:

I did notice the course marshaling was a bit sub par this time around. We had a car tag us around T10. Also noticed that the white Subaru station wagon got a black flag early Sunday morning and simply ignored it for several laps until the flaggers just gave up.

I didn't just ignore that BF. I called my crew and had them check w/John Pagel.  Somebody in control had bad info. BF was pulled and I continued on.
And they don't give up. They will turn off your transponder if you fail to report.

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Re: Anyone else find Sonoma had a LOT of contact?

I thought this race was cleaner than most.  The lower car count helped.   I also think the flaggers did a much better job at getting the yellow flags out far enough up track to worn drivers.

Sears is always a difficult track due to the sight lines.  There are just too many blind corners that you come through with a head of steam. 

Pete