Track Limits at COTA

Keith

Moderator
What are the rules regarding track limits at COTA or USCC in particular? At the recent Tudor race, there seemed to be zero track limits in force. If you could use the parking lot, go for it :stunned:

It made a kind of bizarre spectacle with the 'race track' being over 100' wide at one point!

What gives?
 
Keith: It was rather bizarre for everyone, including the drivers. The PA announcer kept saying that it was done by the governing body for this race but gave no explanation as to why. The rules were that you could not cut the inside of the corner, but you could use as much of the pavement as you needed on the outside. There were some newly added painted stripes 90 degrees to the track that seemed to dictate that they could not go off the track before or after the lines, but it was pretty strange and made for some really odd track lines by the drivers.
I heard one driver say that he tried to follow the traditional racing lines around the track in practice but his competitors were using the new rules. As a result, he said he cooked his tires much faster than they did.
I didn't care for it (the WEC race followed the old rules). I will be interested to see if this is a 1-race rule change or if it will be applied to all of the IMSA races.
 

Keith

Moderator
Thanks John. To be honest, as much as it was an entertaining and unusual spectacle, I thought it introduced the dangerous element of greatly increasing the necessity for drivers spatial awareness, which, as we know, can be very limited (given restraints of cockpit design, HANS & helmets to say nothing of human shortcomings) even within 'normal' track limits.
 
That was all pretty goofy looking. If you use all the run-off for track, then you don't have any run-off when you really need it do you?
 
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