Well, this just isn’t going to get better any time soon and the ONLY way we are going to get something done before someone gets seriously hurt is to get “National” to write something about it.
This past weekend Glen Region hosted The (annual) Last Chance School, Sprint Race, Pro-IT, NJTC, and Enduro. The week prior to the event, I wrote the event co-chairs requesting a split start for our run group that included STU, SPU, GTL, SM2, EP, FP, HP, and SRF!! One of the chairs responded within minutes understanding our plight and offered a few words of help and encouragement.
The morning of the sprint race arrived and it was pouring rain. Unfortunately, there were only 3 of us in SRF, one being my student from the school the day before in his first ever race. After a rather uneventful qualifying session, we had a group driver’s meeting where we were told Group 2 had been eliminated and the Sprint Races would be extended to 25 minutes.
After the quick meeting, I approached the Steward and requested a split start in the name of safety for us SRFs. I was rudely interrupted before I even finished the sentence with a stern face-full of “NO!” He continued, “NO way am I going to split the start for 3 cars that are equal to the other lead cars in the group, rain or dry. I raced Lime Rock in a GTO against GTP cars years ago and the speed differential was much greater!” I walked away calmly realizing I had no chance alone.
After calming down a bit, I gathered up the other two SRF drivers, the event co-chair, and two drivers from other classes in our run group. The Steward was brought in and the request was made again for a split start. Again, we were met only with an angrier “NO!” and the same lame explanation. When he again brought up his GTO experience, I asked him if he had a roof and cage over his head at that time. Yah, you get the picture – he was unable to answer.
An FP driver offered up that the 3 SRF drivers could “be late to grid, start at the back, and fall back creating their own split start…” and that was more angrily greeted by the Steward with, “If they are any more than 4 of 5 seconds behind anyone, I WILL BLACK FLAG ALL THREE OF THEM IMMEDIATELY!! My schedule will NOT be thrown off by such shenanigans!” (We were running Long Course at Watkins Glen!)
Thankfully the weather cleared up late morning we took to the track that afternoon with cool dry conditions. Starting 3rd, 6th, and 10th, us SRF cars did well the first couple laps, but the lead SRF tangled with 2 SM2 Miatas at T1 on lap 3 and lost his tail section, retiring, but without injury.
In impound, the event co-chair came to me and asked how it went and I told her what I knew at that time and saw. I was happy no one was injured. I love this class, this car, the competitors, but still fear entering races where we are NOT even considered for our concerns of our own safety only to withdraw and lose our money. Bringing this up to the Regional Boards will seemingly only bring backdoor repercussions in the near future for us. We need our Area Directors (John Walsh… right?) to work with us on a National level or Regions/Tracks that continue to ignore our please will see SRF classes continue to dwindle and look for other places to race. We need drivers to SPEAK UP and write letters to regions that ignore us and let them know WHY we are no longer registering for their races, not just lack of registering – they NEED to know why!