Fatality at PCA event

Carolina Motorsports Park, victim was the instructor, in the passenger seat, car apparently ran across spilled coolant and struck a tree.

Very sad, likely will confirm the decision by many (including me) not to instruct.

Also interesting to see the reflexive and IMO silly decision to discourage/suppress discussion on the facts of the incident.

There's a thread in the rennlist.com DE section, can't directly link to it apparently.

PCA statement:


As you may have heard by now, there was an incident during our Driver’s Ed event yesterday at Carolina Motorsports Park that resulted in a fatality. The vehicle in which Tom Norby was instructing went off track and impacted a tree. Fire/Rescue and EMT responded immediately, however Tom died of his injuries at the scene.

Tom was a Carolinas Region PCA member and served as a Driver's Ed Instructor, having completed the PCA National Driver's Education Instructor training. He was 59.

This is a difficult time for everyone, especially Tom’s family. Please keep Tom's wife Paula and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

A visitation with the family will be held in Charlotte, NC at Harry and Bryant Co., 500 Providence Rd., on Wednesday, March 10, from 6 to 8 p.m. The memorial service will be held at Covenant Presbyterian Church, where he was a member, 1000 E. Morehead St., Charlotte, NC, on Thursday, March 11, at 4:30 p.m.

You can find more information here:

http://www.legacy.com/dignity-memori...34&mid=4164573

 

Very Sad to hear this
Condolence to Tom's Family

 

A moment of silence.
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Thank you.

 

Condolences to Tom's family and to our friends in the PCA. You are in our thoughts and prayers.

 

Terrible tragedy - it brings up the thought of not allowing coolants other then water on tracked vehicles. It would be a bit of work to drain all cooling systems before tracking and adding water but it would be much safer for everyone - nobody can recover from hitting antifreeze in a tough spot - water is not nearly as slippery

 

+1...

Sobering for those who do this. Alot.

 

Wow. How horrible. My thoughts to Tom's family.

 

I have hit coolant on the track and it is literally ice, fortunately it was a small patch. Caused track to be closed down for 1 1/2 hrs to clean up. It is a sad day for performance driving and a sharp reminder of the serious consequences of a mishap.

 

RIP.

Very sad.

 

All –

I hope you don’t think I’m being ghoulish, but the lack of real information about this tragedy brothers me. I love hitting the track, but I don’t love it that much. While my experience palls compared to the rest of you, I have figured out it is my final responsibility whether I go or no go EVERY time I enter a track.

Looking back, I realize there were numerous times I should have parked the car. (Ironically, most of these events were Ferrari related.) Look, for example, at the first pic posted below. How many bad things can you see in this picture?

The bottom line is I am 57 and have a small group of people who depend on me. There are times when I wish I was 22 again, but I’m not. One consequence of getting old is growing up.

Some people are going black out of respect for this man’s family. Others are going underground due to the inevitable lawsuits that are sure to come. (If there was life insurance, you can be 100% certain the insurance company will exercise their subrogation rights to sue.)

Long story short, I did some rooting around on the Web and here is what I came up with:

1. The event was a PCE DE day, which means it was not a race for insurance purposes.
2. The temp the night before was in the 20s. I don’t know how cold it was when the accident happened.
3. The hose on a water cooled car blew somewhere around T9, spilling antifreeze on the track.
4. The car was a Porsche 930.
5. T9 is a fast right-hand kink. See attached track picture.
6. Apparently, the car hit the antifreeze and spun to the inside, crested the inside beam, and ended up in the trees.
7. The instructor died due to blunt trauma as a tree penetrated the cabin of the car.

Here is a you tube video of someone who spun slightly before where this accident, but on a different day. You will see the car eventually hits a tire wall. Apparently, the tire wall ended before the point where the car in question went off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Vm_G8sV7Y

Someone on the NASA forum posted this:

Again, I have no way of confirming the accuracy of the above.

Based on my search, no one is blaming the car, driver, instructor, or corner workers. The guy whose car blew pulled off immediately. The corner worker immediately threw his flag. (Although, some have said there should have been a flag thrown at T8.) Antifreeze is slicker than whale snot. So when the 930 driver hit it, no one could have saved the car.

The consensus appears to be settling into these camps:

1. Bad luck. My condolences. Move on.
2. DE days are toast. Street cars with 500 hp are accidents waiting to happen.
3. Ride along instructors are crazy. The Skip Barber approach is the way to go.
4. Even DE cars should not be allowed to run antifreeze. Even though it is a PIA, cars should be drained and refilled.
5. The track is to blame. This section is fast and the runoff is not adequate to stop people before the hitting the trees, i.e., there should be an Armco barrier.

One interesting point is no one is pointing fingers at PCA.

So what do you think? What lessons, if any, can be learned from this tragedy? Are DE days inherently dangerous?

This is not a trivial question. I’m thinking of taking my Cayman to TWS this weekend for a PCA DE day.

Dale
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r.i.p.

 

Dale:

I have been instructing and racing, running hillclimbs, etc., for 30 years. This was an unfortunate event and my condolences to Tom's family.

We all know that there are risks in life, as well as at the track. Thousands of events take place every year and there are very few incidents of any consequence. This was a perfect storm.... nothing more.

DE events, as well as most track days are safer than driving down the street in most cities. Take your car out and enjoy yourself.

 

http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/racing-and-drivers-education-forum/554590-sad-news-fatality-at-cmp-pca-de.html

 

You guys may be shocked at how ill-equipped tracks are for track days, let alone racing.

I have seen tracks where the only fire suppressant is WATER, or ABC dry chemical, which us useless in a fuel/oil fire.

When I get to a track I ask them what they use, some say 'we have foam'.
Foam is a joke because you have to pre-mix it, it takes several minutes to do so, and so far nobody pre-mixes it before an event because if they don't use it they have to dump it.
The next problem with foam is you need to 100% cover the fire, you cannot have ANY zipper openings or it will just open up again.
Foam is great if you have an open field fire of gas or oil, but not good at all if you have a car or two burning. Not a good choice.

I have seen a track that had the insurance mandated ambulance.
And ONLY an ambulance.
Nothing else in it but a stretcher, NO oxygen, no bandages, no splints, no medical equipment, and no trained personnel. It cost a guy that had a heart attack his life, but for the competition insurance, it passed 'legally'.

ANYONE that races, tracks, or works on cars in their garage should have a 20 lb self-contained extinguisher of 'Purple K' - that is the standard of the gas and oil industry.
Is $250-300 worth it? I think so.

Of course, there are differences between the tracks and personnel, requirements of the sanctioning bodies, obviously the bigger the better.

 

every DE I've ever been to has had at least one accident that put a car on a rollback; thankfully, no injuries. so yes, they are dangerous, and people need to respect the cars ability as well as their own, and be aware that things happen at speed...oil/coolant on the track, flat tire, getting caught in someone else's accident, etc.

I do think that removing coolant (running straight water or water/water wetter) is an easy solution and something that I would gladly do along with my tech inspection if need be. It's better than not being able to do track days at all...

as for the track, one would think that it would be designed so that it would be almost impossible for a car to have a direct impact with a tree. however, I've seen other tracks where that is a decent chance (i.e. Blackhawk Farms). IMO, track design was the fundamental problem here, with a slick track being a contributing factor.

As for ride-along instructors, I am always very aware that there is a human in the passenger seat whose life I am responsible for. I drive harder when there isn't an instructor with me, and I'm always surprised that these guys will take this risk with little to no compensation (usually their "compensation" is free track time).

 

Our prayers go out to the family, sorry to hear about the loss.

 

"So what do you think? What lessons, if any, can be learned from this tragedy? Are DE days inherently dangerous?"



Dale, yes, DE days are inherently dangerous. This certainly isn't the first track day fatality. The danger can be reduced but, as no doubt everyone who races knows, unforeseeable, amazing things can happen.

I've been on CMP a few times and don't even remember turn 9 as a turn. There's just no answer to antifreeze, or oil, suddenly appearing on the track in front of you. The same is true when a car suddenly spins in front of you. You do the best you can.

I'd hate to see DEs stop, as I think they are essential in bringing new blood into the amateur side of racing.

On the other hand, I no longer have any desire to spend more than a fun 3/4 speed lap or two in a street car on track; if I'm going to go fast, I want a cage and all the other safety equipment. I also am less and less interested in second and third tier tracks, partly for safety reasons.

The whole sport won't work in the US if:

- courts won't recognize that lethal risks can be completely assumed
- drivers won't assume risks intelligently

I suspect the usual lawsuits will now occur, as we saw in the sad Fontana mess of a few years back. I think the discussion of facts is important, though facts may be hard to come by.

 

I agree with you - I am now a 3/4 runner - I have had 4 Ferraris and at Cavallino this year it find of dawned on me how fast the speeds have become - we (I) are in street cars and no matter how good they are they are not race cars and don't dissapate the energy like one -

 

Dale, I think coolant should be removed. I was one of three that set up our track event for the FCA2004 event at Laguna Seca. I was also the assistant tech guy. The biggest problem we had was with getting entrants to get rid of the coolant and was our biggest enforcement problem. You should have heard the excuses.

You will have to drag them kicking and screaming but it should be done.

 

You would think it would be easy - 'do this or you don't get on the track, period'. And walk away. This is assuming folks have explained why they cannot run it beforehand. And if they don't want to drain it, that's fine, it's their choice (not to run), nobody is forcing them to.

 

Hey RD,

Sometimes overnight lows can get to the teens in the cali dessert where some racetracks are. Do you have any suggestions to prevent overnight freezing in racecar cooling systems short of draining them? Does water wetter in the water have any positive effect at lowering the freezing point of water? Or is there something else we can dump in there short of anti-freeze that can help?

 

Water Wetter itself has no impact on the freezing or boiling points of water like antifreeze does. WW's main goal is to work with the water and adhear to all the surfaces much better than water iteslf, in-theory providing for a better transfer of heat........

 

Dale, I did not know this...

So, if you get in an accident, even if air-tight releases are signed, and you waived the right to sue, a third party insurer can still sue? WOW. Scary stuff.

I assume the guy whose car spilled coolant will be named as a defendant. Who pays his legal fees? I assume he does, as surely his car insurance will not cover this. This guy will probably be sued by the deceased memebers family, the insurance comapnies, and who knows who else might jump in. This could easily bankrupt a person...

 

The temps at this event were in the 20's during the morning. No coolant is a great idea, just how do you make it practical to accomplish this?

 

what's the freezing point of water in a pressurized system (i.e. a radiator)?