NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

That evidence my friend is exactly what I'm using the resource of the internet to find.. I heard, I read... did I state any of that as fact?

Jeezus Neal... hold my ****in feet to the fire why don'tcha....

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

Since this thread has turned into what it has..

I need to prove whatever I'm asking about before I can ask it?..

I got better response on facebook.... no wonder people don't come here any more..

I'm going to close this thread..

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

I'm going to leave it open long enough for the few of us who have read it can read why I'm closing it then it's going away...

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

I guess what pisses me off the most about your commentary Neal is that I opened this thread with THIS QUOTE

" I heard what I would have to call a rumor"

I then went on to ask if anyone else had heard this and, I think it was pretty clear that my intent was to learn more about this before speaking with Mr. Hisey this weekend..

sensationalizing.... give me a break

Ya' know... I'm going to leave it up, I've done nothing wrong posting it, I have a goal, that goal is still standing...

I usually try to be professional here, I can usually write much more rationally than I can speak when I'm angry.. calming a bit while writing last sentence, I'll leave it at that.

[Desertdawg]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

Wayners,

Thanks for leaving this open, Facebook is Facebook and that's a big problem for todays news. Speculation based news is very harmful.

I just want to be honest here young man. If you want to see this awesome archive known as AAFO Hangertalk move to the next level, things need to seriously change.

Theres a goldmine of archived stories and information here and a good beginning for a NCAR Historical Archive.

With that said, AAFO needs to be totally 100% unbiased in every way in its reporting.

Just my opinion, I care about this site and want to see it grow.

Hans

[wingman]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

I see nothing here to get angry about, and nobody is attacking the Webmaster. The terms "dangerous" and "illegal" get thrown around a lot by those of us who do not race. Making a big deal out of this without a LOT more information would not be a good thing. A simple query about whether anybody recorded some of the race communication would be fine, and that's what you did.

Why not just set aside the anger and let the subject develop, or not develop? Nobody here that I can see is advocating not looking at this, but speculation without at least some facts to discuss is pointless and just pisses people off. I know you like controversy and argument and disagreement because you feel it "drives traffic" and thereby improves the website. I've always disagreed with you on that one. I thought Dawg's last post was great -- I agree with his points about a possible future (and present) for AAFO.

What are you doing on Faceplant anyway, Wayne?? That place is genuinely dangerous and best avoided like the plague...

Neal

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

I see nothing here to get angry about, and nobody is attacking the Webmaster. The terms "dangerous" and "illegal" get thrown around a lot by those of us who do not race. Making a big deal out of this without a LOT more information would not be a good thing. A simple query about whether anybody recorded some of the race communication would be fine, and that's what you did.

Why not just set aside the anger and let the subject develop, or not develop? Nobody here that I can see is advocating not looking at this, but speculation without at least some facts to discuss is pointless and just pisses people off.

What are you doing on Faceplant anyway, Wayne?? That place is genuinely dangerous and best avoided like the plague...

Neal

Neal, I think you know me well enough to know that I react when I feel "attacked".. fairly obvious that I did.. I have a great deal of respect for you, yet sometimes I wonder if the feeling is mutual.

That said, I'm not sorry for "breaking" the "story".. I just would like to think that we have a level playing field for the players at Reno.. and maybe I do sensationalize without even thinking about it.. At whatever level, I'm a publisher, when I started this site, the internet was just an infant and I did what any publication does to attract attention to their story.. at that time, I was trying to build traffic.. at this point, I could care less about building traffic!

Unfortunately, facebook is home to many of my friends from previous days.. not many RareBear crew hang here, unfortunately but I can usually find them there. Face it, most everyone who used to be here is there now.. it is what it is!

Please do not think that I'm fool enough to believe everything I read there! far from it. Again, I posted as RUMOR...

But, with the millions of face book visitors, I'd wager there's more than one person there who had there radio tuned to that freq.. Should I avoid that source of information, as a reporter?

[RAD2LTR]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

I'm going to attempt to tread very carefully here. I have no inside info on what may or may not have happened, but I do have some car racing experience with this.

I've done a few car races over the years. I was doing 24 Hrs of Lemons racing (10 years ago there was some good racing to be had, not so much now.) We set the car up with a two way radio so that we could talk to the driver, and the driver could talk to us. Needless to say I've been on both ends, the driver and on the radio in the pit, or some vantage point where I could see all/most of the track. I was able to avoid several crashes due to having someone spotting for me. Conversely I've kept the car out of a mess by telling the driver that there was a pileup in turn X.

I could see this being very useful for air racing as when you are managing the car/plane at full speed its easy to miss something (like a plane that you have come up on that wasn't very visible and is now obscured by the wing) while you are busy looking for the next pylon. Have you guys watched some of the in cockpit video? Let me tell you, those pylons are tough to see at times, and they come up very fast. Pilot workloads get very high when you are going really fast. The ability to call a plane out that either you are coming up on, or is coming up fast behind you can be a big help. Say, you are Full Noise, and you have Strega and Voodoo over 100mph faster than you both dueling for position. A "Voodoo and Strega passing you in 3 seconds hold your line" not only lets the pilot know he's about to be either split, or passed high, and lets him also know that there will be wake turbulence following the fast movers and to be ready for it. Dreadnought passing anything but Precious Metal (I think the only aircraft to ever toss Dreadnought) is the same deal. Heavy and fast equals a big vortex following those wing tips. From a safety standpoint, I think every team should have this. The Unlimiteds are the only class where you can have a very large speed and weight difference between the planes on the course at any time. Heck, a Tigercat could be lethal to something like a Yak if the pilot isn't aware. That said, it sounds like the pilots themselves call out who they are about to pass, and where there are going to do it. ("Race 14, Race 7 passing high on your outside") In this case, race 14 might not even see race 7 until it comes out from behind/under (if in a bank like coming off 4,5,6) the wing or the airplane. Still the pilot being passed knows someone is near and will hopefully hold his line. With a team member on the radio, he can tell the pilot about where the passing plane will appear "He's passing on your outside, should appear from under the wing any second" Or "He went low, you can't see him until he comes out from under you, he will be outside you at the same altitude." (in a bank, under being perpendicular to the ground.)

Now, if someone is telling their pilot to block a pass, that is just bad form. Plain and simple. That should be an automatic DQ, but unless there is someone monitoring all frequencies, how do you enforce it?

Just my $0.02, with some experience of both being the driver and the spotter.

Will

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

I have been advised by some cherished mentors that I should lay low for now in this thread.. and I agree. However, since I'm guessing a lot of you don't frequent farcebook..

Eric Martin, Danny's son... you remember Dan Martin..

This is not random bull****.. this is from Eric on Facebook...

The fact that the unlimited class contacted The Doc before they even left Oklahoma and told him that he shouldn't even show up should tell you something is amiss.

I know I should lay low.. I just find this all amazing and can not, not.,, share..

[BellCobraIV]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

Neal is right, we had a plan for talking with Lyle on the radio. However Lyle didn't like to hear chatter on the crew frequency. If we were plus 3 seconds we didn't talk to Lyle except to give him the split at the home pylon. An example of that would be "Lap 3, plus 3.5" that meant he was starting lap three with a 3 1/2 second lead. Sub three second lead but more than two we would give him the split at the home pylon and the top of the hill. An example of the top of the hill would be Lap 3, plus 2.5. if his lead dropped below 2 we'd give him the split at home pylon, halfway up the hill, the top of the hill, and halfway down the chute. All of those splits were based on two stopwatches. Once he was passed the splits were called out on the quarter lap, until the lead was stretched out to 1 second, above 2 seconds we would call the split at the top of the hill and at home pylon. Once he was down by three seconds the split was called at home pylon along with the lap number. Regardless of the split time the white flag was always called. Outside of that we would answer any questions Lyle would inquire about. One person would talk to Lyle on the radio, one person would do the times. I never talked to Lyle on the radio. In 1988 as Lyle was coming down the chute Dave Cornell started telling Lyle how to fly the race. After the top of the hill on the pace lap it became obvious that there was no crew frequency Lyle was receiving. So he did it his way without our input. After the race when asked about the radio failure, Lyle said "The radio didn't fail, I turned the chatter off!" Lesson yif you talked too much on the radio, he'd turn the switch off. Lyle was big on watching the shadows of the other planes on the ground. Mac realized that and at the Mojave race when he passed Lyle right at the finish line, the next morning at breakfast told Lyle he was waiting for the part of the course where his shadow wasn't visible to Lyle and snuck up on him....that spot at that time of day was the finish line.

In a mayday situation we met the fire trucks at the edge of the ramp and followed them to the plane with one crew member to direct the placement of the different chemistry tanks located in the plane. Due to the complexity of the systems on the Bear this was actually as requested during the fire department briefing early in the week when the crash teams visited the pit.

[Guest]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

I'll offer my $0.02 on both issues...radio comms and the rumor mill.

Comms:
From a safety of flight standpoint one could probably make an argument that classes should investigate the development of SOP's for on-course comms designed to ensure a sufficient margin is maintained between overtaking/overtaken aircraft. I loath the comparison of NASCAR and RARA. Does each sport have a motor and a man...yes. After that the comparison start to fall apart fairly quickly. I don't know if NASCAR requires comms between spotter and driver but perhaps it may be worth drilling down to see if it makes sense for RARA and the classes to do so? Dunno. Simple fact is...we don't trade paint at Reno. Not without serious, if not deadly, consequences. Do we hear chatter between pilots about overtaking...all the time, and rightly so. The classes do much of this already as both professional courtesy and SOP. Some moreso than others. Perhaps that's enough. Consider how many laps have been run at Reno over just the past decade. Some 5,000 or so. And how many mid-airs have resulted from overtaking. Count them on less than one hand.

Rumor:
Wayne posted a blurb from FB that was worthy of posting and discussion. That said, I'll pile on. Consider the source...and I believe that's what Wayne was illuding to in his post. Perhaps I misread it. Some keyboard cowboy posts something he heard from someone else who overhead radio comms, or something akin to that. Could it be as simple as exactly what has been discussed here? Teams with comms advising their stick jockey as to position and split times on each lap. I'd wager a fair amount of Wayne's bank account that is exactly what our anonymous FB poster heard from his buddy who heard it on the radio. Classic stuff..."It must be true. I read it on Facebook."

Bottom Line:
Forums such as this and most any other exist and survive based on well-founded and not-so-well-founded discussions and opinions. Remember...they're like @$$holes....everybody has one.

[Lon Moer]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

Well, Eric Martin is not "Some keyboard cowboy", he is one of Dan Martin's sons and has been involved with air racing since he was 8yrs old.
As we all know, the Miss A team used some of the RRIII/Dago Red go fast parts this year and that would put Brent Hisey and Dan Martin in repeated direct communication with each other.
I'm confident in Eric Martins information sources.

edited

[wingman]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

I'd be quite careful in listening to Eric, who sometimes has his own agenda. If such a thing was said, there may well be a lot more to the communication than what was "reported" on Faceplant. A single one sentence post without context on a medium that encourages unfounded inflammatory bull**** should not be construed in any way as truth.

Neal

[wingman]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

Hey Lon -- you mixed up your posts. Owen's comment had nothing to do with Eric's Faceplant post.

Neal

[Guest]

Re: NASCAR STYLE SPOTTERS ON THE COURSE??

Hey Lon -- you mixed up your posts. Owen's comment had nothing to do with Eric's Faceplant post.

Neal

Thanks, Neal. That's correct and I apologize for any confusion. Appreciate the clarification.