Passing and contact

#1

What about addressing the rules that allow drivers to intentionally run cars trying to pass off the road in order to prevent them from passing?

CCR (See 25.4 page 79)
http://www.nasaproracing.com/rules/ccr.pdf#page=91

According to the rules the car doing the passing is responsible for any contact; the car being passed can chose any line he likes including one where there is already a car there regardless of how far up alongside the car is or however long its been there; you are not considered lead car until your rear bumper is ahead of their front bumper; and the car being passed is allowed to push you 1/3 car width off the track on inside or outside, in a turn or a straight. Blocking is 2 consecutive moves, so moving over to push someone off track is not considered blocking.

Given all of that, what in NASA’s rules prevents someone from swerving into a car trying to pass in order to prevent them from passing? It looks like this (2nd incident at 22 seconds mark) would totally be legal in NASA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3nSOKdTWuQ

Here are some incidents from NASA where the passing car was deemed at fault, even though car being passed intentionally moved over.

This accident was first deemed 100% passing cars fault, even though lead car knew he was there and moved over intentionally in hopes of forcing the passing car to back out.

(lead car view)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R92eUXohpGk

(passing car view)
http://vimeo.com/68543464

(watch review mirror for red and white cars)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLH4UUHE15s#t=200s

(Camera car never gets fully ahead of red car, and therefor deemed 100% at fault, even though red car pitted him).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scgWWwkFSk0

(camera car never got fully ahead of Miata, so when he was about to complete pass, Miata hits him, and therefore camera cars fault).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-WUtXFIOMg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6V0Y0YLvU
(here you see a car getting passed trying to push the passing car out into the grass even though he has plenty of room to the right, passing car doesn’t give in and car getting passed touches passing car, ends up taking out a whole bunch of cars. Not sure who was faulted).

Here are some discussions on the incidents.
http://spece30.com/forum/16-general-discussion/72830-video-of-my-rollover
http://roadraceautox.com/showthread.php?t=44994

#2

You saw this, correct? http://spece30.com/forum/62-incidents-and-rules-lessons-learned/74606-squeezing-the-passer-to-34-track-width

#3

Midwest & Great Lakes region started this year NOT allowing the leading car to push the apassing car off track in the straights & is only enforcing the 3/4 car rule for contact at the apex.

#4

To be precise, Denny, the RD does not apply the rule in the straghts. It applies throughout the turn.

#5

Scott, I understand your frustration and that of the guys in those videos. I’ve never been squeezed into a wreck but if I had I’d have been pissed too. People, both racers and officials, are human. Some have read the CCR’s closely and some not. Some have parsed every important sentance in the CCR with great care, but most not. There is also a surprisingly amount of disagreement on what relatively simple sentences mean.

People often state “the CCR says < >” when it actually says nothing of the sort. I’ve embarrassed myself a number of times doing exactly that.

I submit to you that the rules do not say what you described. IMO the squeezing incidents your videos show are not permitted by the rules. From 25.4.4 Punting "In most cases, “racing room” is defined as “at least three quarters of one car width.” The “In most cases” is further clarified in the anti-squeezing verbiage referenced above. None of this is new, the exact same text goes back to at least 2010.

Of course, just because that’s how I interpret the rules doesn’t mean a particular Race Director or Regional Director is going to interpret them the same way. That doesn’t make them wrong, they have to be free to make the best call they can based on their own experience. But if we feel we’ve been wronged there’s appeal mechanisms.

The rules are there to prevent squeezing incidents, but it’s up to us to know the rules. Remember Rob’s Summit thread? 12 pages of opinions and rants and not a single SOB actually looked into the CCR and found the verbiage against squeezing, me included. We should all be embarrassed as hell over that, especially me since I certainly wrote like I knew what I was talking about.

#6

[quote=“sbarton” post=75167]What about addressing the rules that allow drivers to intentionally run cars trying to pass off the road in order to prevent them from passing?

CCR (See 25.4 page 79)
http://www.nasaproracing.com/rules/ccr.pdf#page=91
[/quote]
My proposed new rule 25.4.6
Don’t Be A Dumbass (a/k/a If They Got Alongside You, They Did The Last Corner Better) The driver in front has the right to choose any line; however, if the passing driver has any overlap with the leading car, the leading car may not squeeze the trailing car off track. Physics dictates that the trailing car can’t just f*cking disappear. The leading car may utilize talent, motor, and/or strategy to defend against the pass, but putting the trailing car in the grass is frowned upon and may get one’s ass kicked.

#7

On that last video, did they not even try and go both feet in once they left the surface??

#8

[quote=“Steve D” post=75204][quote=“sbarton” post=75167]What about addressing the rules that allow drivers to intentionally run cars trying to pass off the road in order to prevent them from passing?

CCR (See 25.4 page 79)
http://www.nasaproracing.com/rules/ccr.pdf#page=91
[/quote]
My proposed new rule 25.4.6
Don’t Be A Dumbass (a/k/a If They Got Alongside You, They Did The Last Corner Better) The driver in front has the right to choose any line; however, if the passing driver has any overlap with the leading car, the leading car may not squeeze the trailing car off track. Physics dictates that the trailing car can’t just f*cking disappear. The leading car may utilize talent, motor, and/or strategy to defend against the pass, but putting the trailing car in the grass is frowned upon and may get one’s ass kicked.[/quote]

Steve sums it up perfectly…My thoughts exactly - emphasis on last sentence

#9

This is ludacris. Since when is it ok for a car to push another car that is along side it off track? This whole conversation is ridiculous. When the driver in front realizes that a car behind him is going to catch him he can choose to alter a line before they are side by side. But if the front driver allows a car to get along side him, its the responsibility of both of the drivers to give each other racing room. If someone gets along side of you, it’s already too late to start defending. I’m not trying to be a tough guy but I’d expect a brawl after the race if I forced a driver that was already along side me off track. That type of behavior is definitely frowned upon in pro racing let alone club racing. Wtf.

Ray

#10

Ray, you are correct, it does seem ludicrous and not OK. However NASA’s rules don’t have anything in them to prevent it. In fact it seems to be the opposite.

Someone PLEASE show me where in the RULES it makes it illegal for the car being passed to push the passing car off track?

-Scott

#11

Per a good suggestion, I let a day go by before posting in this thread. A problem is that as the moderator I get an email for every single post in this forum. That makes it too easy to immediately answer any post that I figure I might be able to help in. So threads end up taking on a character of me blasting my opinions on to all with a bullhorn and it only takes seconds for everyone to grow weary of it.

So lets see if I can offer an opinion w/o pissing anyone off.

The squeezing issue has morphed a bit. 6 months ago we all thought the rules explicitly allowed squeezing a passer to 3/4 of a car width. Only later did we spot the “in most cases” which meant there was no “explicitly allowed”, and also spotted the language in 26.0 that explicitly tells the passee that they cannot use the 3/4 rule to squeeze the passer.

So we’ve gone from “3/4 rules says I can squeeze you”, to “you deliberately and recklessly ran me off of the track.” I think that’s as good as the rules are likely to get. We’re not going to get a sentence in the CCR that addresses the details of every possible incident scenario.

#12

I just rec’d an email from Jerry Kunsman, NASA Executive Director and the author of the CCR. I had emailed him re. an unrelated CCR clarification thread at NASAForums. I’d never talked to “the man” before, I’d just run out of ideas on how to get clarification on a CCR issue since NASA doesn’t have a “National Race Director” listed or some other logical person to take CCR issues to. So since Mr. Kunsman is listed as the CCR’s author, thinking “I hope I don’t regret this” I sent him an email re. that NASA thread. In the conversation that followed he, unsolicited, addressed squeezing. He said…
[i]
This statement about sums it up.

I don’t think that anything in the “right to the line” and “3/4 rule” allows one driver to squeeze the other off the track. This is a misconception that is clarified in Appendix A of the CCR.[/i]