CF race DQ "story"

[stonebridge20]

I just wanted to clear the air on what happened with our DQ in the CF race as there seems to be a LOT of speculation. We win as a team and we lose as a team. In post race impound we were found 5-6lbs light. The car weighed 1094 facing one direction and 1095 facing the opposite direction. When we saw the numbers we were very confused as to how the car could have come in that light as it "should" have come in at 1105+ as it did in impound after qualifing. JT and I looked at each other with disbelief as to what could have made the car come in at that low weight. At that point I remembered JT saying over the radio that he was pushed off track coming through T13 by a "treaded tire FF" after the restart. I asked him what kind of water temps he saw towards the end of the race and he said he saw 260F but it "started to come back down toward the end" I then went over to the car and looked in the radiator screen and saw it was packed with grass. My first thought was we must have pumped out a bunch of water and the extra fuel used for the checkered flag lap must have been the weight we "lost" We were told that the car was non compliant and could leave impound. We talked with the stewards in impound about what "may" have happened and was told that it didn't matter the car was "non compliant as raced" Ray and I towed the car back to the trailer as it didn't have enough fuel (VP12) left in it to even give a full bottle for the fuel sample which was taken, Most likely due to the extra checker lap taken. JT stayed in impound to try and plead his case some more. As I got to the trailer, JT came running up from impound and said the stewards wanted the car back in impound. We towed it back down and put the car back on the scales where it weighed 1095 again. We were told to take the car off the scales and "see if it takes any water" Prior to putting any water in the car, a steward weighed the gallon jug of water we were going to add to make sure it was real water and not clear liquid lead or something. I then started to pour. The car took the full gallon and a half a gallon (from the water tap next to impound) more. We then put the car back on the scales where it came in at 1105lbs. At that point, thinking we would be shown some mercy but still feeling like crap we were told that "the penalty would stand" and we should protest the stewards decision. We filed a protest. The protest was not well founded and we did not appeal the decision as we just didn't have the time or focus to do it. We turned our focus to the DB6 as we were NOT going to make the FF grid if we spent anymore time beating a dead horse. That's what happened, Period.
All of us on the team feel like crap about this but we are all provided a rule book as part of our membership in SCCA. The rules state that the car must weigh 1100lbs minimum as raced.

Congrats go out to Nicky Coello who drove one hell of a race and to his crew who deserve the win

[EffOne]

class act.

[RobLav]

I need to meet this man. Will look for you at LRP this weekend. Class act - agree.

[dc]

I have photos of the car spraying water down on the track up into T6 on the checkered flag lap, Mike. Must have been REALLY close on weight. That's really too bad, Jeremy ran a great race through massive traffic.


Lessons learned, though.

[John Merriman]

Yes, a classy response to a tough situation and yes, it's "by the book". But I don't buy the stewards action. What they've done is go by the "lettter of the law" and failed to use common sense. Clearly the car was over minimum weight when water was added. To take an extreme case, what if a car leads a 30 lap race and as it approaches the checker flag, the rear bodywork flies off. The car is now underweight but did it win the race? In fact, what if two cars tangle and the leading car crosses the line but then barrel-rolls and is trashed. Did he win? I'd appeal to National.

[Clyde]

For racing to be fair to all; You cannot move the rules around from one race to another. How much slower would the racecar have been if when you set it up you would weigh it DRY, no fluids at all! No oil, water or fuel, would it be slower at the "Club" level. This is NOT F-1 and even those guys know what the penalty is for being underweight. The last thing I want to see is that the rules be "Adjusted" by the stewarts per race.

[cooleyjb]

So I went and looked at the times they crossed the line on mylaps.


Treadway 1:05:34.215

Coello 1:05:34.249

34 thousandths of a second separated them.

So yes it's a totally reasonable DQ. If he was clear of the field by 10-15 seconds or more maybe there is some leeway as 10 pounds won't make that much of a difference but this close every little bit counted I bet.

[stonebridge20]

So I went and looked at the times they crossed the line on mylaps.


Treadway 1:05:34.215

Coello 1:05:34.249

34 thousandths of a second separated them.

So yes it's a totally reasonable DQ. If he was clear of the field by 10-15 seconds or more maybe there is some leeway as 10 pounds won't make that much of a difference but this close every little bit counted I bet.

So as for 'not in the spirit' I would consider advertising a car that didn't officially win as the winner more 'not in the spirit'

Joe, You are absolutly correct in that the car should NOT be advertised as the "winning car". That has been corrected.

What I think your wrong about is the fact that the car came in 5lbs light and not 10lbs light. It is also now fact with photo proof that the car was pumping out water on the checkered flag lap. What that tells me is that the car was most likely in compliance as raced. There were no reports from any corner station of car #112 leaking any fluid during the race.The checker flag lap is not part of the race as there is only one car in the entire class that gets to do a checker flag lap. I think it also needs to be taken into consideration that the almost 4 mile checkered flag lap must have burned a couple of pounds of fuel also as we should have come in after the race with 1/2 to 3/4 of a gallon left in the tank as we planned. It did not as we could only pump 1/2 a bottle of fuel for the fuel sample. By rough estimate,...1.5 gallons of water is 10.5lbs 1/2 gallon of fuel for the after the raceis over checker flag lap is 3.5lbs. The car crossed the line .034 seconds in the lead weighing at least 1109lbs. Oh,...it probably used some fuel on the cool off lap also which is part of the race so it crossed the line more like 1113 like it did in impound after Q2.

Leave it to me too beat a dead horse

[problemchild]

I wondered why there was no cool-off or victory lap with the Swift That is 9 miles worth of fuel.

I think the pic with the coolant spray on the victory lap says it all if trying to establish any intent. It was a great race between two champions on a weekend celebrating champions. In some perverse way, maybe it's OK that we have two winners ..... one official and one unofficial .... as both put in awesome drives and both deserved to win!

JTs drive in the National was a masterpiece. I heard one whiney crew member complaining that it was too bad the rain did not come earlier so they could have changed tires and had a race. Well, they had a race, and JT kicked butt!

BTW, never met Mike or Jeremy. I would not know either of them if I drove over them with a truck. I am a fan though!

Great event!

[Dennis Valet]

In the end, it was fantastic to watch Treadway and Coello dice through lap traffic while racing nose to tail. I was in turn 5 taking pictures and I can say that the very large crowd that was watching in that turn was thoroughly entertained. While it would have been nice for the result to be drama free, it doesn't cheapen the spectacle that was the CFF/regional FF race. Everyone I talked to during that race was thinking the same thing

"wow, this is awesome"

[dbardell]

The rules state that the car must weigh 1100lbs minimum as raced. It did not and we will except the penalty.

Congrats go out to Nicky Coello who drove one hell of a race and to his crew who deserved the win.
__________________
Mike Agnifilo
Stonebridge Sports and Classics ltd

As Mike stated above, their car did not meet the weight rules when neccessary. I know Niki added additional lead the morning of the race "just to be sure" that he met the minimum at the finish. He weighed in at 1111lbs after the race.

Now for the rest of the story. Niki set the fastest qualifying time and won the race with a right front tire that was nearly flat as they could not correct a leak in the rim.

With "maybe one hour seat time" in the car before Friday... it goes to show he is one heck of a driver and Champion.

[FVRacer21]

Shades of NASCAR and "do we have enough fuel left for a Green/White/Checkered".

A good question would be is how much is every 5 lbs worth per lap? Normally I would scoff that it would make that much if a difference but with that close a finish.....

Maybe he should have gone off track on the checkered lap and picked up some dirt?

There was a FF driver around 1982 who was the surprise winner of his race. After impound he went back to his trailer and took about 15 lbs of sockets out of his race suit. Now he was 30 lbs over so it was just "insurance", but I wonder how he would have explained that had he been caught?

Now that we weight the car and driver, could you drink a gallon of water while waiting to be weighed? On a serious side, if you cut it that close, you might loose 2 - 5 lbs during a hot national race.

ChrisZ

[Matt King]

It's for times like this that the "lead" water bottle was invented.

[Wren]

Good to hear the rest of the story. I saw JT being driven off the course by another car at canada, it was a bizarre move as Treadway had the other guy covered and as he went by easily in the braking zone, the other guy jerked his car to the right and ran Treadway off the track.

The corner workers talked about it for a while and I thought they were going to call it in as intentional blocking. That was what it looked like to me.

I will say that the stewards decision makes sense to me. When Brandon told me that he was going to take a victory lap, I confirmed to him that he had enough fuel for it and I was still nervous in impound.

[Purple Frog]

If you weren't there you can't imagine how close the racing was. Especially when JT was following NC. Both drivers must have amazing car control to have not lost it many times.

The noses did not look like this when we took pictures on grid.

[Stan Clayton]

Yes, a classy response to a tough situation and yes, it's "by the book". But I don't buy the stewards action. What they've done is go by the "lettter of the law" and failed to use common sense. Clearly the car was over minimum weight when water was added. To take an extreme case, what if a car leads a 30 lap race and as it approaches the checker flag, the rear bodywork flies off. The car is now underweight but did it win the race? In fact, what if two cars tangle and the leading car crosses the line but then barrel-rolls and is trashed. Did he win? I'd appeal to National.

I placed 2nd at a National at Buttonwillow in '07 missing my (Cheetah) nosepiece. The Stewards were clucking their tongues as I pulled up to the scales, and one of them told me how sorry he would be to DQ me for being underweight. They were all quite relieved when I explained that the nose weighed only 40 lbs, whilst I was 100 overweight...

[Larry]

Typically:
Gas = 6.5 lb/gal
Oil = 7.5 lb/gal
Water = 8 lb/gal

The car must meet minimum weight as it exits the track. There is no requirement to do a victory lap, and therefore no calculation to be used for fuel consumed during a victory lap. While I would personally hate to give up a rare victory lap, if I'm within 5 pounds, I'd probably do everything possible to ensure that I made weight. In any case, if you cut your weight to within 10 pounds of minimum, you're asking for trouble. It could be due to a black flag or missing piece of bodywork, but the GCR is clear. Any steward that would ignore an underweight car could be protested for his decision, and I would expect the SOMs to vigorously uphold such a protest by penalizing both the car and the steward!

Larry Oliver
Erstwhile national chief steward

[JeremyT12]

Sorry it took so long to get on the site, as we all know when you're away from the business and you get back there are lots of problems to take care of...

Mike said it all! We are very disappointed in the outcome! However that does not take away from the incredible race that I had with Niki and Andy. This was the first time I had a chance to race against either driver and both of them have my respect. At anytime during that race we could have moved any of us out of the way and we did not....that means you saw 3 good drivers in an awsome race and that's what we spend all the time and money waiting for, races like that. Thank you all for a memorable weekend and one I hope we hold onto until the 50th.

[Frank Del Vecchio]

JT - you could have and should have drunk a gallon of water after the race or had the FD replacement driver weigh in. You would have been 35 lbs overweight!

You are dah man - great race and great event.

Uncle Frank

[hsrcd]

1.5 gallons of water is 12 pounds (a pint's a pound the world around)

And our fuel usage averaged across the whole weekend shows a fuel usage of just over 0.7 lb. per lap (4 miles).* Pace laps, cool off laps and checkered flag laps would require much less fuel than racing laps so would lighten the car less per lap.

*Figures are for a Club Ford. A regular Formula Ford, being more aerodynamic, would consume less.

[Frank Del Vecchio]

in the northeast when we seriously raced nationals in the 70's and 80's - I remember cars being allowed to add water lost in similar situations - oil also if the motor blew crossing the finish line.............

[stonebridge20]

I'm gona beat the dead horse a little more.

We never questioned if we had enough fuel in the car to make weight after the race or even after a checkered flag lap. The car would make weight if it had zero fuel in the tank which we already knew. The fuel used for the cool off or checker flag lap is a moot point. The problem is we had no idea the radiator screen was plugged with grass from being "pushed off" during the race coming out of T13 by a slower car and with the amount of cars being towed and retrieved, Jeremy took an extra slow checkered flag lap so as to not run over any corner workers that were on track. The car did not dump any water in the race or cool off lap. It dumped 1.5 gallons of water on the checkered flag lap (see steam and water in photo above) which was not part of the official race. If the car dumped 1.5 gallons of water during the race or cool off lap, how long do you think the engine would have lasted? If the car dumped 1.5 gallons of water during the race, Nicky's car would have been covered with Water Wetter residue which it was not. His car was clean in impound. We were asked by the steward to refill the car with water and re weigh the car. We filled it with water and it weighed 1105lbs. Period. The part of this whole deal that really gets under my skin is that, Jeremy usually does not do checker flag laps. I got on the radio with him as he rolled down pit lane and told him to do a checker lap. We were trying to stay in the spirit of the event. Maybe the spirit of the event should have come our way a tiny bit also. Yes, it stings a bit and probably will for a while, hence the no checkered flag lap in the DB6 which came in at 1120lbs

Todays rant over. Sorry!

Side note: The thought of sockets in the pocket, lead water bottles, soaked firesuit's or what ever were never even thought of as an "option". We don't roll that way and never will!

[Jeff Jagusch]

I was in turn 5 watching the entire race, my crew cheif and I commented on the water pumping out on the checker flag lap, going up the hill, it was dumping out at a huge rate!

Too bad it had that affect on the race results!

Jeff

[R. Pare]

Had you had more time available to gather evidence, etc., it is possible that you might have won the protest - almost no way could you have finished the race if the engine was a gallon low on coolant. The fact that the following car was clean of any coolant and water wetter almost conclusively demonstrates that the car lost the water on the flag lap, and not before. The conclusion therefore has to be that the car almost assuredly was above minimum weight at the end of the race.

Whether or not that storyline would be convincing to the stewards is another matter!

However, the fact that the temps went to 260 and then dropped tells me that you probably lost a portion of the water in the system, at least enough to uncover the temp sender. When exactly in the race did you see those temps? The timing of that will most likely be a good indicator of when you started losing water. Been there, done that.

I'd go through the engine thoroughly before racing it again!

[andyllc]

Sorry it took so long to get on the site, as we all know when you're away from the business and you get back there are lots of problems to take care of...

Mike said it all! We are very disappointed in the outcome! However that does not take away from the incredible race that I had with Niki and Andy. This was the first time I had a chance to race against either driver and both of them have my respect. At anytime during that race we could have moved any of us out of the way and we did not....that means you saw 3 good drivers in an awsome race and that's what we spend all the time and money waiting for, races like that. Thank you all for a memorable weekend and one I hope we hold onto until the 50th.

Jeremy
It was great to meet all of you and race with you as well. It was unfortunate we had the same problem as you, only much earlier in the race. We were running very strong in the race and I thought it was just going to be us two as we had created a big gap to third and fourth until the caution. However under caution I felt the car to stumble and we saw under the black flag that we were losing water pretty quickly. I told my dad I was just going to go for it and see what happened but as soon as we got rolling again I knew we were toast, I couldn't get it to even rev out of second gear on the restart so we parked it at the end of the pit straight. Im looking forward to the next time we race each other and good luck at the Runoffs.

[EYERACE]

if i know for certain that i'm going to be really close....on occasions i have on purpose simply parked the car soon after the checker and a little cool down coasting in an effort to make weight - sorry if everyone else must wait while i'm towed in to impound - but i made weight - not sorry if i made the impound officials wait

[dc]

I was in turn 5 watching the entire race, my crew cheif and I commented on the water pumping out on the checker flag lap, going up the hill, it was dumping out at a huge rate!

I said the exact same thing to myself. I saw him go by as I was snapping the victory lap in 5 and thought, "uh oh, that's not good."











It's unfortunate that a gallon and a half of water left on the track should have caused the race results to be changed after the fact.

[stonebridge20]

Had you had more time available to gather evidence, etc., it is possible that you might have won the protest - almost no way could you have finished the race if the engine was a gallon low on coolant. The fact that the following car was clean of any coolant and water wetter almost conclusively demonstrates that the car lost the water on the flag lap, and not before. The conclusion therefore has to be that the car almost assuredly was above minimum weight at the end of the race.

Whether or not that storyline would be convincing to the stewards is another matter!

However, the fact that the temps went to 260 and then dropped tells me that you probably lost a portion of the water in the system, at least enough to uncover the temp sender. When exactly in the race did you see those temps? The timing of that will most likely be a good indicator of when you started losing water. Been there, done that.

I'd go through the engine thoroughly before racing it again!

Richard,
You bring up a very good point in "When exactly in the race did you see those temps? " I think Jeremy did still get the data downloaded off the CF in all the confusion but I'm not positive. I will call him tomorrow to find out and post it here. He has a memory like a steel trap. If he didn't get the data then I'm sure he will remember what lap and what part of the track he was on at the time. After we took the car out of impound and back to the trailer for the second time, we were in shock. Going to the FF race grid was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. The thought of our peers looking at us as cheaters was truly humiliating. I know in his 15 years of on and off racing, Jeremy has never been bounced in impound because I have been there for all 15 years. In my 25 years of racing I got bounced one time for not having Nomex socks on. Well I didn't get bounced, it cost me $50 to keep my qualifing times. Hey,...I was on pole!
I really do appreciate all the comments and info from everybody here. Without all the input, photo's (Thanks Doug and Dennis) and eye witness accounts, I would never have been able to piece together the true facts in what really happened. What matters most to all of us on this team is that we are not viewed by the people we value most as cheaters. The people of the open wheel community. Trophys collect dust and end up in the attic. Judgements last forever.

Thank you all again, Mike

[stonebridge20]

Doug, Thanks very much for posting these pic's. If this pic is going into T5 and the car is pumping steam then there was "some" water still in it to make the steam. The car at this point has pulled the hill out of T14 running well enough to beat Nicky to the line. The car at the point of the above picture has done a full cool off lap. It has rolled down pit lane with no trail of water or steam or I would never have let Jeremy go out for the checker lap and stopped to get the flag at the end of pit lane. It has driven all the way to T5 for this picture. Common sense tells me the car dumped 10lbs of water somewhere between at least T4 on the checker lap and the scales so it must have weighed a minimum of 1105lbs when it crossed the finish line.

Thanks again Doug!

[BWC54]

Common sense tells me the car dumped 10lbs of water somewhere between at least T4 on the checker lap and the scales so it must have weighed a minimum of 1105lbs when it crossed the finish line.

I was at Turn 3 when he passed with the checker and he was dumping something there. When I saw it I thought it was oil from the gearbox. But now it makes sense that it was water and not oil.

[stonebridge20]

[QUOTE]

Had you had more time available to gather evidence, etc., it is possible that you might have won the protest - almost no way could you have finished the race if the engine was a gallon low on coolant. The fact that the following car was clean of any coolant and water wetter almost conclusively demonstrates that the car lost the water on the flag lap, and not before. The conclusion therefore has to be that the car almost assuredly was above minimum weight at the end of the race.

Whether or not that storyline would be convincing to the stewards is another matter!

However, the fact that the temps went to 260 and then dropped tells me that you probably lost a portion of the water in the system, at least enough to uncover the temp sender. When exactly in the race did you see those temps? The timing of that will most likely be a good indicator of when you started losing water. Been there, done that.

Richard, I just got the Data print out's by fax from Jeremy.

GPS was set at pit out and represents 0ft for the start of a lap and approx 21,520ft for the finish of a lap.

Start of last race lap 0ft @ 238F. 20,520ft @ 238F with no rise over 243F over the lap

Cool off lap 0ft (at pit out after the checker) @ 238F with a drop down to 210F @ 14,000ft and a steady rise to 246F @ 20,520ft (pit out where the checker was handed to JT)

Checker flag lap 0ft the graph line goes off the chart as we only sample to 250F there is a dip to 241F between 4,000ft and 5,200ft and a dip to 233F between 17,000ft and 19,000ft with the line over 250F for any other foot marker on the checker lap

The car has a 14-16psi cap.
14 X 3deg = 242F boiling point.
16 X 3deg = 248F boiling point.

I'll fax you the print outs if you want. Thanks for your input

[dc]

Doug, Thanks very much for posting these pic's. If this pic is going into T5 and the car is pumping steam then there was "some" water still in it to make the steam. The car at this point has pulled the hill out of T14 running well enough to beat Nicky to the line. The car at the point of the above picture has done a full cool off lap.

Past T5 going up the hill to T6...



It was spewing water from the time i saw the car enter T5 to the time it disappeared over the hill in T6.