Thread: Noise at the track
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Old 12-07-2004, 12:40 PM
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Bruce Colby Bruce Colby is offline
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Location: Vista, CA
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Noise at Laguna Seca
Quote:
Originally Posted by italcarguy
They have a sound meter on the drivers right between turns 5 and 6. They have also been saying that the sound meter is roving which means every session it's at a different section of the track...it's been in the same spot as it's always been. Monterey county, not Laguna Seca, has someone sit in there all weekend and measure cars. You get a couple warnings and then I think on the third time they talk to you, they give you the boot for the remainder of the weekend.
I'd like to make a couple of comments here. First, I don't think anyone is likely to be going to Laguna Seca these days without knowing that there will be a strict noise limit in effect and that it will be enforced. The county has a noise ordinance and the track is required to enforce it. Whether we like it or not, doesn't matter. Second, the Laguna Seca people aren't quite as nasty as it may sound. When we’ve run there in recent years, they have always been willing to work with drivers of cars that are above the db limit as long as the driver is attempting to quiet it down. The key here is the term "work with". What they have been willing to do is let people run a lap or two to test changes without having it increment their noise infraction count (as Anthony says, too many infractions and you're out). The driver does this by first talking with the event organizers at Start/Finish. They then radio the noise booth and ask permission for a noise test of "maroon GTV number 65", or what ever. So far the noise booth people have been very reasonable as long as progress is being made towards a quieter car. However, I doubt that they would let anyone test for the whole weekend. We are careful to make a big point of this in our mandatory drivers meetings each day and we describe the process in detail. However, Anthony is right, if you simply go out and hammer around the track enough times in a car that's over the noise limit, you'll get the boot just as they say.
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