About the timed pitstops for the enduro

jeff bacon

It appears the 2 minute timed pit stop has caused the most consternation of any of the enduro rules. The main reason we came up with that rule is safety. There will be some people, especially those with stock clone fuel tanks, that will need to refuel. If those people that are refueling are in a hurry, they could make mistakes and start a fire. If they have 2 minutes to do it, they can take their time and be safe about it. The second part is fairness. If someone who has a large enough tank and is an Ironman, they could run the whole enduro by themselves. Old men like me will have a tough time doing 15 minutes at a time. The two mandatory 2 minute pitstops will level the playing field for us old guys and those who have to refuel. It will be up to a teammate to time the stop, but we will have people in the tower checking that the timed pit stop is 2 minutes in length.

A suggestion has been made about a LeMans style start. Per Rick S., they used to have the karts lined up down the straightaway based on qualifying position with the driver in the kart. On a signal, a crewman would have to run across the track and start the kart. The karts lined up down the track reduced the chance that someone would try to win the race in the first corner (reduced, not eliminated). The crewman that got his kart started first got a small trophy as well.

Let me know what you think about these items.
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Jeff Bacon
2013 President GSKA
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jeff bacon · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject:

Any comments or feedback at all????
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Jeff Bacon
2013 President GSKA
770.315.2750
jeffbacon@comcast.net
www.jeffsgarageandspeedshop.com
www.gakartsales.com

clarence · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 3:45 pm Post subject:

sounds good, le mans
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Mr. Sideways

wesgreene · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 5:21 pm Post subject:

+1 for the lemans start.

One of my favorite parts about road racing is the start.

Southern Star Karting · Guest

I understand y'all are asking for opinions about the pit stops, I don't agree with the 2 minutes timed stop. I feel it will cause all sorts of problems.

some problems that the officials may encounter are

1- How do you time exactly the 2 minutes ? what happens if a driver only stops 1 min and 45 seconds , how do you penalize that driver.
2- how will the official timer know when the motor is actualy stopped and shut off, if 2 or more karts come in at the same time when and how exactly will the precise time be recorded?
3- I think you are opening up a can of worms that will create a ton of arguements and hard feelings if not very heated disscussions over 2 or 3 seconds.

these are just some problems that may occur and I am sure there are many more.

The purpose of this race is to promote clone racing , give the oportunity for drivers to have a fun day and to give some wanna be racers the chance to team up with a clone driver to expose them to the virtues and freindliness of the club. If a loop hole like this 2 minute timed pit stop is left in the race then we take the chance of some karters rearing their ugly heads and protesting a 3 or 4 second mistake by the officials and doing more harm than good to a fun event.

A suggestion might be that when the kart comes in the hot pits that the driver has to shut off the motor , get out of the kart and run ( or walk in the old guys cases like me) to the flag pole and sign in on a white board or something similar . This will maybe give you the down time you are asking for to make the pits safer. Also after qualifing the first choice of pit stalls will go to the pole winner and down the line. This will give a perk to the fastest kart by letting that driver choose a stall closer to the flag pole.If at the end of the race any team that has not signed the sheet twice will be penalized 4 laps for a illeagal pit stop.

thx
steve

Barry Copeland · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 6:06 pm Post subject:

You better hope the thing will start on the first pull. As for the 2 minute pit stop I think you should have active pit on green flags, that's what we do on dirt when we run 300 laps. You must make at least one stop.

Brantley French · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject:

maybe you can look into getting some folks to be assigned to 2 pit boxes (if there are 20 people thats close to 10 people) or maybe 1 to a box. these people just run off the 2 minute stop time as soon as the kart stops and turns off. kinda like the nascar officials in the pits but the official has to watch 2 cars.

RKS · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject:

After speaking with several people(most all of them racing the enduro race)that are going to run the race,they all think the 2 minute pitstops will cause alot of confusion.If you are 1 tenth a lap faster than someone and they leave the pits 5 seconds early each stop it would take you a hunderd laps to recover that.I vote on 2 pitstops with no time limit under green.There would only be a couple of people pitting on the same lap,so saftey would not be a big issue.Also i think only 2 people per team to do the stops,20 karts with 4 crewman is 80 people plus the extra drivers not running at the time.

Patrick French · Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:30 am Post subject:

With Endurance Karting, Johan Schwarz has the standard, timed pit stop rule, as well. All it takes for Johan is to have one person with either a stop watch or a digital watch and a clipboard who manages pit time. Upon entry to pit lane (or infield loop, I think someone had suggested), the pit manager checks off the kart number and entry time. Then, that kart has 2 minutes from that point to refuel, make adjustments, etc. After 2 minutes, the pit manager signals the kart crew to refire the engine, and the kart is off. It is entirely up to the driver of the kart, or the team members to get the attention of the pit manager for the stop.
I think Endurance Karting uses more time on each stop, maybe 4 minutes, but it is run exactly the same. It seems to work out there, so I have to think we could make it work here, too.
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Ihor Bilyy · Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:05 am Post subject:

Yes, they use 4 minutes, but they also have 6 hours races.
It is very easy, when you enter the pit and stop your kart, you or replacement driver will be given stopwatch and kart can be started after you return stopwatch with at least 2 minutes on it.
With all the traffic in 1 hour race, it will be seconds and minutes between karts, not tens of seconds. More important will be to choose right moment for the pit stop than being 0.1s faster every lap.