MINIs at the Racetrack and Photography Seems that everyone likes photos of MINIs, so thought I would share a couple from the MINI Corral at the Rolex Daytona 24. The one below I made just after we arrived at the track on Friday morning. It was early in the morning, as can be seen by the long shadows, and the light was only on the back of the cars. Matt Genaurdi, a MINI owner from Orlando, FL, must have arrived closer to noon and had light on top of the cars. This photo is of the same line of cars, just later, with higher sun and from the front. From this photo, it seems that Matt has better skills, camera, and post processing than I do. Great photo, Matt.
If you're anywhere near Florida, keep your eyes peeled. Starworks Semi-Rig Stolen Thursday Night in Florida (sportscar365.com)
Both cars encountered several issues and the team’s No. 8 car, then driven by Chris Cumming, was hit from behind by the DeltaWing in a fairly significant accident. Feel for these guys. Racing is tough to finance without having major pieces of equipment stolen. But, the last part of the story (above) confuses me. If it is the incident where the DeltaWing made significant contact - it was into the side of a car that spun and was parked right in the middle of turn 1. It was their bad driving that took the DeltaWing out.
It was bad driving that caused the spin, but what took the Delta Wing out was the stupid oaf that was controlling the race. No yellow, that was incredibly stupid. I'm very glad no one was hurt.
It was just a spin? I've been wondering why that car was sitting there. The Deltawing and #8 Starworks car incident was controversial in a number of ways. The #8 was stopped in the middle of the road in the middle of a turn but despite it being a blind (?) corner there was apparently only a local yellow flag at the corner and no other indicator up the straight to warn those approaching. On the other hand, Meyrick had a spotter who was trying to warn him. Meyrick said he heard no warning, but listen to the audio of his post-crash convo with the spotter in the video below (1:28 - 1:33) and it's clear that if true then the radio must have been going in and out. On the other, other hand, I have to wonder whether there should be exceptions to IMSA's policy of giving stopped cars like that time to clear by themselves before going full course yellow. Exceptions like this one where there's a car stopped in the middle of the road at night in the middle of an unsighted turn! [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6I-UThjabk"]24 Hours of Daytona 2016. DeltaWing crash - YouTube[/ame] Here's an article that was posted during the race. The first few replies/comments below the article were helpful for me since I don't know that corner, particularly the photo that shows how blind that part of the corner is from the straight (note: the #8 was parked just past the stack of white tires you can see in the photo). DeltaWing Crashes Into Stopped Car On Track After Controversial Flagging Decision
Good (mostly) news on the Starworks story. "Found ! All the wheels gone - left on blocks and the contents inside - but could have been worse!"
Steve, Thanks for posting the videos and information on the DeltaWing crash at Daytona. My old memory had the car sitting sideways before the crash, but I see now that it was after the crash that it was sideways in the track. Why else, other than a 360* spin and killing the engine, would a car be stopped right in the middle of a corner? While turn 1 is fairly tight, the cars are well in excess of 40 mph through there. If it were engine problems, the driver would just coast through the corner and off the racing line. Yes, that point of the corner is blind to cars coming down the front straight at their highest speed on the track before hard braking into the corner. The rotors are glowing red as they approach turn 1. Good to hear that Starworks got their trailer back. I am sure new wheels and tires are a big investment on a big rig, but a much better option than finding it wrecked, stripped, or never finding it. They have a short trip to Sebring. May both Starworks and DeltaWing have better results at Sebring. It was fun to see Katherine Legge wheel that car pass all of the competition in the early part of the race at Daytona. It was some close, hard racing, exciting to watch. No follow the car in front until late in the race for her.
Last I read, they'd learned the thieves did open the trailer but the team hadn't yet gone through to check on all the contents. We may never hear how that went. FWIW, the team are crediting social media for the quick recovery. They put it out there, people spread the word, and in just a few hours they got a tip that led them straight to it.
IMSA Racing Complexities Going through photos from the Daytona 24 Hours today and found a few which tell stories of some of the many rules and technology in today's sports car racing. IMSA is an international sport, with teams and drivers from around the world. This Ferrari has a team of drivers from 4 countries. The team did not attach the flags just because they thought it added to the appearance, it is a requirement - every car has the drivers' names and appropriate flags. In the garage area, crew members with pages of flag decals were pealing and sticking. On the grid, one Brazilian driver complained to the crew that the Brazilian flag was placed upside down. A crew member was able to gently peal it off without much stretch and reattach it correctly. Car preparation once just focused on power, handling, and reliability. Now, much equipment has to be added to the cars to meet technology inputs and outputs. I believe the tall hockey puck on the roof is the TV camera. At the back of the roof is a small antenna that could be for the GPS. The light panel, that unlit appears to be 88, displays the position of the car within its class. Many systems to engineer into the car, install and maintain. The pit tents are filled with engineers following the race through data displayed on large and multiple screens. In the above image, the crew has both the left and right screens tuned to multiple TV cameras showing multiple areas of the racetrack. Would be nice to be able to get this feed when we are at home trying to follow the race. The small screen in the center has a graphic of the position of each race car on the track, seemingly updated every second. All of the pit tents had this image constantly displayed. Another bit of data that would make following the race more informative if race fans could gain access. Multiple screens with a variety of data keep track of the teams car and other cars in the race. Makes me wonder how much budget it takes for the equipment and personnel to collect and display the information gathered through technology. IMSA has a practice session at Sebring this week. The MINI team did not make the long trip to Florida, but plan to have all 3 cars at Sebring for the race in March.
Excellent video (without commentary ) from the Sebring test. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIn9sXq101w"]IMSA Test Sebring 2016 - YouTube[/ame]