walls at ppir

[motobum]

I realize that we have limited amount of air fence. so I would like to know if there will be (the next time we go back to ppir) hay bails to fill the gaps on the walls at ppir.

From my understanding in every time previous to this past weekend there has been hay bails.

for the record i love ppir and thats why i would like to see it as safe as possible!

[T Baggins]

We spoke to the track management while we were there at length about the haybales, airfence, etc...

They are also interested in making it as safe as possible, but obviously with having just purchased the property - there was limited time and resources to make the best changes. I feel confident that they will have some sort of solution for when we go back in 2009.

Also, fwiw, the reason there were so many hay bales previously is because MRA always ran their event the week before AMA - and they allowed the course to be set up in advance and we enjoyed the benefit of their deep pockets. AMA paid for all that, not us or the track.

[bluedevil]

Ill settle for now for a trash can or 3 in the pits round the garages. I didnt see any except in the garages. or some place we are "allowed" to watch.. Every place that was good to watch was closed to spectators. Roof, T1, T4 (WAY out there), main grand stands. Though I chalked it up to being newly opened and still in progress. Overall the condition of the track and facilities was far better than expected. Im so happy to be there again, I had forgotten how much fun that track was.

[T Baggins]

It is the intention of the PPIR marketing staff to send out survey's to all the MRA racers about the weekend, conditions, amenities, safety, etc...

I hope to include those in the upcoming election mailer (to save $$ on postage).

[motobum]

i think one thing that could make the track much safer would be a different configuration of the cones for turn one.

i think rather then have cones pushing use all the way to the top of the wall. there should be cones forcing us away from the wall. making turn one more of a turn hair pin rather then a wide open 90 degree turn.

this would make turn one slower making the wall in one father away and the wall in two less a concern.

turn one is super fun as it it right now, but i think everything should be done to make sure that people are not hitting bare concrete walls.

[polar x]

All (clarkies excluded) the wrecks in T1 were after you "drop" in, and of those only one made it to the fence and his was more of a kiss than a hit.

I agree with the board that it should be left up the to racer what line to take. Besides if you make that funnel wider then you will have 2 or 3 bikes side by side trying to drop in and you can imagine the chaos that would ensue.

If you drop the cones and force the riders lower then you have them merging with traffic entering the track earlier and I think that is unsafe. Not to mention you move the impact zone further around the corner now.

just some thoughts on it.

[Jon]

After racing at PPIR since it was built in 1997 and competing in both Pro (AMA Formula Extreme, Formula USA) and amateur (MRA) events there, I have never seen another rider make it to the wall and only one bike. I believe the crash Aaron had was a freak accident but of course should be looked at and protected against in the future. To protect the hundreds of feet of wall would kind of be outrageous but the only way to protect us. Basically it appears and from what I saw coming from behind was Aaron being thrown up hill by maybe the bike as he never appeared to me to lean into the corner. Granted I was looking up track and going from the last turn towards turn one If he had of entered the turn he would have crossed the track through the grass and up the banking as Dan Sallis did in the past. We should all look into making our best educated recommendations and come up with a workable solution that can prevent such accidents from happening in the future. Personally I liked the layout as it was and hope someone GPS'd the positions of the cones as I thought it was safe and fun. Let's all pray for Aaron and look forward to hopefully seeing him, Tedi and Scott at the Banquet. Jon G

[cromer611]

bigger air fences maybe? bigger=longer to cover more wall area?

[fairrpe86]

Bigger airfence isnt a bad idea by any means, but at $6500 a section, is it feasable for the club to buy more sections, and is there need for them at the others tracks?

[cromer611]

holy shit, that's a lot of money for a section

[motobum]

Bigger airfence isnt a bad idea by any means, but at $6500 a section, is it feasable for the club to buy more sections, and is there need for them at the others tracks?

having to much air fence is like having too much sex. there is no such thing!

[polar x]

Bigger airfence isnt a bad idea by any means, but at $6500 a section, is it feasable for the club to buy more sections, and is there need for them at the others tracks?

having to much air fence is like having too much sex. there is no such thing!

True, but like anything good it cost big bucks.

The only place we need it are PMP and PPIR. Haybales would be VERY helpful at PPIR as would extra fence. The club can not afford the fence and the fence we have is well past its designed life. That being said I have put alot of time and money in trying to slow down the leaks and it has helped. But everytime it gets hit it gets worse.

Perhaps PMI's new group will buy some for just thier facility and PPIR too. But until then what we have will have to do. And I agree with Jon, the placement of the cones was very good.

[Kickstand]

I've been reading the posts and thinking about it alot and I think I have a solution that would be both inexpensive and safe. How about a WHOLE LOT of Bubble Wrap and a LOT of Duck Tape. Not only wont you be injured, you'll also get that satisfying "popping" sound!

[shaneboone]

Not being a city boy I think the walls at PPIR were always Straw Bales and not Hay Bales. I know to the untrained eye these look similar but todays pricesd for Hay bales are as great as a tank of fuel for a medium sized car whereas Straw Bale prices are a quarter of that and less then the Hay bale price.
The point made that AMA paid for our generous supply of Straw Bales at past PPIR events is accurate. When we were no longer at the track the facilities manager of PPIR would store these Straw bales outside behind the track confound to be ready the next time bikes ... AMA or us in the MRA ... needed them. At current prices 2000.oo dollars in purchase of Straw Bales would easily last us serveral race dates at PPIR were the new facility manager there be able to store them for us after each event.
And yes, in the past we NEVER would race there without Straw Bales due to the serious risk of personal injury and damage from a get-off at turn one and turn four . Perhaps before returning to PPIR next year for race dates this issue will be addressed and a workable solution can be found. At the end of that front straight where the cones were used to be a long 30 foot orange plastic strip 4 feet wide that was actually placed even a bit higher than the cones were so the angle of attack into infield turn one was made more diliberate. That eliminated conflict from the pre-grid entrance and forced riders to focus clearly their efforts streering into turn one from the front straight and avoid the Straw Bales and the wall of NASCAR turn one. Just my 02.

[T Baggins]

I don't know how to post photos, but Vinny had a pic of what PPIR looked like during the AMA weekends. This is of the banking outside of Turn 6, but gives an idea of just how many straw bales they used:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=84679&id=1487078570

The orange curbing that was placed in Turn 1, and thru the esses have been lost over the course of the multiple sales of PPIR - so they are no longer at our disposal.

"Somebody" moved the cones down in turn 1 over the course of the weekend. Originally (Friday and maybe Saturday) they were much higher on the wall. I noticed on Sunday that they had been moved down as much as 6' from the original placement. This, in my opinion, lended to greater chance of converging lines thru 2 which was a major factor in Ara & Doug's crash.

Finding some way to force people down off the wall would definitely change the trajectory into the wall but in the process creates a narrower entry into turn 2. And, depending on what we used to define the turn - we run the risk of people crashing "because" of the cone or curbing or whatever... The combined event we ran with FUSA was a disaster - as the curbing they set up "caused" people to crash. I worked turn 1 that weekend and saw bikes get completely destroyed, and riders hurt because of it.

There is no perfect way to make a super-speedway safe for roadracing - but I'm sure we'll do better next time with additional resources and the Winter to think it over.

[cakake]

I raced at Loudon (NHIS) for many years before racing with MRA. One method they came up with to help protect all the walls was to take old car racing tires, bolt them together to form a tire wall about 20 feet long and maybe 3 feet high. In turn 1, rather than placing them right up against the wall, they placed them away from the wall, perpendicular to the direction a crashed bike or rider would hit them.

They worked because the tire wall itself would deform when a rider hit it, and it would also move when hit. With all those tires bolted together, the wall never moved more then 5-10 feet, and since it was placed away from the wall (which itself had another row of tires on it just in case), that worked well to slow down and stop a rider well before the tire wall ever got close to the cement wall.

It's hard to imagine all the possible crash types and protect for every one of them, but I'm happy to see we're talking about it and doing the best we can.

[motobum]

i think thats a great idea. it wouldnt be expensive either. im sure we could find tire shops willing to give us old tires for free, and if we have ppir/pmp store the tires then there would be no added cost of hauling them around.

[Scored51]

Hypothetical question: What if we did away with turn 1 all together and ran the banking all the way round into turn 3? I don't know what the pro's and con's are of doing something like this. My bikes have always lacked hp (even for lightweight classes) so it would just mean a longer wait at full throttle until reaching the infield section again. I know we've all watched the 200 run the banks at Daytona so I was curious to know why we couldn't/haven't/shouldn't do it at PPIR.

[JWinter]

We have two options for safety as I see it. Airfence around the whole turn one arc or we create a braking zone somehow. Lining the track with straw bales or tires still causes serious harm to a body at impact. I don't want to hit anything that hard at that speed and why should we spend money on strawbales when we can invest in more airfence.

We can funnel the bikes into some kind of braking zone and takeaway the high speed entry. Make it so we come down off the banking in more of a 45 degree angle and have to brake before going left around the arc of the infield wall. We will be pointing at the outside wall, but the airfence can be better utilized if we cut down on our entry angles. Plus if we turn it into a braking zone; speeds will be slower for racers entering the track there.

My 2 cents

Jeff

[Jim 'smooth' Brewer]

Hypothetical question: What if we did away with turn 1 all together and ran the banking all the way round into turn 3?
<snip>
I know we've all watched the 200 run the banks at Daytona so I was curious to know why we couldn't/haven't/shouldn't do it at PPIR.
When AMA/AHRMA/CCS used to run the big track at Daytona, getting onto the banking was done as a lower speed - either coming out of the infield onto the west banking, or coming out of the chicane onto the east banking.

IMHO, going straight through the tri-oval area a PPIR and into turn 1 at top speed on a bike would be about as dangerous as we could run the track. That's how the IRL racers would do it - drive straight at the wall at top speed. Ugh..

[Jim 'smooth' Brewer]

We can funnel the bikes into some kind of braking zone and takeaway the high speed entry.
One thing to keep in mind when redirecting the race line with anything is that you have figure out what happens when someone hits the object being used to redirect.

For years the AFM build a hay (or was it straw?? :-)) bale chicane between turn 10 and start/finish @ Infineon/Sears Pt. Tires don't work because they cause crashes, same with cones. Bales are ok, but if they're uncovered, people brush up against them and knock them into the race line - causing people behind them to crash. Plus the hay/straw goes flying all over the track and makes a debris hazard.

So, the AFM put the bales in big plastic bags. But if the plastic was too thick, it would grab bars and levers - causing crashes. So it had to be the right thickness of bag and had to be repaired about every other session.

You see what I'm getting at - using obsticles to constrict a racing line creates another hazard - so we have to figure out if the hazard created is less than the hazard we're trying to prevent. It's not an easy decision.

IMHO, I think the PPIR racing line is about as good as we can get it with the curbing/cones located where the MRA & the AMA ran it. Whoever moved the cones down from the wall later in the day Sunday made a mistake and created a passing area coming down off the banking, where there really shouldn't be one. From what I saw, I think that contributed to the Doug/Ara incident.

[Gone_Skiing]

"Somebody" moved the cones down in turn 1 over the course of the weekend. Originally (Friday and maybe Saturday) they were much higher on the wall. I noticed on Sunday that they had been moved down as much as 6' from the original placement.

The "Somebody" was actually "Something" as it was the the blower that was used to clean the track each morning. I noticed on Saturday when I saw the cones tumbling down the hill. We put them back as closely as we could.

-Nick

[cakake]

We have two options for safety as I see it. Airfence around the whole turn one arc or we create a braking zone somehow. Lining the track with straw bales or tires still causes serious harm to a body at impact. I don't want to hit anything that hard at that speed and why should we spend money on strawbales when we can invest in more airfence.
Jeff

The tire wall I was talking about is away from the wall, so when you hit it, the tires first compress, then the tire wall (the tires are all connected) itself deforms, then moves. I have first hand experience hitting one at speed and dragging it a good 5 feet. It wasn't an enjoyable experience, and I was very sore the next day, but I was able to get up, help pick up my bike, walk to my pits, and drive home that night.

Airfence around the entire turn 1 may be optimal, but from personal experience, tire walls aren't a bad alternative.

[JohnGarc]

I agree with "cakake." Using tires in Turn 1 for added protection from hitting the wall is a great idea and like Brewer said, it eliminates debri from the track with hay or straw bales. Though, how hard would it be to move the tires back and for for setup? Just a thought...

[Jon]

Couldn't we GPS the exact positions of the cones so that it would be the same each time we return? That way we always got the same turn and people become accustom with it.

[Jim 'smooth' Brewer]

Couldn't we GPS the exact positions of the cones so that it would be the same each time we return? That way we always got the same turn and people become accustom with it.
There are already marks on the track and a dark area where the curbing used to be. Dave Lambert went home Sat night and checked the position against some AMA race videos he had from a few years ago and we had them in exactly the same spot.

[Jon]

Well I would hope that those marks will last forever and the pavement never ever changes! Jimbo, you guys going to head to Moab anytime soon?