Mark Dalen

You said it should be a different thread, so here it is. I take it from your comment and the quotes around survey, that you must think that DEs are much safer than I think they are. I guess it is time for the Disneyland discussions (again).

O.W. Kenobi

1. Have you ever participated in a DE? If so, how many, and with what clubs?

2. How many DE instructors did you survey, and with what clubs do they instruct?

3. What specific questions were asked?

4. Please post your raw data so that we can all draw our own conclusions.

In case anyone missed it, here are Mark's <a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/racing/msgs/37618.phtml">"survey results"</a>.

s4wood

I am sure he has done quite a few. Probably more than my 90-100 days...and then he races the open wheeled cars. As for what groups..I am gonna think something like PCA, Tracquest, Green Flag Racing, NASA-SoCal, ACNA, and probably several others. FWIW, He has not spoken to me about any survey stuff.

Mark is a track junkie...make no mistake about that...BTW, so is John/Trained Seals Racing.

O.W. Kenobi

I've never met anyone who has done DEs who has held the same opinions. We all know that accidents are a possiblity anywhere, track or street, but to go so far as to call DEs less safe than street driving is very odd (especially with regard to personal injury). To back it up with comments from instructors is even stranger. I'm very interested in the data supporting that conclusion.

NASA racer

here's one of our mechanic's car at Sears Point. He was doing HPDE while working towards his license. Made a mistake on a wet track and flipped twice. Fortunately he was building the car as a race car and had a full cage and wasn't injured. Also fortunately he went on to be the NASA head of Honda Challenge on the west coast and his team has won the E2 championship and the 25 hour.

it's WAY more dangerous than street driving...nobody in their right mind drives that fast for that long on the street. Even the most radical canyon drives I've done only involve short bursts of really fast driving and though that's equally dangerous (for the moments you are actually going fast), the duration is nothing like lapping all day. I used to have a collection of photos of street cars on their roofs that I took at NASA weekends...alas I no longer have those images but it averaged about one totalled or badly damaged car per weekend.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...ANY car that is put on a racetrack is subject to TOTAL DESTRUCTION at ANY time.

Anyone who believes differently is trying to rationalize the risk. This wasn't some freak accident or some stranger I stole a picture from on the internet...this is what CAN happen at ANY TIME when you drive a car near it's limits.
<img src="http://pictureposter.allbrand.nu/pictures/nasa+racer/nasas+stuff/Mikes+Civic+smooshed.jpg">

Frankly, that doesn't look much different than our Civic that died while Taz Harvey was driving it:
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/4061/wreck1.jpg">

Mark Dalen

Interesting that you discount the dangers of the track by deciding that I don't know anything about the track since I don't ascribe to the Disneyfication of racetracks concept (Hi John). I actually get quite a charge out of people who immediately decide that any opinion that differs from their own must come from a lack of experience, so here goes. My background:

~100 DE days with over 50% as an instructor. I have stopped instructing, except in very special cases due to the significant safety issues I have seen with poor equipment installations.

5 years of amateur racing - virtually all is sports racers. This is probably another 100+ days on the track.

While I certainly don't think I am the next Schumie, I can get around a track decently. I hold ~10 lap records in my class, including HPT (2 configurations), MAM and some that have been beaten since I set them. I managed a top 10 finish at the Run Offs last year and got into the 1:25's at Mid Ohio (the point being that I know what it takes to really push a car).

I have a few crashes to my credit, as I feel I have mastered the ability to run out of talent in many places - some places more than once.

I have watched 4 people die at the track. I have friends missing limbs. I have a lot of friends to walk with the 'Lola Limp'. I have seen about a half dozen people taken via ambulance from the track DURING DE's.

I have seen well over 100 cars damaged at DE's. I could not possibly count the number at races, but that is not what we are talking about.

I have instructed at SCCA competition licensing schools.

I guess that hits most of the high points. So now it is your turn since track experience is so important to you in deciding what views carry any weight.

O.W. Kenobi

Because I've never met anyone at the track who's told me that driving on the track is more dangerous than the street, I thought that maybe you were someone who was unfamiliar with what goes on there. You've proven that you have experience, so that's great. I'm impressed at your experience. You certainly have been out there more than I have. I'm sure that you're a better driver, too. My assumption had nothing to do with measuring e-***** size.

I'm still interested in the data from your survey. I have a feeling that what you characterize as a survey is more like a bunch of unrelated conversations at the track. If you (and NASA racer and whoever else) form an opinion from those conversations and your own experiences that the track is more dangerous, then that's wonderful. It's unlikely that I'm going to convince you otherwise. However, when you call it a "survey," you imply (or at least people like me infer) that there's some sort of scientific methodology behind it that lends some sort of weight to the conclusion drawn. Hold whatever opinions you want, but if you took a survey, share the data. Otherwise, call it what it is: your opinion.

bioman

At my last DE - Willow Springs in January with Speed Ventures - an EVO VIII rolled more times than I can count and the driver left in an ambulance. I hope he's ok - it looked like he'd be ok when he left the scene, but I never heard the final outcome. I sold my S4 and moved to a spec miata in part because I thought DEs were too dangerous for me to be doing without a full safety set-up.

O.W. Kenobi

If that happened on the street, there wouldn't have been one standing by. I bet the corner workers black/red flagged the session so that other drivers didn't approach the scene at speed.

Did the guy hit anything or just roll on the ground? If that was on the street, trees and telephone poles come into play. Other cars, too.

People and cars get hurt, and everyone can cite their "favorite" track wreck as an example. Nobody seems to count the number of off-track excursions through the grass that did NOT harm anyone or anything. If tallying that up in comparison to the street, each one of those off-track excursions should count as a bonus non-accident to offset the others. I bet there are enough grass parades to offset any of the impacts on the track.

D all over

That was one hell of a crash though. Good thing it happened to him in his properly prepped car and not somebody in a standard road car.