Date sent:        Wed, 3 Sep 1997 22:31:54 -0400 (EDT)
From:             RandZimmer@aol.com
To:               rwelty@wizvax.net
Subject:          wnyr sept. article1-workers

The View from a Corner
by Bob Gabri

My original intention was to write an article about my two races at Mid Ohio
in June, and another article about my two CART races in July. But somehow I
put all four races behind me before even starting this article so I’ll do a
lot of combining of information.
My first trip to Mid Ohio was the TransAm race there. For once this was not a
support race, so it got top billing.
On Saturday I worked station eight, the middle of the esses. The
communications there is a hard line, so only the phone person knows what’s
really going on. I usually use my scanner when I’m allowed and today nothing
was said to the contrary.
When the World Challenge cars came out to practice, I heard someone in
control mention to the safety trucks on station to watch out for a certain
car with “hood problems”. Sure enough, about a minute later I knew what they
were talking about. Here comes a Camaro with his hood up, and I do mean up.
His hood was all the way open and laying over the windshield and the driver
was doing his best to look forward through the one inch space at the base of
it. I guess this will mean another long meeting with the pit crew again.
When I am working the Yellow Flag position I try to stand facing the track
rather than have my back to it as a lot of other workers do. I feel much
safer this way and I can react quicker. The TransAm cars came out to practice
next and I was at the Yellow Flag position, keeping an eye on the cars as
they pass the apex of the turn and head down the hill toward station nine,
always being ready to throw the flag should someone spin on the track, or
off. All of a sudden, I hear this tremendous crash really close to me and
there was absolutely no warning at all from either the other workers or the
sound of tires being locked up. Greg Picket drove his Camaro straight into
the wall right across the track from me and ricocheted right past my
position. The practice was black flagged and his car went in with the
wrecker. We later heard that his throttle stuck wide open at this very
important braking point.
In the afternoon practice I heard that car Number 6, Picket’s number, was
coming out again and I watched for it to see how good the crew repaired the
car. After seeing Tom Kendall’s car go by, and then see it go by again less
than a minute later, I figured something was fishy. Watching the two cars
closely again, I see that one of them has a “6” on it. Looks like Picket’s
crew isn’t done with the car yet and Greg needs a qualifying time to start
the race anyplace but the last position.
When the cars start the race Sunday, I see that Picket is still in Kendall’s
back up car, but for this race, his sponsor’s name is on the car along with
his number. On the scanner I hear that when Picket is in the pits for
service, his crew is not allowed near the car. All work is handled by
Kendall’s Jack Roush crew. Some things must remain secret. Picket worked his
way up to second place during the race, but a missed shift coming off corner
three dropped him back to third, where he finished. This is a great job for
him to jump into a strange car and do so well.
My next trip to Mid Ohio is for the Vintage race there put on by SVRA. On
Friday I’m at station 15, the start of the carrousel and working alone
because of a shortage of workers.
With SVRA, drivers are required to go into the pits if they go off course or
hit something. One of my jobs at station 15 was to inform race control if a
car pits after hearing on the radio about a spin elsewhere on the course. If
the car doesn’t pit, the starter is ready with the black flag when he starts
another lap. The car will continue to get a black flag until he pits. Also, I
inform race control when a car pits if the car is being watched for problems
with it, such as parts coming off, spilling gas, dumping oil, etc.
Western New York’s own, Lauren Fix, was there with her Mustang. She was very
popular there and the corner workers were talking about her every few laps.
They were making comments about the blue smoke coming from the back of her
car. It was slowly getting worse, and eventually she pitted and we didn’t see
her go around anymore that day. Saturday she was back out, but without the
smoke. Everything looked fine from where I stood. I wondered if she had a
spare engine there or had to make a quick trip back to Buffalo to get one.
Later conversations with her found out that it was a leaking rear seal, which
was replaced.
My next race is CART at Cleveland. This is my eighth year with CART, with my
first being at Cleveland, 1990. It is run on the runways of Burke airport,
which are long, flat and HOT. This is a great viewing area for the spectators
in the stands. They can see everything from this one seat, all they have to
do is bring binoculars because the other end of the track is so far, far
away. This distance also makes it a little difficult for the workers to judge
distances of the cars. When I was blue flagging the TransAm, the cars were
coming at me from such a great distance that I could not tell if a pass was
being started of not. It also didn’t help to have the sun low on the horizon
behind them making a glare off their hoods and windshields. I did miss a few
of the opportunities because of this.
Of my three days there, nothing happened at my corner except for Juan Manuel
Fangio II pulling off at my corner on the last lap of the CART race on
Sunday. I really don’t know what happened to his car, but he got out of it
and just stomped away leaving us to figure out what was wrong with the car.
We threw some water on the hot fiberglass to cool it off and called for a
wrecker. Oh, by the way, Greg Picket had his car fixed by then, or at least a
replacement.
My last CART race was at Toronto. I was assigned to station 8, which is a 90
degree right hand turn which is blind around the corner. Of the people
assigned to the corner, five of the original seven from my station last year
were there. The worker who did the communications for that race did not come
this year because it brought back too many memories of last year’s accident.
This corner is very deceiving and if it is not done right, your car will
probably go in on the wrecker. We also had a run off area and a lot of cars
went through it, this being a lot safer that trying to back into traffic.
On a street circuit, the course is pretty much a tunnel of concrete barriers.
Our impact zones were well protected by double layers of banded and netted
tires. Some of the tires used for protection will also project out into the
course making the lines tighter through the turn. Throughout the practice and
qualifying of Friday and Saturday we had to shut down the track with a red
flag at least a dozen times because of the numerous accidents at our station.
Because of the blind turn and the speeds of the cars coming into it, we had
yellow flags on both sides of the track just before the corner. A little
extra protection goes a long way. During the Formula Atlantic qualifying
session we had a car spin into our run off area, this happened frequently, no
big deal. Immediately both yellow flags went up waving. About two seconds
later a car hit the tires at the exit of our turn and stopped there with
damage to his car. There were also tires scattered onto the track. This
happened in the blind spot just around our turn. A few seconds later a third
car came along. He saw the car that was stopped in the runoff area and
assumed that the waving yellow flags were for that car and continued around
the corner at full speed. He crashed into the second car and now we have
almost full course blockage with cars coming at us at over 75mph into a blind
corner. I figured that there would be other drivers thinking the waving
yellow flag was for the first spin and repeat what had just happened to cars
two and three, so I jumped up on the concrete barrier and waved the flag in
the most exaggerated pattern that I could. I figured right and there were a
lot of locked tires and surprised drivers. The red flag came out but cars
were still coming around at a pretty good clip. The cars in the corner were
making their way around the wreckage in a slow manner so I dropped the flag
and used hand signals to get the next group of cars to slow down and I did
everything I could except jump down on the track and stop them.
A bit of warning to drivers coming upon a waving yellow flag, don’t assume it
is just for that one car that you can see spinning in front of you. The
workers can see around the corner into the blind spot and already know what
you’re about to be surprised about. They will try to warn you as best as they
can so you have to put your trust in them.
With all the things that had happened in the last two days, I figured that we
would get at least one bad accident on race day. It never happened. Yes,
there was a bad crash in the first corner of the first lap and the race did
go full course yellow before the cars got to us. But we had a nice quiet day
and got to see some real good racing without having to do any work.