So, what did you do today?

[Rob Liebbe]

Most tragic indeed and one reason I don't like to instruct anymore. Additionally, I've never been to this track but I wonder why they were able to hit a tree. Are trees that close to the track, did they go over a guardrail, was the tree protected by a guardrail or wall, etc.? I know Todd's wild ride ended up in the trees, but they were very far off the track.

[kbrewmr2]

Was on Shennendoa which is part of Summit Point's facility (in WV) if you wish to check it all out. There's quite a few threads on different boards casting stones in many directions and don't want this one to get off on those sorts of tangents though.

We're spoiled with literally Texas sized runoff room at our tracks....

I stopped instructing because I wasn't real good at recongnizing the when I needed to reel a student in. Thankfully just hurt cars and bruised egos, but I still felt so bad about it and about letting down the instructor corps and orgs that I instructed for that I stopped. I recongized that I was a good "coach" kind of person that would be perfect for the student that had car control and pace down and just needed help on where to work on going faster but no real place for that sort of stuff in DE1/2 though.

Events like this are especially sobering because it causes me to replay the minor crashes I did have in the passenger seat with a "what if" sorta spooky angle added on top.

[Fbody383]

There's quite a few threads on different boards casting stones in many directions and don't want this one to get off on those sorts of tangents though.

I do think it's useful to bring up and I hadn't seen/heard of the incident before you did.

Almost a Catch-22 in that "we" need instructors to get people competent to come race if that's what they want to do.

And it wasn't that long ago the Mustang got upside down at Hallett and punch the main hoop through the floor... http://jalopnik.com/5390929/mustang-crash-gallery/ so even with some "runoff room," things can still go awry.

Never hurts to review risk.

[kbrewmr2]

You're definitely right, things can go awry no matter experienced or first time out there ever.

[Trublu]

Sobering moment indeed. Speculation always seems to give an obvious result but proper investigation should yield cause and recommend measures of prevention.

That said, irrespective of the cause of this incident, discussion around safety and ways of improving it are important even if the conclusion is no change required.

I've never instructed but I can imagine there'd be some ass puckering moments and the desire to reprimand a someone who's pushing well past capabilities is probably tempered by wanting them to succeed. There's also some very fast road cars being pushed very hard, that have had a lot of money spent on performance and very little spent on safety....

In my industry our progression in safety is on the back of many lives lost, perhaps the outcome here will be a change in HPDE criteria or perhaps not but the mere fact that healthy discussion is taking place means a life was spent but perhaps not in vain.

[marshall_mosty]

Seeing any sort of incident has made me reevaluate my safety gear. Whether it is adding roll cage after Master's thesis on rally car cage design and truly understanding the importance of main hoop kicker cars going to the back of the car in order to dissipate a side impact. Or adding. Additional door bars to the door sill area...

My desire to wear both long sleeve nonmex underwear along with 3 later suit "just incase"...

Having a full fire system instead of just the minimum requirement of a hand held bottle.

[Fbody383]

There's also some very fast road cars being pushed very hard, that have had a lot of money spent on performance and very little spent on safety....

Maybe there's some room there to improve. Drag racing uses ETs to baseline safety, open road does top/average speed. We don't normally have a way to measure straightaway speeds or cornering speeds but segment/lap times might be useful.

Marshall, I might just have to read that...

[marshall_mosty]

This isn't the thesis I was trying to find, but a good read, and based on the NASA CCR's.
https://drc.libraries.uc.edu/bitstre...pdf?sequence=1

[y5e06]

two things:
wish we (CMC) could add shock tower tubes for added rigidity and longevity to the chassis.

damn, um, that is a lot of panel 'rearrangement' to get that cage built....

[Alien]

Looks like Marshall's flight got cancelled.

http://www.bustle.com/articles/27700...lay-loneliness