Blackhawk airfence

[r1owner]

Hey, I just finished watching Megastructures on Discovery channel... they built a huge freaking island off the coast of Dubai in just two years!!! 

Come on and move the fence already!!!!   Just kidding!

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

But Dubai doesnt have to deal with IL DNR and the Rockton City Council.

[r1owner]

I agree (as far as planning goes).... are you telling me most of this enormous cost comes from those two sources?

[gkotlin]

Since we can't fix it through engineering in the short term, what can we do short turn?

Can we do a fund raiser track day to buy more airfence?  Get some items for an auction?  I've considered some of these ideas.  I don't yet race, but really want to.    The guy that crashed in that turn is Barry Dolan.  As he stated, tire walls are not soft.  From what I heard, the bike went over the wall, and he somehow missed the airfence. 

It seems that the CCS midwest does a number of races at this track.  It may be in our best interest to work to help them find us solutions that we can implement now.  I can't imagine you can ever have to much airfence. 

Perhaps a heavy duty chain link fence is in order on top of that concrete wall.  We'd have a real hard time getting anything done if they were busy dealing with a lawsuit because someone was hurt by a bike that came over the wall into the spectator area.

[HAWK]

See the MCRA raffle at the top of this forum. See how many people you can get to sign up. The proceeds are going for air fence at Gateway and will be available to CCS as well. Every little bit helps.

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

From my own painful experience in four, It seems like the rumble strip should be removed at the outside edge of the track.  Hit that while you're sliding, and it acts like a launching ramp.  (Hard on the ribs, too....)  Now you and the bike are airborne until you hit the air fence.  You don't slow down much when you're airborne.
Just a thought, but what if turn four had a chicane?  All it would take it to knock down a few trees at the inside of four, then lay some asphalt to make the track jog 90 degrees left, 45 degrees right, 45 degrees left.  You could even leave the original pavement there for the cars, just like at Road America.  Gordie?  Does this seem feasable?

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

Even better might be a 45 degree left, 90 degree right, 45 degree left slalom-type chicane between the bus stop and four.  Again, you'd only have to drop some trees and add some pavement on rider's left between the bus stop and four.  If the last 45 degree left blended into the radius of four, it would turn four into a 135 degree corner that would mostly see low-speed highside crashes as riders tried to get a good drive into five.  The current runoff would then be sufficient, because the bikes would probably stay on or near the pavement when they crashed.

[251am]

Was it just me or was there a lack of airfence at blackhawk this weekend? I know there was'nt any in turn 2 and it was bugging the S@#T out me!

+1 Go off the line in early AM practice in T2 before the asphalt has warmed up and you've gotten 1 step closer to God. Well, your suspension guy anyway.     

  We need to start up an Airfence fund for BFR. How many sections of fence do we need for T2 and how many trees need to be removed before it can be properly seated in place? I believe addressing T2 would be a good place to start, for now.

  Start in T2 and move on to the T4 area where it sounds like A LOT more is involved than just money and input from the riders.  

[JBraun]

I don't want to hear that it's too big of a deal to take care of this. If the barriers can't be moved right away, fine. why not make some effective gravel traps. Ten or fifteen feet of deep pea gravel between the track and the wall could save a few trips to the hospital.
I'm a contractor, I'm not just shooting from the hip here. The construction is no big deal. If this project was as hard as it gets, I'd have it easy.
Drainage isn't even worth bringing up, it's just not an issue.
The DNR can be a pain in the ass, I deal with them weekly, but you can work with them, just get used to them saying "no" the first time.
I realize the track needs to make money, I don't work for free either. But I think it's a lot easier to make excuses than get things done.

[weggieman]

#1 if this was a motorcycle track only these changes could possibly fly with no problem...but it's not. Cars and go karts also race here and they all have input into any track changes. For instance, that rumble strip on the outside of four is for cars. I agree it shouldn't be there but I'm sure SCCA had something to do with it's existence.

The "bus stop" was put in to slow down traffic into four. Before that cars were getting over that wall...... Now a few years later bikes and cars have progressed in speed and handling so the wall again has become a problem. There are much fewer crashes there now than previous to the bus stop though.

As I said, I have some ideas for 2 and 4 that I will submit to Blackhawk ownership. At least it may get them thinking about changes. Turn 2 is a piece of cake, cut trees and move guard rail.....no dirt to move, no walls to move, no air fence needed.

Turn 4 is a different animal to deal with. Remember, any change you make to one turn is going to affect the next turn or two so this has to be carefully planned so the flow of the track doesn't get messed up or you cause a problem in the next turn. The plan laid out by "professional track people" for the last change there would have made turn 5 very dangerous yet those people never saw that. All they looked at was turn 4. thankfully track ownership didn't listen to them.

Deep pea gravel may work great for bikes but SCCA doesn't like it. Ever try to get a car out of that stuff?

A lot of courteous letters asking for changes will help but it won't happen over night. I would rather see them take time and make the changes right than mess up the track.

Just my two cents...............

[r1owner]

#1 if this was a motorcycle track only these changes could possibly fly with no problem...but it's not. Cars and go karts also race here and they all have input into any track changes. For instance, that rumble strip on the outside of four is for cars. I agree it shouldn't be there but I'm sure SCCA had something to do with it's existence.

Although I don't like that curb, I can understand where they (SCCA) want (and possibly need it).

Turn 4 is a different animal to deal with. Remember, any change you make to one turn is going to affect the next turn or two so this has to be carefully planned so the flow of the track doesn't get messed up or you cause a problem in the next turn. The plan laid out by "professional track people" for the last change there would have made turn 5 very dangerous yet those people never saw that. All they looked at was turn 4. thankfully track ownership didn't listen to them.

Changing the distance to the wall is not changing the track flow at all, so it shouldn't affect what happens in the next turn.  The only thing I could see is people seeing the extra safety factor of the distance and pressing even harder in turn 4, that would cause speeds to increase into 5.

Deep pea gravel may work great for bikes but SCCA doesn't like it. Ever try to get a car out of that stuff?

They don't like it?  WTF cares... lets have them pay the multi thousand dollar repair bills for each bike that hits the wall then.  I'll put up with their curb if they can handle a little gravel.

A lot of courteous letters asking for changes will help but it won't happen over night. I would rather see them take time and make the changes right than mess up the track.

I agree.

Let's say for sake of argument they could move the wall back the prescribed safe distance.  Would you rather see the medium be  (gravel, dirt/grass, or pavement)? 

I would almost argue for pavement since if you do overshoot, you have a chance to either slow down enough to stop or make the turn off track.

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

The elevated curb can go. They use flat rumble strip curbing at alot of other tracks. That would eliminate the launch zone. I dont think SCCA requires the elevated curbs anymore.

As for gravel traps. I've been in them with cars. Drove through one and came out carrying 15+lbs of gravel which proceeded to come out ON TRACK. Yes they are a pain to get cars out, BUT they are also a PITA to get the bikes out. Also if someone goes down in that stuff, get the bike back up and heads back out then whats the next bitch? Theres gravel on the track. Then we have to take time to clean up all the gravel thats all over the track. Then you have to rake the gravel where the bike was if the gravel is mucked up alot. Then we are now dealing with people bitching that it takes too long to clean.  And not to mention the pea gravel DOES find its way into airboxes rather easily. Also there really isnt much room in T4 for a gravel trap large enough to stop bikes. Bikes still can go over the wall even with the gravel.

As for "They don't like it?  WTF cares... lets have them pay the multi thousand dollar repair bills for each bike that hits the wall then.  I'll put up with their curb if they can handle a little gravel.", well SCCA is BHF's bread and butter. Track was built for cars. BHF is a hell of alot safer now than it was when I started racing bikes in 99.