Safety Issues

[AMCO72]

Yes markec, we have to ADAPT one set of rules, rather than ADOPT one set of rules. To make any sense at all, rules for the older cars, and here lets say pre61 as that is a class of its own, are necessarily different, or parts of it, from rules for later cars. Most of the components will be similar or the same, but things we have been discussing, roll-frames etc will be different. Would be nice to think common sense will prevail, but common sense today is increasingly absent from discussion. Would be nice to think that we on this forum could put forward some sensible ideas, thrash it around, then have it adopted, instead of having some little clerk somewhere making a decision based on some knee-jerk reaction to an 'incident'.

[AMCO72]

Having said that, lots of things changed for the better after the LeMans crash in 1955, as they did in the Paris-Madrid half a century before. In the LeMans case, drivers reactions were as quick as humanely possible. In the matter of driver reaction there are other considerations than the actual time taken to move a foot off the throttle and apply the brake. One is the time it takes for the brain to appreciate the situation, the primary reaction, which starts the secondary. At LeMans in front of the pits that evening, Hawthorne, Fangio, and Levegh were covering the ground at around 200 ft per second, and even virtually instantaneous action can do very little about that, even if the instinctive reaction is correct. Reaction must not only be swift, it must be right. So if these guys couldn't get it right, what hope is there for a bunch of geriatric drivers like us....well a lot of us. So safety on the track not only involves the cars and their preparation, but also the drivers and their fitness, or otherwise ,to act and react in a proper and correct manner. Did I remember to take my heart pills this morning, or in the excitement of anticipating some thrilling competition, forget them? More on medical matters soon!!!!