1/24 Eurosport Results

[oldweirdherald]

2004 USRA Scale National Championships
Raceway USA
Portland, Oregon
April 13 - 18, 2004

OWH's "Almost Live" coverage Sponsored by Parma




Thursday - April 15

1/24 Scale Eurosport
Twister Track

Concours: Ray Bishop

Qualifying

1 - Lee Gilbert - 3.0260 - WA
2 - Mike Stahl - 3.0318 - OR
3 - Paul Gawronski - 3.0421 - NorCal
4 - Greg Gilbert - 3.0460 - SoCal
5 - Jonathan Forsyth - 3.0807 - SoCal
6 - Don Perko - 3.1307 - CO
7 - Alicia Gilbert - 3.1462 - WA
8 - Ray Bishop - 3.1513 - UK / WA
9 - Herman James - 3.2157 - NorCal
10 - William Burnside - 3.2285 - FL
11 - Roy Hood - 3.2609 - SoCal
12 - Jamy Johnson - 3.3161 - WA
13 - Frank Sarkela - 3.3238 - NorCal
14 - Harold Rowe - 3.3611 - NorCal
15 - Chris Radisich - 3.4094 - NZ / SoCal
16 - Gary Johnson - 3.4360 - WA
17 - Jason Stone - 3.4993 - SoCal

B Main

1 - Chris Radisich - 510
2 - Gary Johnson - 606
3 - Jamy Johnson - 602
4 - Frank Sarkela - 583
5 - Harold Rowe - 582
6 - Roy Hood - 527
7 - Jason Stone - 476
8 - William Burnside - 345

A Main

1 - Paul Gawronski - 660 (was on a rail)
2 - Mike Stahl - 653 - (munched gear near end of heat 7)
3 - Greg Gilbert - 647
4 - Herman James - 632
5 - Ray Bishop - 630
6 - Don Perko - 572
7 - Alicia Gilbert - 553
8 - Jonathan Forsyth - 526
9 - Lee Gilbert - 159 (put in wrong lane at start of heat - broke)

1/24 Scale Eurosport - Overall Results
17 entries

1 - Paul Gawronski - 660 - NorCal
2 - Mike Stahl - 653 - OR
3 - Greg Gilbert - 647 - SoCal
4 - Herman James - 632 - NorCal
5 - Ray Bishop - 630 - UK / WA
6 - Chris Radisich - 620 - New Zealand/SoCal
7 - Gary Johnson - 606 - WA
8 - Jamy Johnson - 602 - WA
9 - Frank Sarkela - 583 - NorCal
10 - Harold Rowe - 582 - NorCal
11 - Don Perko - 582 - CO
12 - Alicia Gilbert - 553 - WA
13 - Roy Hood - 527 - SoCal
14 - Jonathan Forsyth - 526 - SoCal
15 - Jason Stone - 426 - SoCal
16 - William Burnside - 345 - FL
17 - Lee Gilbert - 159 - WA


A Main and Overall results sheet got left at the track when doing awards...

Racing went until around 3 AM after some lap counter problems and late start...

Then about 30 of us went to the Denny's next door - the poor cook worked his butt off to cook for all of us!


Complete results, pics, and commentary to be updated later.

I need some sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!



OWH 2004 USRA Scale Nats Photo Gallery



http://www.parmapse.com

[circuitguy70]

Mikey

[Hirevin]

Thanks for the lack of sleep update and good luck racing....

Kev and Cody

[CruzinBob]

Great run, looks like the competition was pretty tough!

Sad to hear of Lee Gilberts bad luck.

Wish I were there..too much going on here!

Thanks to Parma, Paul n the gang for the coverage.

[oldweirdherald]

Bob,

It was definately unfortunate.... but certainly not a case where any provisions could be made.

Unfortuantely, the car was put on the wrong lane at the start of the heat by his pit runner, and believe me, he feels as bad as Lee.

It is, however, the responsibility of the driver to get back in the correct lane, and it is always a good idea to check your car before the power comes back on.

Definately an unfortuanate accident... but there are many other unfortuanate ways to lose a race as well.

[Ben Taxel]

Definately a bad break but ...10 seconds...check car....5 seconds double check controller 3..2..1..

[Slidergreg]

Luck had nothing to do with a 60 year old being the TQ in 1/24 Eurosport at the USRA Nationals.

You guys should have seen the look in Lee's eyes as he squeezed the trigger during the qualifying run. That was a man on a mission.

It was great to see ol' Grumpy showcase his awesome talents as he cut us fast guys. Looks like we are lucky he is too busy building customer cars and earining a living to get serious or we would all be in trouble. He's still got it.

GEEZERS RULE!!!

Greg G.

[topkat]

when possible find the lap sheets from both the computer and human hand counters. the race is over you have made the results official.you made the best out of a bad situation but thats not enough.this is the nats not the stone age nats. what would the wing car racers have done. the race i was in and the one u reported were two different races.(1/24 euro) the results are in serious question

[mark g]

But Everyone knew there was problems with laps being counted. You guys should have raced on one of the other tracks after the first problems.


P.S. You won't have those problems next year

[Slapshot]

Ahhh gentlemen....Human hand counters? Some one want to fill us in a bit more on what went on??? Where you using an Abacus instead of the computer?

Raymond

[LoudCat]

Originally posted by mark g
But Everyone knew there was problems with laps being counted. You guys should have raced on one of the other tracks after the first problems.

Not according to the rules. What to do in these type of situations is clearly spelled out.

C. LAP COUNTER

1. The lap counter will be considered correct unless it can be proved otherwise. The counter should be corrected if necessary (as when a car crosses in the wrong lane). If a major error occurs in the counting process that cannot be corrected, the race director may at his option:

a) Assign responsible stewards to count laps or verify the counter.

b) Add or subtract mutually-agreeable laps as established by race officials and drivers.

c) Restart the segment.

d) Restart the race from the latest possible point.

[brassy]

Perhaps it is time to seriously consider the idea I've proposed for the last several years:

Set up a video camera on a tripod pointing at the start-finish line and record every heat. On slo-mo replay, the race order could be reconstructed fairly easily. This would be a low-tech, low-effort analog of the same method used by the SCCA to provide a backup lap counting system at their races. (I assume they still do something similar; it's been 30 years since I worked in timing and scoring for that organization.)

Everyone's pooh-poohed this idea in the past, but betcha Herman wouldn't do so now. This is the Nats, fer chrissakes, and we ought to be smart enough to take advantage of relatively inexpensive technology to provide a back-up lap counter.

A few years back, one raceway in Tennessee had a video camera bracketed to a wall and it was used to videotape the races. It was situated where the entire track could be seen. On re-running the tape after a series race, it was noticed that a particular racer's pit man was moving his car ahead substantially at every lane change. Said racer was subsequently DQ'd, so video recording of races can assist the official in other ways, too.

(This enterprising track owner would also dupe and sell tapes of the races to anyone desiring one.)

[oldweirdherald]

You may wonder why your suggestion gets "poo-poohed"...

however, I think it is more then just a tad impracticle.

First, who is going to go to that trouble and expense to set something up like that - especially going to all that trouble for the race event that it might come in handy.

People seem to think that adding on little setups like that is simple, or that we can afford or justify the trouble...

Second..... after finally getting done racing at 3 AM, who really would want to sit and watch the video for hours, hand counting hundreds of laps, for all of the cars - in all the heats, consies, semi's and main.... just to verify a count or to count the laps in the event of a lap counter failure????

I think if someone was crazy enough to volunteer or get looped into doing it, they would be reviewing tapes and counting until next year's Nats!

We'll just postpone the awards ceremony until the entire investigation has been reviewed by the Warren Commision. Perhaps 20 years from now we'll still be discussing theories of "magic bullet" slot cars, and the possibility of a second driver on a grassy knoll during this year's Scale Nats......

No thanks.

Add me to the list off poo-poohers.



Herman, I'm a bit surprised that you are upset with the final results. I realize you may be dissapointed with the outcome, and certainly everyone was frustrated with the lap counter problems.... but I thought it had been clearly established that the human counts had all been very accurate - and that the margin of possible error would not have effected any of the positions or outcome.

You were very fast, but I didn't hear of any conflicting counts that would have moved you ahead of anyone else in the standings.

I belive that the situation was handled in the best manor available at the time, and that the results were fair.

[brassy]

First of all, I would be more than happy to supply the video camera, tripod, and blank tapes and also to set it up if I am in attendance at the Nats.

Second, this would be a BACK-UP to be used ONLY when there is an acknowledged problem with the lap counter. It would not be reviewed to recount every heat of every race and its use would be invoked ONLY by the race director, not every racer who felt he was miscounted once or twice. And a recount would more than likely only involve single heat or a few heats. A single pass through the tape with eight people each marking a single car is not as timing-consuming as you suggest.

Third, you're saying that the national USRA could not use such a method to good effect when a regional series has effectively utilized such a video backup in the past?

It IS simple, Paul. You tape all the races and review only when it is the last resort. Don't the racers and manufacturers who spend countless hours and serious bucks on their programs deserve an effective back-up lap counting method?

[oldweirdherald]

I this particular - and rare - case....

Your suggestion would still have been quite time consuming.

The lap counter situation had gotten to the point that it was no longer a questionable lane, or particular heat - but beyond that.

Certain cars simply did not count on green or blue lane, in randomly varying cases. After having a person assigned to watch those lanes, the gremlins then followed Gary's car to yellow, where for the first time yellow didn't count.

Several things had been done to rectify previous problems, and there were reportedly no problems at the warm-up race a month ago.

So.... it was decided to assign eight volunteers - one for each lane, to hand count EVERYTHING - so that no possible problems would go undetected.

The hand counts, from what I was told, proved to be very accurate.

Replaying a video tape 8 times, counting 8 Eurosport cars for 5 minutes each.... in SLOW MOTION... would definately not only be time consuming, but would put me into a coma.

I just don't see when you would know to set up this video to verify a questionable lap count, and at what point you would decide to do so. The recounting by video would take time - LOTS of time.

I can only imagine that it could possibly be an incredibly time consuming solution to a problem that is not only rare, but is difficult to detect and decide when to implement such a tedious remedy.

I don't think you were there - and I don't think you can imagine the circumstances or the possible headaches that would have still come up if your suggestion was used in this particular case.

It just would not have been a good solution, at least this time.

Again, I believe it was handled as best as possible at the time, and the race was run, and we have final results that I had thought everyone had been satisfied with. I'm very sorry that my good friend Herman is unhappy with the outcome.