25 June 2009

The Perils of wrangling the Rush Hour

| johnboy
Join the conversation
38

The self styled auto-vigilantes of the RushHHour Underground are having another track day at Marulan on 18 July between 9am and 4pm.

They sent out the following message to their Track Day Group which I personally found enlightening when it comes to the perils of running this kind of event:

    Hey all,

    Track day is slowly creeping up and entrants are now open!

    ## Entry is $100
    ## Track License is $25 (unless you already have one!)

    If you want a guaranteed spot, you can pay me or Kyle W. directly, we cannot guarantee you will get a spot on the day – aint my problem if you turn up and its full.

    Food and drinks are available from the track cafeteria, including hot food, breakfast etc.
    *IF YOU ARE NOT ENTERED – DO NOT PARK IN THE PIT AREA* – no special treatment applies, keep em outa the pit area because its a pain in the ass when I have to find drivers to move their cars.

    This round will be our chance to show we can be organised and still tear it up at the same time!

    -Out of respect- please do not do burnouts on the road leading up to the track, or the intersection, neighbours of the track whinged alot last time – they even took photos of the tire marks! This is a big pain for the track staff who are fighting to keep the track open as it is so please keep it quiet and obey speed limits coming in

    -Track Rules will apply!-, if you go off the track more than 3 times in a round, you will be excluded in the next round – last time we got away with way more than we should have, track staff have asked me to help keep it tame – the way i look at it, act like its a high speed chase, if you lose it, chances are you’re f***ed! But 3 times per round is fair i think – stand-still Burnouts and heli’s are not allowed on the track – yet… sorry chaps

    There is a noise limit at the track of 90db, although last time we got away with having a few extremely loud cars, this includes spectators cars! It would need to be pretty insanely loud to hit 90db– track staff can quieten down cars if necessary.

    I will need some volunteers to be track marshall’s on the day – I might not be entering this round so I can focus on keeping things organised off the track… maybe…. – reply back if you are interested in being a track marshall – we need a few!.

    This is an exclusive RushhouR event! – human rights do not apply – If you refuse to follow a reasonable direction from a Marshall or official RH staff, you’ll be asked to leave, if you’re a smart ass about it, we’ll Sydney harbour your missus while you’re at work if you’re a chick (or don’t have a missus), we’ll spread rumours that you have syphalis – If you have a problem with any of the rules, don’t come! – its a good safe day out for the family so bring your kids along!

    There MAY be an AFP presence on the day – they expressed interest in attending (to support us) and if that is the case – it would be a good idea to follow the above, it would be good to show them we are genuine supporters for a proper Canberra based motorsport track.

    PS: The secret password is: *skids*

    ## Make sure guests of yours, spectators, potential entrants read this by passing it on

    Thanks, Gun-B

Join the conversation

38
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest
colourful sydney racing identity1:36 pm 11 Jan 10

allofus said :

Look, no matter what is said or done, there is always going to be a heap of people that have to protest it.

No matter if its for good or bad.

There will always be a poor lonely bugger in a dark room with nothing better to do then sook.

If you don’t like loud noise, move to the bush some where away from it all. even then i garantee you will find another subject to sook about, snakes, heat, bush fires, or maybe cause they are natural causes you wont find much reason to make a comment about it, then again, you people live to winge, so no matter what your gunna sook.

These car enthusiasts are trying to do the right thing, and you all still find a reason to give them a hard time.

How about you all worry about the more important things in life, be happy, do something nice for some one else, take out a loved one, visit and elder that hasn’t had a visit for a while, its amazing how these little things can make a big difference, we need more people in the world doing something small for some one else, it really goes along way.

Rather then wasting your lives sitting on your pc having a dig on what other people are doing.

I know this might as well be a novel, but i am so tired of listening to this garbage.

I say good work to the RH group, i am proud that they are taking this kind of thing off the street and having it set up within a safe environment. True, it always has a danger factor, but so does crossing the street !

Come on people, Life is WAY to short, any one of you could die tomorrow, why waist your life bitching about pointless matters !

As a famous man once said,

Australia needs to harden the F@#k up !

Contender for rant of the week, needs more CAPS LOCK, could do with more spelling errors, nice effort though.

Careful guys, your bubble wrap seems to be coming undone…

WanniAss said :

“There may be an AFP presence on the day”
What is the AFP’s jurisdiction in these matters. They are hardly terrorists, although they probably are a bigger threat to society than Mohammed Haneef.

I’m sure the NSW boys might be lying in wait though. It should be a nice little earner for the NSW govt. RH returning to Canberra and the skiers returning to Sydney

The AFP attendance was Out of dutie officers that have there own motoring interests, belive it or not they have a life out side of work this being more then i can say to you,

Some of the AFP actually own very nice well looked after street, burnout and drag cars !
is there a problem with this ? or is it just that you dont approve any one having a life that doesnt include the right side or the wrong side of the law ?

Oh, and as for the NSW police, they will give out tickets when required ! and so they should its there job.

But why would you have to be a smart ass and make out that every one into cars, or ski’ing for that matter is a bad person, and there all going to get busted ??

Look, no matter what is said or done, there is always going to be a heap of people that have to protest it.

No matter if its for good or bad.

There will always be a poor lonely bugger in a dark room with nothing better to do then sook.

If you don’t like loud noise, move to the bush some where away from it all. even then i garantee you will find another subject to sook about, snakes, heat, bush fires, or maybe cause they are natural causes you wont find much reason to make a comment about it, then again, you people live to winge, so no matter what your gunna sook.

These car enthusiasts are trying to do the right thing, and you all still find a reason to give them a hard time.

How about you all worry about the more important things in life, be happy, do something nice for some one else, take out a loved one, visit and elder that hasn’t had a visit for a while, its amazing how these little things can make a big difference, we need more people in the world doing something small for some one else, it really goes along way.

Rather then wasting your lives sitting on your pc having a dig on what other people are doing.

I know this might as well be a novel, but i am so tired of listening to this garbage.

I say good work to the RH group, i am proud that they are taking this kind of thing off the street and having it set up within a safe environment. True, it always has a danger factor, but so does crossing the street !

Come on people, Life is WAY to short, any one of you could die tomorrow, why waist your life bitching about pointless matters !

As a famous man once said,

Australia needs to harden the F@#k up !

Sounds like it will have great anthropological interest having the lower end of the evolutionary scale in one place. Has anyone alerted local universities?

“There may be an AFP presence on the day”
What is the AFP’s jurisdiction in these matters. They are hardly terrorists, although they probably are a bigger threat to society than Mohammed Haneef.

I’m sure the NSW boys might be lying in wait though. It shouldbe a nice little earner for the NSW govt. RH returning to Canberra and the skiers returning to Sydney

anna key said:

Anna Key said :

By way of contrast to RH, a long time ago, in a city far far away, I used to belong to a motorsport club. It was CAMS affiliated, entrants needed a CAMS licence, cars were scrutineered and events were properly run. While I’m sure the RH notice is very tongue in cheek, I’d be interested to know what controls there are to prevent anyone with a doofed up Nissan Sylvia writing themselves off. The costs of being in our club were minor. There were different levels of competition – low levels did not require any special mods to the car. It was fun, taught me good control of the car and there was no need to recreate the activities on the road. And further to happychappy’s point, the age range of competitors was around 13 to 50+. Some of the old guys could still get around the track pretty quickly. The dickheads didn’t last long, and took their egos with them

i’m tipping that rh is where all the dickheads that get thrown out of genuine motorsport clubs end up…….

I thought the one thing missing from the “don’t do burnouts etc.”, was stating that RushHour would cooperate fully with the authorities in identifying those responsible.

By way of contrast to RH, a long time ago, in a city far far away, I used to belong to a motorsport club. It was CAMS affiliated, entrants needed a CAMS licence, cars were scrutineered and events were properly run. While I’m sure the RH notice is very tongue in cheek, I’d be interested to know what controls there are to prevent anyone with a doofed up Nissan Sylvia writing themselves off. The costs of being in our club were minor. There were different levels of competition – low levels did not require any special mods to the car. It was fun, taught me good control of the car and there was no need to recreate the activities on the road. And further to happychappy’s point, the age range of competitors was around 13 to 50+. Some of the old guys could still get around the track pretty quickly. The dickheads didn’t last long, and took their egos with them

ahappychappy4:28 pm 26 Jun 09

I agree BerraBoy68, with all but one point:

“has limited community appeal.”

I think it’s shown with Summernats (whether numbers were dwindling or not) that there IS some form of a “motorsport enthusiast” community. Admittedly, Summernats was an annual EVENT not a drag strip/track for people to book cars onto, so I can see your point.

Unfortunatley, the “motoring enthusiast” is hard to come by these days, as the common hoon seems to go by the name. I know many people who are genuine motoring enthusiasts who used to attend Summernats and the like, however do not these days as it is just a bunch of hoons tarnishing the motoring community’s name.

I’m neither here nor there on the arguement, but perhaps a track/dragstrip could re-ignite those who have lost their touch with the motoring enthusiast community to step up and get rid of the hoons? It would probably only take a few old blokes to come back into the fray to get rid of them?

Wraith said :

Didn’t say the noise was in your imagination………

It was just the one whinged about the most whilst it was the least cause of the annoyance.

Easy target it was though, and with the Government opposed to any form of Motorsport, it was losing battle from day dot.

But why fight and kick and scream and whinge about it, we just moved on like grown ups and played another form of motor racing, people around Eastern Creek, Phillip Island and Wakefield Park embrace the bikes and cars running, not like the Nimby’s located here. There is a side effect to it all, called Tourism and they make a killing out of it.

For what its worth Wraith, I’m not a fan of motorsport in the ACT but I’m not against it either, as long as it’s not interfering with the health or lifestyle of others. I just can’t see why the Gov’t should fund a sport, or any activity for that matter, that requires a massive capital injection, significant upkeep and has limited community appeal. Surely if motorsport in the ACT was as big a money spinner as a few people say it would be, entrepreneurs would be falling over themselves to build a private track.

I also worry about any argument stating that a dedicated facility would keep hoons off the street. I have a gut feeling that the idiots element would increase their illegal and ‘free’ burnout rate across the ‘burbs to practice for the self-funded sessions at a track.

I’d be interested in your response, I really would, as I say I’m not against a track/facility in the ACT per se, I just can’t see the reason why the Gov’t should fund the sport other than a few people saying they want one or they’ll vote for someone else (and BTW: good luck convincing the Greens of the benefits a track would bring).

Certainly, Madame Workalot. However, you no doubt noticed that the respondant appeared not to have read what I’d written, where I was talking about the noise made by the spectators arriving and departing the strip, in their cars and on their bikes, using the public road.

Perhaps I need to make it clearer. People attending the dragstrip, I assume to watch but perhaps to use the facility also, seemed to generate a great deal of noise on the road that passed our residence.

The engines of their vehicles were often very loud, and there were lots of them. Plus, they seemed to indulge in driving activities on the road which involved spinning their wheels, driving around the roundabouts in such a way that they skidded and thereby made much noise, sounded their horns (at each other?), revved their engines… and as mentioned before, many of them had very loud engines.

Some dragstrip activities evidently included people camping out there for various events, and these people would head out, presumably to get food, drink, and entertainment, and so noisy activities on the road were not confined to people arriving and departing teh strip at the start and end of an event, but would go on all night.

I’m sure the users of the dragstrip can claim that their cars and bikes are very quiet, and they never revved them or lost traction on the road and we imagined the whole thing, but here we have the Rush Hour people asking their participants to be quiet while driving to and from the track, as residents are unhappy with the noise they have been making.

It is quite amazing how proponents of this noisy activity want to somehow argue that black is white.

Didn’t say the noise was in your imagination………

It was just the one whinged about the most whilst it was the least cause of the annoyance.

Easy target it was though, and with the Government opposed to any form of Motorsport, it was losing battle from day dot.

But why fight and kick and scream and whinge about it, we just moved on like grown ups and played another form of motor racing, people around Eastern Creek, Phillip Island and Wakefield Park embrace the bikes and cars running, not like the Nimby’s located here. There is a side effect to it all, called Tourism and they make a killing out of it.

Madame Workalot3:36 pm 26 Jun 09

ant said :

Ah ha, so all that car and motorbike noise was our imagination. Thanks for clearing that up, Wraith. With such debating skills, I’m amazed that you weren’t able to prevent the strip being closed.

I’d actually be quite interested to hear your rebuttal Ant. I’ve read many of your posts about living near the dragstrip, and here’s someone who’s actually qualified for the opposing opinion.

While I very much believe that people make lots of noise going to-and-from events such as this,

…and it’s not nimbyism, it’s founded on fact and experience.

By definition, if it “in your backyard” and you are against it, then it is NIMBYism.

Ah ha, so all that car and motorbike noise was our imagination. Thanks for clearing that up, Wraith. With such debating skills, I’m amazed that you weren’t able to prevent the strip being closed.

ant said :

Apoc said :

Ant: as long as the people who use the track respect the people who live by the track and vice versa, everyone is happy.

I used to live on the road to Canberra’s un-lamented dragway. The noise, sometimes all night, of the spectators arriving and leaving, or if they were camping out there, visiting various establishments and returning to the dragway, was utterly horrific.

People who like motorsport and burnouts and drag-offs etc often have noisy cars and bikes, and like doing the screeching wheels thing and often have patronised after-market exhaust shops too. Evidently.

No one, apparently, wants to live near such facilities and it’s not nimbyism, it’s founded on fact and experience.

If you lived on the actual road to the strip, you lived basically on the airport land, now I assume you mean Pialligo, so you lived on the other side of the airport to the strip. Most of the “noisy” cars that attended the events, were brought on trailers, I used to be one of them, ran a dedicated drag car there, car on trailer to and from event. Now, points, the noise from the cars, was once a month maybe, you had aircraft noise every day, which was louder than the cars running at the strip, so you say this isn’t nimbyism, I don’t believe you.

There were also trucks in and out Queanbeyan every day as well the planes, much louder than the cars that ran once a month, I give up here, I can’t get the point you make about it not being nimbyism, good to hear you moved though, saved your eardrums……

We ran tests using the right equipment way back then, the noise from the airport was worse than the cars from the strip.

Good to see a event being planned to counter bad publicity. Keep up the good work guys.

Apoc said :

Ant: as long as the people who use the track respect the people who live by the track and vice versa, everyone is happy.

I used to live on the road to Canberra’s un-lamented dragway. The noise, sometimes all night, of the spectators arriving and leaving, or if they were camping out there, visiting various establishments and returning to the dragway, was utterly horrific.

People who like motorsport and burnouts and drag-offs etc often have noisy cars and bikes, and like doing the screeching wheels thing and often have patronised after-market exhaust shops too. Evidently.

No one, apparently, wants to live near such facilities and it’s not nimbyism, it’s founded on fact and experience.

Sounds like a decent event and a good opportunity to test their cars in a semi-controlled and safe environment instead of on public roads in the middle of the night. Other car clubs I know of hold similar events at Wakefield Park in Goulburn, they’re fairly cheap if you get enough people to attend and better if you don’t have idiots who think they’re the next Michael Schumacher just because they have an expensive and loud car.

Apoc said :

Ant: as long as the people who use the track respect the people who live by the track and vice versa, everyone is happy.

But then they say “the neighbours whinged a lot”, not theta they had valid complaints. hardly respect. Motorsport isn’t my thing (unless you call an F-16 viper pulling a 9G turn at less than 500ft a motorsport) but these guys sound like idiots. I don’t care what they do to each other on a track but if they try it on a public road their cars can be cubed.

take gambling for instance, questionable moral practice – people judge, although a lot of people do it to varied degrees, what if it were outlawed? Lets not kid ourselves.. people would still do it… and if they open a casino where you could legally do it, people would still do it in their homes illegally – but to a lesser degree, tires and rear bumpers arent cheap!

I’ll tip my hat to the organisers of rush hour for this event. While it may be said those who hoon won’t confine it to a track, it leaves no arguement for not having anywhere to drive in such a manner.

Just a note to the critics; the message was personal and shouldnt all be taken literal, we dont plan on spit roasting anyones spouse… unless shes hot! the invite is for friends of RH – if any members of the public who turn up and refuse to follow directions (safety directions) will be asked to leave, refusal will be considered trespassing.

Track entrants are not open to the public sorry.

And the password just confirms you read the whole thing, so thanks! 🙂

Ant: as long as the people who use the track respect the people who live by the track and vice versa, everyone is happy.

Love their idea of 90dB. Proves that they don’t have a clue.

who’d risk their life and be a marshall?!?!
Clearly, so you can be disobeyed and make homoeroticsexytime with someone’s girlfriend while they’re at work, since that person did agree to the terms and conditions on the invite.

???????????????????
???????????????????
?_?? ??===?===\??_?
??? ???????????\\ ???
?  ??????????????? ?
????????????

sepi said :

And it really makes the case the if you give people a race facility to muck around on, they will behave on the roads. Not.

Yeah, I do so love that chestnut. It’s a worry how often the proponents trot it out though.

As if people who like doing burnouts, helis (a progression of 360 drifts, I think) and skidding off the track will confine this to an official track.

And notice the bit about residents on the roads to the track who are unhappy about noise and hooning… gee that brings back memories. People who use tracks/dragways etc aren’t just noisy on the track, surprise surprise.

justbands said :

I don’t mind….but some may take offense to the uneditied “f***ed” in that text jb.

Anybody “taking offense” when reading a swear word is going to have a real sad, sorry time on the internet. Interestingly, bleeping out a few letters but keeping the word entirely still readable seems to be considered by these people to render such a dangerous thing harmless.

I expect most of them are very fond of taking offense, and like people to make a big fuss of them when they do. Oh well, I guess it’s not much harm done to save a little bit of trouble.

And it really makes the case the if you give people a race facility to muck around on, they will behave on the roads. Not.

If people are going off the track all the time…who’d risk their life and be a marshall?!?!

Rather an amusing read, like a glimpse into another culture…

Urban Dictionary always knows terms like that.

Skidbladnir said :

Way to keep that password secret, guys.
(Change it to swordfish, nobody will ever guess that one)

Unless you go to speakeasys, or know about the Sanity clause. (everyone know’s there ain’t no sanity clause)

Skidbladnir said :

Way to keep that password secret, guys.
(Change it to swordfish, nobody will ever guess that one)

@Justbands:
Its like a spitroast.

ew.

Way to keep that password secret, guys.
(Change it to swordfish, nobody will ever guess that one)

@Justbands:
Its like a spitroast.

stand-still Burnouts and heli’s are not allowed on the track – yet

and while explaining the Sydney harbour reference, what’s a “heli”?

“we’ll Sydney harbour your missus while you’re at work” – I’ve not heard this (sure to be charming) term before, can anyone explain?

I don’t mind….but some may take offense to the uneditied “f***ed” in that text jb.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.