Break out times

[Mopar 151]

It should be noted, though, that the crash test requirements are primarily against flat, uniform barriers at right angles, in a flat plane - not against a tree , in the cowl area, with the car at 45deg. of yaw.
And they do not cover multiple impacts, with the airbags already deflating.

[KevinGale]

the tree was just as unmoving 20 years ago and it hurt just as much to hit it.

Exactly my point. By your own argument the breakout should be set to 3:00 that was valid 20 years ago. Wait a minute what about 20 years before that? You can continue that chain until the breakout time is down to a walking pace.

When we picked the times we have now we based it on an average time. There is no logical reason to say the average times from last year are any worse to use than the average times from a few years ago. In fact as Steve pointed out the very fact that we have the breakout times should act as a brake on how much they go down. The people who are racing against the breakout tend to pull the average up.

[KevinGale]

Very well said.
I second that. Maybe 5 seconds instead of 10.
John Marsha

I'm actually a tiny bit worried that 10 seconds might be too small and I think 5 seconds is too small. We have had people show up and break out by more than 10 seconds on their first event but I I think that is pretty rare. I'm not sure about 5 seconds I think that would have booted a lot of people after their first event. Maybe that is OK but I hate to scare away a new talented driver who manages to breakout by 5 seconds on Sat of his first event. On the other had I don't want to give him a license to keep doing it for the rest of time either.

[sciroccohp]

I guess I do not see a benefit to making the breakout time any shorter, why would you want people without a cage to go faster. I personally do not have the self control to run at 50%, 80% or 99% hence I drove into the woods last year and started in a caged car. so I don't get the whole point. If anything I would argue the other way but I understand that if a young guy shows up with his turbo allwheel drive toy we dont want to scare him away immediately but his car is potentially a rocket at any point on the hill and the sooner he is safer with a cage the better or have him go buy a caged rabbit, I could point people to a ton of used cheap (under 5K) running race cars. I understand they were picked at a point in time.

[KevinGale]

The problem is safety isn't an absolute priority. It can't ever be an absolute priority or we won't race at all. Having a cage, harness and the best safety gear money can buy won't prevent someone from getting killed racing. What all that stuff does is lower the probability a whole bunch. All our safety rules are a compromise. We try to get as much safety as we can while balancing cost and other factors.

The break out rule is just another balancing act. We want to keep people safe while allowing new people to show up and race their uncaged car. We need new blood for the series to survive and most of us believe the break out rule really helps bring new people in off the street. They would be safer if we required a cage or if we set the break out time to some really high value but in both cases we will likely discourage people from joining.

We need them to be able to run fast enough in their turbo charged wonder to have fun and get hooked enough to install a cage or buy a pure race car with a cage. So again it's a balancing act. We want the new people to show up with their fast street car and have fun but we don't want them to kill themselves or go home angry because they got one run up the hill and we sent them home.

Given those conflicting requirements we will have to adjust the break out times downward in the future or risk chasing away new drivers.

[sciroccohp]

ok I understand all that, have we had anyone breakout on the first day of hillclimbing or anyone come really close? I don't look at the results sheets except for myself and the ftd.

[KevinGale]

ok I understand all that, have we had anyone breakout on the first day of hillclimbing or anyone come really close? I don't look at the results sheets except for myself and the ftd.

By memory it does happen but I can't offer examples without digging. But I'm not saying it's a big problem right now. I withdrew my proposal to adjust the breakout times this year. (Although someone else did submit one). I'm just saying at some point it is likely to be a problem.

If past trends continue the average times will go down by about a second a year. So in a few more years we might start having more problems. The trend could also change, it's hard to predict the future.

[sciroccohp]

cool well I hope I am part of the trend of lowering the average not raising it!!!!

[Rabbit Farmer]

Rule proposal.

For the first year of hillclimbing, a new driver must run a stock Yugo at all of the events.

[dsldubn]

Rule proposal.

For the first year of hillclimbing, a new driver must run a stock Yugo at all of the events.

...or a diesel rabbit