Combe's a fun, very wide, fairly easy track, as long as you drive well within yourself. There's nothing particularly exciting about that particular corner other than it leads onto the start/finish straight. They used to actually BAN overtaking in the corners for this very reason. The most challenging section by far is Quarry, which is a long way up the end of the straight.....
been around that circuit a few times and i'm amazed at how bare the grass is on the apex where they are cutting the corner, something like that was bound to happen.
I think that could potentially make things even worse... Letting everyone else run on list 1b tyres might end up with the lower class cars putting in similar lap times and so mixing it with the Evo's, which is great in one way, but the evo's may pull away on the straights again - so people could get frustrated. On the other hand, presuming other cars as well as yourself can keep pace with the evo's in a straight line but struggle on the corners with less grip, doing the tyre thing, it might offset their 4wd advantage. Don't think doing any of that would help safety though, the Norris Evo would still have had that smash with the pug, even if Pug was on grippier tyres. He just messed up in the heat of the moment. Imo, your 'safety' suggestion just sounds like a cunning plan to be able to beat these evo's!
yeah but Paul, he won the best handling section at TOTB best last year. That must prove he CAN drive in a race in a crowd of cars surely
This was no track day btw people. It was Combe Saloon Racing Championship that Bill, Badger5 races in. As fair as I'm aware, you can't ban people from over taking in a race. Kinda defeats the object of it all.
Having watched the clip a few times now, i think the reaction towards the evo driver is a bit unfair. I think there was nothing wrong with going for that gap, it was deffo there. He made a slight misjudgement by going over the apex onto grass, which appears to cause the car to understeer, but that's such a minor error and it was very unfortunate that it led to such a monumental accident. In most cases he'd have got away with a light rub of the pug. The only think to be criticising is the decision to allow such a speed differential between classes IMO.
Andrew did you see the two occassions where he went across the grass at the esses in the full video? & various bad/strange lines putting more strain on the tyres on some of the corners.
aha, you saw thru my 'cunning plan' - I can live with the EVO's down the straights indeed, faster than Russ Humphreys EVO in a straight line, but traction out of the corners is where I spin up my power where they put it to the ground. Its more the Class D car vs Class A car type speed differential thats part of this.. and Class B vs D also in some respects. Not just the class car but the driver behind the wheel which can have one guy managing 1m22s laps and another 1m37s laps in class D.
So contact between cars is normal and to be expected, what do you think it is, a game of dodgems? The guy in the Evo comes across a similar situation at aprox 5 mins and looses a fair bit of distance on the leading cars, given a similar situation later in the race I think he didnt want to do the same again. I dont think it was just a case of clipping the grass, he looked like he went into the corner a little shallow which was always going to push the car wide, hed done the same on quite a few corners, driving line differing quite a bit from the other cars.
Norris made a bad mystake of judgement chasing the evo's ahead of him, and did not allow for the car he was about to lap, and BANG muchos big accident, damaging the 106 in the process. He's lost his car and , and damaged Chrissy's cars also through no fault of hers. the points are the speed differential for sure, but other "more experienced" drivers manage to pass back markers without taking them out. this was only simon norris's 2nd ever circuit race, and he's only just passed his ards course, so inexperience mixed with a rapid car in a real chase up front is what led to the incident. It was avoidable in that greater 'racing' experience behind the wheel, he would be looking ahead through the corner, not arriving at it on the bootlid of the car in front, cutting corners etc. TOTB, Trax, and other track days do not qualify you as a race driver. That comes over time and experience. The guys ahead are very much more experienced than him. (Barry Squibb, Russ Humphreys, Gary Prebble behind him for example)
Maybe a less powerfull & cheaper car for the 1st season would have been a safer option & gain experience along the way.
No, haven't had time to watch full footage....i'm judging the incident on its own You make it sound like he intended to hit the car...perhaps i worded my post slightly wrong, i wasn't saying it was acceptable, i was saying that it happens unintentionally sometimes.
not saying it was intentional just that a similar situation cost him time he was less willing to give up the second time round, unfortunate accident caused by misjudgement but not acceptable.
