Too fast to race?

Rally is a dangerous sport, it says that right on the ticket, but we don’t often stop and give a lot of thought about what that actually means until something goes wrong.

Targa Tasmania 2021 brought a dark day to our sport with the tragic loss of three lives during the running of the event and was a stark reminder of the inherent risks the entrants all take. The incidents rightly prompted a review of the event and indeed the whole sport and shone a spotlight on some areas where perhaps more could be done to improve safety.

Read the report from the Motorsport Australia inquiry and see the recommendations.

One of the 20-odd recommendations from the report was to introduce a maximum speed limit for the event set at 200kmh and this one item has stirred a lot of discussion within the competitor group. The first issue being that the 2021 incidents occurred at speeds already lower than this so why was the change necessary, and the second being that introducing such a speed limit would in fact adversely affect the safety of some crews in order for them to comply.

As a competitor I of course have an opinion. Many of the cars competing now can easily exceed this speed and it’s easier and cheaper than ever to get yourself into such a car so the number of crews now in this club is growing. Speed by itself doesn’t cause an incident but by any measure a faster crash is going to be a worse crash. I think most would agree that a max speed limit of some sort should be introduced even if they disagree on the number (200, 220, 250 etc) so given that such a number is effectively an arbitrary choice then in my book 200kmh is as good as any.

Of course 200kmh is more or less the top speed of our current car (say 215 with a tailwind) so from a competition standpoint I only stand to gain if others already exceeding that speed are brought back to me. But I still have to comply which either means fitting a speed limiter of some sort (not so easy on a 50 year old classic car where even programmable ignition is outlawed) or relying on the crew to manage the speed (ie looking at the speedo when approaching 200kmh).

And it seems this is the main gripe that people have with this solution – one of the crew has to be talking their eyes off the road (or safety notes) to keep the speed front of mind and hence in check. This is despite the realisation that some events have already had a 200kmh speed for years (Targa West, Targa NZ etc) and even Targa events have had 130kmh speed limited categories for some time so clearly crews can manage it.

As a driver I know that shifting focus at speed isn’t so easy but in our car the reality is that we only reach those speeds on a long straight so the focus isn’t such an issue. Might be different if we had a car that cornered at 200 (does anyone?) For the nav however, it’s already busy enough without adding that to the workload and when we’re doing warp speed I really want to be confident in the next couple of calls.

So for our car we went with the “fit a speed limiter” option which thankfully due to a recent upgrade to EFI (read here) was a pretty simple fix involving calculating a max RPM for 5th gear that would keep the speed in check and then adding an auxiliary rev limiter for that gear. Job done although a bit hard to actually test outside an event.

But what about all the “nanny state, let us race, I accept the risks” type of rhetoric that we see a lot of in the social media groups and around the paddock? The argument goes “I’m a big boy and I know the risks so if I crash and die then it’s only my problem so stop trying the take all the fun out of everything”. My opinion? Boo Hoo – it’s not all about you.

Actions have consequences, not just for yourself but also for others. Public pressure is real and the tide has been turning against motorsport for a long time, the perception of Tarmac Rally in particular is that it’s a bunch of rich wankers tearing up MY roads and stopping ME from going to the shops. Every time we get in the news with a bad story then the nay-sayers get more ammunition to fuel their opposition and the media likes a conflict. Setting a top speed limit might not prevent any future incidents but it’s worth a try along with all the other recommendations that Motorsport Australia introduces.

And guess what? We adapt. We had the same arguments when HANS devices were introduced (it will affect my vision and make it harder to get out after a crash) but in time we all adapt and move on and now I don’t think anyone would give up their HANS even if they could.

Adelaide Rally 2021 was the first event to run under the new guidelines and the approach taken by the organisers there was to set the route such that most cars would not be able to reach that speed by adding slow points where necessary. This approach (while not exactly new – we’ve had chicanes since I started rallying back in 2004) caused a lot of angst amongst a number of competitors who complained of excessive brake wear or even brake failure as a result of the 40kmh slow points. Only a couple of the very fast cars approached the limit. In our car the fastest speed we saw all week was about 170kmh – the Adelaide roads are pretty twisty.

Targa High Country February 2022 followed soon after and while they had added a couple of slow points (particularly near danger points or jumps) the stages seemed pretty much the same as previous years. First run down Merimba and we were already bouncing off the 200kmh limiter for several seconds at a time at the bottom of the hill. And we found the limiter several more times over the weekend which shows just how much more open and flowing the high country roads are. I can only imagine how fast the outright modern cars would be if they remained unchecked.

After 3 days, 30 something stages and 150 odd comp cars there was only a single penalty issued for breaching the 200kmh max speed. It turns out that the prospect of a 5 minute penalty (yes that’s not a typo) meant that every single crew (bar one) was able to effectively and safely manage the new speed limit despite all the protestations to the contrary.

Too hard to manage? Apparently not.