2006 races?

antony wrote: Twed wrote: You need to seriously talk to me about what this type of event entails and how to survive it Just keep smiling. Whatever the weather.

And the only preparation you need is to practice your underwater welding skills.

Neil

Rob,

So you don't like MK - that is clear - but the hazards you have encountered there are just as present at both Hillingdon and Eastway. Rather than misleading people into thinking it is just at MK it must be made clear that they also happen at favoured venues and are likely anywhere that has public access. (For the record I have never personally interfaced with dog-mess at any of them!)

 I have run in BC races at Hillingdon very many times over the years during which I have seen loose dogs, loose pedestrians, non competing cycles and unauthorised motocrossers getting in the way of racers. Also, twice, I have encountered ASBO candidates throwing rocks and other missiles at passing racers - along the back straight and on the far side near where all the buses gather. These areas need to be watched as there is some sort of access about halfway along the backstraight where the little darlings can get in unseen by participants / organisers.

Eastway is barely relevant with its anticipated bulldozing but the backstraight there also often has loose dogs and people. Even, once, encountered a woman pushing a shopping trolley up it as I approached at 30+ mph!

Point is don't make people think MK is unsafe but other places are - cos they aren't much better. Only proper motor racing facities will achieve that. If there is notable "feedback" on a venue it would be a polite to at least discuss it with the organiser rather than unilaterally exclude a regular event without even mentioning it to them. Worse here is I was led to believe it was on so it is booked.

If the committee wants to make secretive unilateral decisions like this perhaps they would like to unilaterally organise all the events as well while the rest of us shut up, pay up, and turn up to race like good little children.

Phil,

I appreciate your annoyance at MK being cancelled after you had booked it. This seems like a communications SNAFU.

However, while many of your points about pedestrians, dogs, youfs, etc are valid MK is a hazardous track. OK so racing is by defination hazardous but we can attempts to manage the risks through having sufficient marshalls and maybe we need to be more allert to the potential issues of people/things encroaching onto the track (including a car at Lancaster!). One thing though that we cannot control are hazards associated with the track itself. In my mind this is the issue with MK, though it's not the only one.

The 03/04 track involved a blind turn through steel gates across a brick cobbled brick bridge with a right of way across it. While the right of way could be managed the risk of serious injury should anyone crash at the point would be high and there is little we can do about it. The 05 course was much better. There was one corner where if you went wide you were into bushes. No while not "safe" this is much better than a brick wall. Now Lincoln had very similar problems. The choice was to run anti-clockwise (where at the esses the runoff was 12 inches of grass and a solid metal fence) or clockwise where there were gateposts on a bend just after the finish. Thankfully we ran clockwise as during the race Andrew was baulked halfway through the esses and ran wide, onto grass and a path, infinately better than the alternative...

While we don't need to go the the extremes of the motor racing environment I do think that we need to look at the risks to the racers at our various tracks. To my mind this is simply examining what someone would hit if they came off in any likely spot. Now for all of us, with the possible exception of the streamliners, this would be less than 10 feet so if you crash you may not even leave the track, but I do feel that we need to give this a little thought.