Dragracer
Nitro Member
I am happy to see that Antron Brown was not injured in his crash at the Winternationals.
One of the things I saw in rerunning his motor explosion over and over was the fire in the cockpit. Antron mentioned in his interview that he was starting to breath smoke so he turned on his air bottle - good thing he had one and was able to turn it on. He also mentioned some minor burns on his legs.
I was under the impression that during the long approval process for the canopy one of the things that was said by DSR was that the enclosed cockpit would have a positive airflow thereby keeping fire out of the car and that it was also a sealed pod. I thought this was a major item in the approval of the canopy system. Obviously, this didn't work. Antron mentioned he had to reach over to turn on a valve to get the fresh air from his air bottle.
Now that the enclosed cockpit has gone through its trial by fire maybe a minor change in the rules should be done. If Antron had been knocked out he would not have been able to turn on the air bottle. The rules state that whether the air is turn on or off during the run is up to the team. Maybe it should be required to be turned on before the run so the driver does not have to do anything to assure good air in case of an accident. Also, the amount of fire in the cockpit concerns me. I thought the cockpit was a sealed pod, like the drag boats use, so fire could not come in.
I am not criticizing the canopy system but after it has now been involved in a bad crash, and seems to have worked OK maybe there are things that can be done to make the system even safer.
JUST WONDERING!!!
One of the things I saw in rerunning his motor explosion over and over was the fire in the cockpit. Antron mentioned in his interview that he was starting to breath smoke so he turned on his air bottle - good thing he had one and was able to turn it on. He also mentioned some minor burns on his legs.
I was under the impression that during the long approval process for the canopy one of the things that was said by DSR was that the enclosed cockpit would have a positive airflow thereby keeping fire out of the car and that it was also a sealed pod. I thought this was a major item in the approval of the canopy system. Obviously, this didn't work. Antron mentioned he had to reach over to turn on a valve to get the fresh air from his air bottle.
Now that the enclosed cockpit has gone through its trial by fire maybe a minor change in the rules should be done. If Antron had been knocked out he would not have been able to turn on the air bottle. The rules state that whether the air is turn on or off during the run is up to the team. Maybe it should be required to be turned on before the run so the driver does not have to do anything to assure good air in case of an accident. Also, the amount of fire in the cockpit concerns me. I thought the cockpit was a sealed pod, like the drag boats use, so fire could not come in.
I am not criticizing the canopy system but after it has now been involved in a bad crash, and seems to have worked OK maybe there are things that can be done to make the system even safer.
JUST WONDERING!!!
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