NHIS weekend

Victor, I hope you have a full and speedy recovery. I've just started running with the SCCA this year, but met you years ago at a COM event. In any event, here's looking forward to a full and speedy recovery.

Congratulations Andy on taking top honors on Sunday. :D

This was my 3rd weekend running ITA, and despite a not-so-great weekend, I've had a ton of fun meeting and racing with you guys. This is the first weekend that I've noticed a good collection of EP cars in our group. They definitely made my weekend, shall we say, more "interesting". :unsure:

Oh, and apologies for my fumble in T3 on Saturday. Broke too late? Track a bit greasy? Probably a bit of both. In any event, Dick's fender and my left rear wheel bet unexpectedly, which resulted in a pirouette at the exit of 3. Glad nobody else was collected. (insert blushing-red embarrassed smilie face here).

Cheers,

Will
#72 ITA Miata
1.6 liters of furious power!
 
As the picture continues to improve for Victor I wanted to congratulate Ritchie H and Andy B for their victories on Saturday and Sunday. Truth be told Rithie was ready take P-2 on Sunday to feed me my lunch just before the "full yellow" came out. Tried to press the issue with Hunter on Saturday with Andy's absence but got too hot in T3 followed by some back markers and I just couldn't get back to his TEG. Andy got a good jump Sunday and was not within my reach (a full straight away??? - which one), for the first five laps. Congrats to both - Nicely done. :happy204: :happy204: No more excuses about cutting my teeth on the TEG. She was fun to drive, drift and slide - I seem to be getting a little more confident with the new ride. We'll keep on tryin'. :D

We will keep Victor in our thoughts and prayers.
 
1: It wasn't "some tires in front of some trees", it was some tires in front of the concrete Jersey barrier in front of the trees. A Jersey barrier that was hit so hard it was knocked over on it's back side. (Or is that the "front" side?) That the barrier was knocked over wasn't initially know, IIRC. I remember the comment about the barrier being moved, but not how much. From the local flaggers location (other side of the track), they may not have been able to tell it had been flipped over.

2: It was first called in as an Emergency because of the hard hit. The next call form the flagger on the corner was that Victor had signalled he was OK but the car was bent enough that the doors were jammed and could not be opened. The initial response was to deal with what was known. (Driver OK but trapped in a bent up car.) The call was downgraded because the driver had signaled he was OK. Initial response was, I think, "Mountain Rescue" (which I understand has a set of "jaws") and an ambulance because it was a hard hit. Things called as a hard hit get an ambulance to take the driver to in-field medical even if the driver says they are OK.

2a. The fact that the Jersey barrier was flipped over wasn't known until the flagger from the other side of the bowl ran with a fire extinguisher all the way around the outside of the bowl. A fire extinguisher that weighs about 1/4th of her entire weight. And, yes, that worker was "Alice".

3: After a few minutes, Victor called his crew over their radio and said he was injured and they went to tell the pit lane ambulance, hence the very rapid upgrade in response. (Second rescue truck, second ambulance, wrecker, tilt bed, etc.)

4: The checker was thrown with a few minutes on the clock because there was only time to have one race lap at the end, if that, but certainly not enough time for two laps. Yet another lap under yellow was kind of pointless.
 
Just came from seeing Victor at the hospital. He said to tell you all thank you for all the good wishes, etc. He expects to go home tonight with a back brace. The Hahns certainly made a difference. His injuries would have been MUCH worse, had he not had it. He's in no pain, without pain killers :D and has belt bruises, bruises and a cut on his shin and two cracked vertebrae - V1 and T12, I think he said. He will be back as a worker as soon as he gets the ok. He's in good spirits. And they are taking excellent care of him at Concord Hospital. Even let his wife sleep in the room last night.
Trish
 
Glad to hear Victor is going to be OK. I was about 4 cars behind him and just about at the trackout of 6 when I saw him in the gravel and then hit the tires. I could tell it was a pretty hard impact, but was past before I could see if he was OK. I didn't see anyone ahead of me driving offline. Does anyone have any idea what the cause was? Was there any contact with another car or maybe a mechanical failure?

This was only my first weekend since the spring school. It has been educational racing with you guys.

Congrats to Andy on his win, he was GONE after the first few laps.

Gordon
#10 ITA
 
Great to hear that Victor is ok. It'll be better when I get to give him a 'point by' when he's lapping me (like most front runners) in his next race.

During the school in April I walked with a group during Sat lunch time. When we got to the top of the bowl Dick P and myself were talking about how the track had removed the jersey barriers that made a wall that extended off of the other barriers and past the trees. During THAT conversation we knew that someone would eventually hit the tree. From a safety standpoint I think the SCCA needs to talk to the track about putting that wall back for road course racing.

Victor, get well fast!
 
First and most important... I am glad to get the reports on Victor. I am glad that he is ok. I have enjoyed watching him on track chasing down the front guys. He has always from my vantage point been one of the "cleanest" racers on the track. Unfortunately this year has been tough on him. I hope for a speedy recovery and in a new car soon!!!

As for the rest of the weekend (Victor we cant give you all the thunder from race reports can we B) )...

We had an outstandingly horrible results weekend. Up to this point this season we have had a lot of success, however neglecting the cars for a couple races really showed.

Pre Gaming-

We bought a 45' two car enclosed trailer from Phil who is a long time racing supporter of a few of our favorite "famous" drivers such as Eric Curran as well as Stef Funk and the rival Ed Funk. Many other race cars have been hauled with the trailer in its long history, maybe we should ask Phil for more of the history. At any rate the trailer is friggen awesome IMO and fits our needs perfectly. It needed some TLC as it had not been used for a little while and so we decided to give it some fresh paint and redo a few other odds and ends inside to better suit our needs as a storage facility as well as shop at and away from the track. The outside has not been painted however I think we have secured sponsorship from a company who would like to see their logo on the outside. The deal would be that they will pay to have it painted!!! Sweet deal for us, and once it does happen we will certainly post the business name in hopes that all will support them. Anyway long story cut short we spent a lot of time working on the trailer instead of the race cars. I have to give props to Phil as he went over and above to really help us out with the trailer making it feasible for us to get the trailer and continue racing this season. Our TLC went a little overboard as we really found ourselves enjoying the new "toy." We certainly found you can spend a lot of time on things even though you have no money to spend!!! Phil I think you will like it when you get a chance to see it!!!

Race # 1-

On Saturday the Canadian's (Derek and Rob) came down and kicked @$$. They qualified blistering fast and were able to maintain a great pace through the races. I was running in 3rd place (I think) trying desperately to hold of Derek when I went off in turn 12. The car launched off the "hole" and flew across the motorcycle chicane. Derek estimates that I was about 3-3.5 feet off the ground. When the car landed it "pancaked" the bottom and the fuel regulator (located in line between the fuel pump and the engine) ripped off the car resulting in the fuel pump simply pumping fuel onto the ground. Luckily for me no fires but I was out of the race on lap 4. My brother gave them a run for the money swapping positions with close side-by-side action but about 3/4 the way through the race we had our first ever real motor failure (We did have 3 motor failures in our drivers school and first ever race 6 years ago, but since then we have never had any issues even when overheating the engine). Somehow Stephen blew a head gasket between the 4th and 5th cylinder as the car overheated to the point where it ceased the motor. The engine heated up so much that the header cracked (thus the loud noises). Every time we have ever "overheated" the motors before they always blew a radiator line someplace, not sure why this didn’t happen this time. Also the water temp only read 240 which is hot but we have run that high before. With him out Rob and Derek ran away with first and second. Tim Mullen maintained an excellent pace for a very solid third place. The rest of the field was a blast to watch from the outside of turn 1 as position changes were occurring lap after lap.

Saturday Night/Sunday Morning-

After the race was over we decided to change Stephens’s entire motor. The only issue that we had is that we did not have a complete motor assembly to put in, so we had to build one at the track using parts from the motor coming out of the car. This is a huge undertaking in any car never mind an Audi. HUGE props go out to our crew for staying up with us till 4:00am in the morning to finish the job. After we were done some of us slept in the trailer for 2 hours while others just jumped in the front seat of their trucks... Family & Friends brought in a change of clothes in the AM. Another HUGE prop goes once again to Northeast Racing - Bob Smart who came over just to say hi (mistake on his part :rolleyes: ) and ended up helping for over an hour get the motor and tranny to line up. From other posts it sounds like others were up most of the night as well, we feel your pain, still today ;). Unfortunately we were the first race group and because we did all the work at the track we were unable to test the car to see if it would start until it was basically time to go to grid. As suspected the car didn't start. I went out for qualifying and did ok, considering the cars condition. While I was out on track the crew continued to work on Stephens’s car. They discovered a short while after the qualifying was over that I had not connected a vacuum line, thus the car was not getting any fuel. With that fixed hopes were up as Stephen would just start from the back. Once again bad luck struck after all this work when Stephen went to start the car again he had a hard time and when investigating he found that they had no oil pressure. With that they called it quits and he decided to watch from the sidelines. It was very frustrating as it was hours and hours of work and he wasn't able to race. In the end though we did learn a few things; don’t carry a spare engine; it’s not worth changing by itself. Carry a complete spare engine/tranny and everything else that goes with it assembly and do a simple full swap.

Race # 2-

All the bad luck has to have passed right??? sure :-P

The start was a bit messed up.. Did anyone else notice that the right lane seemed to have fewer cars? I thought I was gridded next to Tim Mullen and the next thing I know he looked to be 3 rows ahead of me and I was sitting next to people I didn’t expect? Anyway not sure what happened there but it was a bit disturbing… When the green flag dropped we were as per the usual 4 or 5 wide going down into turn 1. I had visions from April ITA race as I was way down on the inside so I played a bit cautious but still ran right down onto the apron and passed quite a bit of cars. Going into 3 I passed a few more and I was happy to be in 4th place. I was right on Tim Mullen’s tail trying to chase him down as I watched an amazing battle brew between the Canadian’s for 1st & 2nd. As the race progressed my car got more and more ill handling. The car got a huge push on left hand turns almost to the point where it wouldn’t turn anymore. Jim Mc Mahon, Eli Garrett, and Tom Kelly were gaining on me rapidly and I tried to hold them off, running side by side with Jim for 3 laps or so. With about 3 laps to go the car didn’t turn in 12 and I went almost straight off this time in turn 12 with another wild airborne ride. It was certainly exciting for a second until I realized that I had almost no control at all and I was heading head on for the turn 4 NASCAR wall. It is amazing how no matter how hard you hit the brakes the car won’t stop if you are in the air. The car landed on the bottom of the nose, which unfortunately is where the oil pan is located for all those that don’t know Audi’s. The oil pan got crushed and most likely broke the oil pump pickup. In addition to that the Camber plates got bent up to about the hood. The car shut off immediately upon impact and will not restart… Not sure exactly what is wrong and it will probably suck to fix. During that same lap Eli tried running the oval full throttle and had the same results Matt did and smacked the outside wall in turn 2 ending his race. Derek and Rob went off for the win with Tim Mullen solidly in third again. Jim McMahon finished 4th and Tom Kelly finished off the top 5.


So in the end for us we broke 2 maybe 3 motors and we broke some suspension resulting in 3 DNF’s and a DNS… But we had some excellent pulled pork at the “pig roast” and we had a blast!!! It was great to see everyone and we are looking forward to the next race!!!

Raymond “Tired” Blethen

PS: I would like to once again thank the crew for all the dedication as well as Northeast Racing-Bob Smart for his help late Saturday night. I am sure you all know the best place to get your Hoosier tires as well as your welding done!!!
 
>>> The car shut off immediately upon impact and will not restart… Not sure exactly what is wrong and it will probably suck to fix.

Silly question:

Do you still have the frontal impact shutoff switch in the wiring harness?
 
>>> The car shut off immediately upon impact and will not restart… Not sure exactly what is wrong and it will probably suck to fix.

Silly question:

Do you still have the frontal impact shutoff switch in the wiring harness?
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Not sure if the car came with one. Will check it out though!!! Thanks

Raymond
 
Hi all, from all your support and the well wishes, this is a terrific community!

As Tish mentioned, I have 2 compression fractures on my spine, the T12 and L1 vertebrae, and they are stable (not protruding (for now) into my nerves). I have bruising on my sternum and light bruising on my shoulders, from the HANS yoke and belts respectively. Small cut (2 stitches) in my left shin (dashboard likely). Slight soreness in neck/shoulder muscles, which I strongly feel could have been very very serious if I weren't wearing a HANS. I'm doing ok, I can walk and wiggle all my extremeties. I have a back/torso brace which I'll have to wear for 6 weeks, and am on bed rest for a week or so.

So what happened? I'm not sure. Will talk later when I'm rested.
Thanks for all your well wishes, special thanks to the whole crew at BB Racing, Noam Levine and I'm sure many others for packing up my car and stuff.
Regards,
Victor Gangi
 
Victor-

Glad to see you are doing well and you were able to make it home!!! I am sure that I can speek for everyone... If you need ANYTHING at all let us or someone know, we will all miss you and your car until you are back!!!

Raymond
 
I'm very glad to hear you're ok Victor.

This image was sent to me Sunday night, I think it illustrates the severity of the impact.
 
Vic, I was HORRIFIED when I first got word via telephone that you were injured last Sunday. I am ELATED to hear that you're (reasonably) OK. You're in my thoughts, man; speedy recovery.

Greg
 
Victor, thank you for posting. I as well as everyone else here is very happy it was not worse, although I certainly don’t envy you spending the next six weeks in that brace.

Add me to the list of people you can call if you need anything at all.

As to the cause of the incident, this is admittedly 3rd hand, but I was told that a driver in the next race group commented about you skid marks. He said there were three straight dark marks and one wobbly one. Makes me wonder if something broke. I drove by the incident 10 times but did not notice that but I guess I was paying more attention to the progress of the extrication crew.
 
I'm all for bucolic charm and an unspoiled landscape and all that good stuff, but is it perhaps time to take a look at the back side of NHIS and ask ourselves why there are bleepity-bleepin' trees :o in the path of our bleepity-bleepin' race cars (not to mention motorcycles)?

Steve U
05 ITS
Flatout Motorsports
 
Victor, it's good to hear from you and that you're doing ok, all things considered. I had an accident several years ago that resulted in a couple of cracked vertebrae, a plate in my neck, and a neck brace for seven weeks. That wasn't a whole lot of fun, but I came out of it just fine after giving it some time.


Andy, congratulations on the win!

Ok, after this and watching Joey Hand's accident at Mid Ohio a couple of weeks ago, I'm going to get off my ass and stop putting off getting a head and neck restraint system.
 
Glad to hear you are doin well Victor.
As to the incident where was the #51 GTL when this occured? I had heard he blew his gear box or something. Maybe hit some oil?
 
special thanks to the whole crew at BB Racing, Noam Levine and I'm sure many others for packing up my car and stuff.
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Victor - Glad you're out of the hospital and on the road to recovery.

BIG kudos to the whole community (I must admit I had only a very small role in helping get everything together after the race) - people showed up, packed gear, winched a not-completely-rolling car onto the trailer, brought rope for the tarp, etc. etc. It's heartening to see the community come together to help a friend, sucks that it takes this kind of incident to realize the strength of that community sometimes..

-noam
 
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