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Originally posted by cstreit
Seems to be an east-coaster though.
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What's wrong with that???
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the thing that really gets me is that the guy is trying to get his novice sign-off. Yet he CLEARLY makes a bad decision. There is NO ROOM for bad decisions on the racectrack. None.
I've failed students that were good drivers but made a bad decision that they 1) Had enough time to think about, 2) Stood nothing to gain from their maneuver, 3) Should have just been patient and made the decision to be careful in order to get their license.
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Apparently the SCCA stewarts were in agreement with you. If this was his second regional on his novice permit, it was his last requirement prior to getting signed off. If he didn't get signed off, he'll have to do another regional on his novice permit (essentially on probation). I'm pretty sure that the chief stewart(s) had a talk with him when they returned the unendorsed novice permit.
That being said, I guess I'd have a hard time with the absolutest statement "There is NO ROOM for bad decisions on the racectrack. None." My experience is different. I've made errors on-track. So have others. A test that I've heard used by the SCCA stewarts in my region is "Would I want to be on-track and race with that guy". If the answer is "yes", you get signed off. If the answer is "no", repeat the process. In my case I had a couple of false starts before I got signed off. Ironically, I crashed in one of the last sessions of the last school prior to me being signed off for my first regional. What's up with that?
1) While I hadn't necessarily crashed in my earlier schools, I was still inconsistent on track. I failed the "would you race next to me" test.
2) In my last school I was spotless the entire event. In the last lapping session prior to the "practice starts" I saw one of the instructors coming up behind me in a FF2000 (I was in a Sports 2000 and had pretty much the fastest car of the students). I chose to back off on my braking zones a little to ensure that I would finish the school, basically I was driving about 80% rather then 90% or 95%. The problem was that by doing this I started braking while turning and cresting a hill. I looped it and backed into the wall.
3) After the event the instructors came by and asked me what happened. I told them. They were fine with that and signed my novice permit and gave it back to me. I could go racing!
My point? To err is human. How you recover is almost more important then the fact that you erred in the first place. The driver in the video compounded a minor error (chosing not to leave the grid in order) with a major error.
We're in violent agreement. He didn't deserve to move to the next stage of his race training yet.
PS: A certain (non-Rookie) M. Schumacher did the same thing (to a lesser degree)
at Silverstone in 1994.