What a disaster.
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What a disaster.
A friend sent me an X link to a good view of the hit. Obviously massive.
Hard to find through all the internet bs, but bottom line: FP1&2 are a complete loss. FP3 is still on for tonight, as scheduled at 11:25pm EST?
Kicking ALL the paying fans out of the stands and viewing areas before FP2 because the security staff shift ended ?!?!
Now thats the way to build a brand LOL LOL
clown show
Well I guess that means Sebring is still too rough for F1 also.
Maybe LV can just put a large cone on top of the manhole cover. :cone:
Maybe two opposing tire walls and turn it into a chicane
Maybe everyone in LV will be so drunk, no one will notice
Maybe the Officials will ignore it and think of their manhole bump the same as the 'hump' everyone steers clear of on the short Casino straight that leads towards the downhill / under the ramp / extreme slow left hander 180 Portier at Monaco
At this rate, they NEED security.
What a bloody embarrassment. A friend’s been texting all the way through.
Here in our StudioBus, we get no F1. Blessings counted. And today’s sunrise is great.
We must focus on the positives. It may suck, but at least it’s both expensive AND exhausting.
Actually it was a water valve cover. About 6 inches in diameter.
Don't know of they missed it, didn't weld it or what. But they pulled them all and filled with asphalt.
I'd be surprised if they don't break a valve/pipe causing a water leak on track!
Someone's going to have fun getting all that asphalt out of the holes after the race.
I thought it was the concrete around the cover that failed, otherwise they would have just welded them all down.
If you want to look further into the ridiculous crap that is F1, Ferrari gets multiple grid place penalties due to having to swap out the car, because, you know, we have rules.
One of these days they'll have to build a tester to go over the track to look for problems like this - maybe a jet engine blowing past a venturi to generate enough suction. It happens too often to not have a good handle on it.
My DVR only allows me to set extended time for 2 hours after the recording is scheduled to end.
Won't be enough for this BS event.
Perhaps we will be able to watch it live at the usual 8ish time we are used to watching F1 on Sunday morning.
.:):o;):confused::p
That is a very good idea.
They did weld the covers, but this would be the first time they have seen the cover frame dislodge. I can imagine that the paving contract called for new cover frames to be used to correct the height of the cover. In normal applications there would not be any concern about lifting forces acting on the cover/frame. Does anyone know if the cover extensions have a mechanical connection to the old cover frame?
At least they were prepared for the unknown after it happened.
Brian
Did someone put SCCA in charge?
So the frame failed. Normally covers/frames like this are cast iron. Maybe welding caused it to crack. Cast iron is not easy to weld properly.
Brian
Anybody welded Chinese cast iron successfully?
Sometimes. Mostly, the extensions slip on and then paving is completed. I worked for NYTel(Verizon when I retired) and our 300 pound covers got welded for Presidential visits. I doubt a telco manhole cover could get sucked up, but hey, I don't know the level of suction an F1 car has.
That little water valve cover didn't weigh much of anything. Mostly those little covers have a locking mechanism.
IMHO, I think that one cover was missed. Isn't the problem cover on the part of "The Strip" used for the track? As such, the flow of traffic there is non-stop 24-7-365. Easy mistake to make given how busy that area is.
Another view… hard to say…
This same type of thing happened at Pocono in the 80's at an RCCA Race. The track we were running used T3 and T4 of the 3/4 oval. They'd take two sections of guardrail out of the back straight where we'd enter the oval. They would put a steel "Plug" into the hole in the asphalt where the one guardrail post came out of.
I can't remember the guy's name that came in and bottomed out on the plug and flipped it up enough to tear the floor and his heals out of the car. It was pretty gruesome.
Sainz got lucky.
I remember the posts for the pit rail which were removed for road races. The holes were covered with well plugs which used a central screw to expand the two halves of the plug to grip the pipe in the ground. Done properly they worked fairly well. Done improperly .....
Fortunately the FV and FF of the day didn't have the same downforce to suck them out of the ground.
Some of those removable posts are still used by the current pit rail near the Gasoline Alley road (where the south end of the 3/4 oval came into the Main Straight). They are static now and never removed. I saw them during a track review a couple of years ago and they brought back memories (none as gruesome as yours, fortunately).
Now there's a Class Action suit over the LV F1 problems...........I'll guess the Lawyers bringing the suit will use their profits to buy an even bigger billboard
Pretty sure the law is “Billboards in Las Vegas *must* be larger than lesser cities, not to exceed a football field without the sidelines.”
A friend texted the following from a news source unknown to me…
”A local Las Vegas law firm has filed a class action lawsuit against the Las Vegas Grand Prix over the practice cancellation and delays that occurred on Thursday night.
Fans with one-day tickets were offered a $200 voucher for the official Las Vegas Grand Prix store as compensation, while there was none publicly provided to those who are on three-day passes.
[They're] seeking damages “on behalf of the 35,000 people who purchased tickets” and didn’t get to see practice take place.”
“Wow” is all I got right now…
A $30,000 claim per person for the "mental anguish" of missing out on an hour of a sporting event tells you everything you need to know about our country's ****ed up legal system...
this is why we can't have nice things
edit: I didnt type "****ed", that was Apexspeed toning me down LOL
Ian, it said it was on behalf of 35,000 people — no dollar mention beyond a $200 credit per, unless you’ve read something beyond my post.
So far as our legal system, you nailed it.
In regarding the asterisks, I’ve noted that they don’t kick in with “buck” or “shin” or “ash.” ;-)
I'd be surprised of the tickets do not have a limitation of liability on them.
If they don't there is a lawyer somewhere looking for a malpractice defense attorney because the damages could be actual!
That said, the damages are to the events public perception.
Think I read all damages are paid in Caesar’s Palace tokens, redeemable starting the day they tear it down.
At least I’m reasonably sure that’s what I read. ;-)
Seriously, imagine this being your first if not only GP of your life. Ticket prices, as high as they are, don’t touch airfare, lodging, rental car, time off work, hankies, stars-and-stripes onesies, post-race therapy, the lot.
So very glad I don’t get to watch, any first-timer would have to focus on complex knitting to fully recover. (LOL)
Interesting how the very late start times with it's associated low temperatures and the very smooth street grade asphalt surface made for a very good race. Very few contacts with the with the walls. As was stated during the broadcast, the race had all the attributes of a rain event.
Brian
yup, very clearly said "in excess of $30,000 per person"
will try to find and post it
found it: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/l...ions/10548631/
Thanks for the followup, Ian.
Cops removing fans, great look!
The total sought is $1.05 BILLION. Let that sink in a second. But fans definitely have more coming than a $200 gift voucher, just so the LVGP memory lives on in branded jackets or whatever!
So Yeah, after years of training in the “lower” formulae, ambulance chasers have finally reached F1. :mad:
I hope the whole Vegas GP ship goes down before our international reputation takes on *any* more water.
Actually, I believe that gaudiness was a critical, necessary part of the concept. The Vegas F1 race was sport, married to spectacle, married to gambling. All of which becomes pure content gold. (See also: Drive to Survive.)
The truth is that hard-core open-wheel fans, such as the Apexspeed community, have become peripheral to the F1 business, which is closer to show business than to pure sport. (See also: content creation.)
All that said, and ignoring a few teething problems, I gather that the race itself was one of the best of the year.