funny car upgrades???

[davey]

Good points Joe and Paul.. They need to get rid of the concrete and use some type of SAFER barrier as an absolute last resort in the shutdown area. (You know, the one that the IRL developed but NASCAR takes credit for). It couldn't hurt. Also, the sand trap need to be seriously analyzed. It may work at 100 MPH or less but not 200 MPH. Even at low speeds they don't exactly look that safe to me. Some type of series of catch nets would seem like a better idea. I am by no means an expert. Just throwing it out there.

 

[Chuck]

Any kind of ignition timer to shut the engine off will not work. The spark plugs are virtually burnt up at about the eigth mile and the engine is basically firing like a diesel, from the heat and compression. The only way to shut the engine down is to stop the fuel supply, but in a situation like Scott's, I don't think that would have made a difference.

 

[sdwarf36]

Sorry, If the race was to 1000' Scotts car would not have exploded with the violence it did if at all.

The explosion happened after the 1000' mark.

I have run on E-Towns 1/4 mile and I never liked the shutdown area there.

That is a personal opinion, but I also have run at Gainesville and found that track plenty long enough.

I have been almost 200mph at Gainsville and had a parachute malfunction.

That was in the days before carbon fiber and if the brakes were applied at anything over 150mph the damned things would overheat, boil the fluid, and become inoperable.

I waited 3 or 4 seconds after crossing the stripe to scrub off some speed before applying them, all the while pounding on the chute levers to get them to come out.

I stopped just short of the sand and had the rear tires bouncing pretty good as I stopped, pushing the handle with all my might.

G-ville is alot longer than E-town, but at speed, any little bit of length to a track would be welcome.

IMO E-Town is too G-Darned short.

I have been going there 30+ years, that IMO, and I'm stickin' to it.

REX

Then how did Rod Fuller stop with no 'chutes from 320 a few minutes earlier?

From where i was sitting (800 ft mark on the right side) it wouldnt have mattered if there was 320ft more tar + 1000ft of sand. There was no deceleration at all from the burst to the end of the track.

 

[Rexfiles]

Then how did Rod Fuller stop with no 'chutes from 320 a few minutes earlier?

From where i was sitting (800 ft mark on the right side) it wouldnt have mattered if there was 320ft more tar + 1000ft of sand. There was no deceleration at all from the burst to the end of the track.

I believe that was Antron Brown

I was at 1000' On the pit side (I'll always call it that there........habit.)

If that race was to 1000' I would bet you the farm we would not be having THIS discussion.

So you figure that shutdown is perfectly safe?

I beg to differ.

And the difference was Antron was consious or had brakes.

Scott may have been incapacitated or the brakes were gone.

I'm not saying we will ever know or not.

That is MO and obviously that of many racers.

REX

 

[mick]

a lot of things went really wrong simultaneously and unfortunately happened
at facility with a shorter shutdown area; and as someone else pointed out, next
week at norwalk will be similar, not to mention other facilities with similar
shutdown areas.
there is a hwy. immediately past the trees at englishtown, hence the
curving concrete barriers to deflect a bad situation from becoming even
a worse situation if a race car were to travel off property and potentially cause
even further harm to public motorists.

in addition to parachutes and brakes, i wonder if magnets could be used
to slow cars?

 

[Sean D, shondoo]

And the difference was Antron was consious or had brakes.

Scott may have been incapacitated or the brakes were gone.

I'm not saying we will ever know or not.

That is MO and obviously that of many racers.

REX

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, Rex, but from how I viewed the footage, the a$$ end of the car was bouncing pretty good as it entered the sand, which tells me Scott was activating the brakes, and they (brakes) were intact.

Sean D

 

[Randy]

After returning from the Seattle Division 6 LORDS last night I saw the video of Scott Kalitta. Very sad day for Connie, Kathy and his family, and the entire team as well as the racing community.

The day before Scott's deal, in the final qualfying session for us in Seattle (which was after dark) my TA/FC ran into the catch net at about 70 miles per hour pretty much ruining our weekend. The Seattle track has hardly any lights in the shut down except for the one past the net that points into the driver's face literally blinding him. There are two fully unprotected and exposed posts shielded only by a couple of hay bails that are on either side of the net that holds the net up. My driver saw nothing when he headed into the net. We now look at this as a very fortunate incident for us in that he could have easily hit one of the two posts instead of running dead center into the net because, as I say, he saw nothing.

My observations are:

Concerning the race tracks:

Shut down areas should be constucted to handle an unconcious driver. It should be like a bowling alley that guides the ball in the lane area. At the end of the track the sand needs to be maintained like the infield of a major league baseball stadium. If it starts to rain, cover it up so you don't have heavy wet hard sand when racing resumes. The sand needs to be spec'd, capable of doing it's job, not whatever was available locally like gravel and rocks or dirt.

Catch nets need to be made tall enough to capture an airborn car, and there should be a series of them, not just one held in place by exposed posts that my driver might run in to. And race cars are not like water to be guided around a corner by a concrete channel at the end of the run. Concrete K-wall running perpendicular to the racing surface like it did at ET is idiotic.

I agree with many who said the cars have progessed but the tracks haven't. Our race cars will not pass tech with hay bails, hose clamped weight bars, old seat belts or used up firebottles. We are held to the highest level when prepping our cars. Yet some of these tracks, while their intentions may be good, need to be seriously updated. Concrete guard walls over the old post and Armco several years ago was a good move, but we need to keep in mind these cars also need to stop. And once in a while the driver will not be the one doing the stopping.

Concerning the cars:

It appeared to me Scott's chutes came out when the body split and left the car, which is typical. The problem is, the chutes are very thin nylon. The heat from Scott's car toasted them before they even had a chance to open. They appear to be a melted mess fluttering behind the car. Chutes need to be lightweight but strong. If something could be done to treat the material to give it just 5 seconds of life in the heat that may have made a difference. 3-4 seconds of working chutes may have knocked 100-150 miles per hour off his speed. Launching mechanisms for current chutes no matter how elaborate won't keep a fire from nuking them before they have a chance to do their job.

All the yearly updates we have to do to our race cars are expensive. If we don't do them, we can't race our car. Tracks need to be held to the same standard if they want a National or Divisional event where our cars are going 250 to 300 miles per hour. There should be a standard "set in stone" design for shut off areas. Spec'd nets, walls, sand and length. And the nets should be installed, SFI dated and approved just like the products we are told to run on our cars. We are allowed two years on our seat belts and then the webbing is considered unsafe and must be replaced even if the seat belts never came out of the box they came in. The requirement for the nets should also be the same with regards to expiration dates for the material.

RG

 

[Joker741]

Well said Randy.

 

[DrRocket]

Great post, with sensible common sense recommendations Randy.

Is your driver OK?

 

[Toejam]

RG, good points. While it's obvious Scott was carrying WAYY to much speed. I feel he would've survived at most other tracks had it not been for that Concrete wall. Why NHRA allows that is a mystery to say the least!

 

[mick]

for those with google earth, take a look at the barrier at end of dragstrip.
it is not angled across the track as suggested by others; what appears on
tv is somewhat an optical illusion. any contact with that barrier would
be at an extreme obtuse angle.
way too many factors to draw conclusions about one thing or another.

 

[Randy]

for those with google earth, take a look at the barrier at end of dragstrip.
it is not angled across the track as suggested by others; what appears on
tv is somewhat an optical illusion. any contact with that barrier would
be at an extreme obtuse angle.
way too many factors to draw conclusions about one thing or another.

Yea, all the white concrete across the end of the track looks like an optical illusion to me too. I just wouldn't want to be the guy hitting that illusion at 200+ miles per hour.

Google Earth shows my house as having no back yard landscaping, yet it was done many years ago. K-walls can be relocated overnight and in many cases are.

 

[Toejam]

for those with google earth, take a look at the barrier at end of dragstrip.
it is not angled across the track as suggested by others; what appears on
tv is somewhat an optical illusion. any contact with that barrier would
be at an extreme obtuse angle.
way too many factors to draw conclusions about one thing or another.

You may be right Mark, but there are a lot of people saying he ran into that Camera crane.

 

[travis1960]

for those with google earth, take a look at the barrier at end of dragstrip.
it is not angled across the track as suggested by others; what appears on
tv is somewhat an optical illusion. any contact with that barrier would
be at an extreme obtuse angle.
way too many factors to draw conclusions about one thing or another.

 

[FABMAN]

As some have noted it's WAY too early to be speculating about the cause, and solutions, but I have -- like most -- been thinking about this a lot. I've thought about a lot of things, like the burst panel/chute connection, or some chute connection to the finish line (via GPS or some other signal), or some other ideas. People like Jim Head and John Medlen will have lots of good ideas I'm sure.

But it occurs to me that nothing in the car should be the final key to the solution. Just look at the boomers that TonyP and Scott and others have had in just the last few weeks, and it's clear nothing on the car should be counted on as the last resort. The cars explode so catastrophically that no system could live through it, or should be counted on to survive.

I think the solution should be on the track, with some form of "catch" system. The sand traps and nets need serious examination, Del's roll at Pomona was just one proof of that. Someone suggested aircraft carriers, but as was noted those are incredibly sophisticated and expensive systems. And they rely on the plane to have the hook out, and to catch the wire. Drag racing needs some failsafe system of traps/nets/whatever to catch an out of control car at speed.

I'm not smart enough to know what that is, but I believe that if we're smart enough to make a car go 0 - 330+ in 1320' we should be able to design a system to stop one safely when it's out of control. They came up with the SAFER barrier for circle tracks, and it has saved a lot of lives. Let's get those people involved in this.

The safety net at last weekends race was non-functional, it could not stop a PSB and a T/F car both went underneath the net. Scott's car never reached the net, there's speculation about what he did hit and I'm sure the truth will be told in time. The safety of some tracks have really stood out lately and it is time now for the teams to take control of their destiny.

 

[clwill]

The safety net at last weekends race was non-functional, it could not stop a PSB and a T/F car both went underneath the net. Scott's car never reached the net, there's speculation about what he did hit and I'm sure the truth will be told in time. The safety of some tracks have really stood out lately and it is time now for the teams to take control of their destiny.

Exactly my point. Put the same kind of intellect into STOPPING the cars as they put into making them go from 0 - 330+ in a 1/4 mile. The sand trap / net / curved barrier at the end of ETown looked like a complete afterthought. Smart *engineers* need to be assigned to this problem, and tracks need to be told to implement them or lose the national events.

 

[Rexfiles]

Yea, all the white concrete across the end of the track looks like an optical illusion to me too. I just wouldn't want to be the guy hitting that illusion at 200+ miles per hour.

Google Earth shows my house as having no back yard landscaping, yet it was done many years ago. K-walls can be relocated overnight and in many cases are.

I was at 1000' and saw with my own two peepers what happened from the camera in the basket very clearly.

That concrete barrier was hit with ferocious impact.

immediately thereafter that camera was incapacitated.

As far as I know only people at the track that were watching that screen know. for certain.

That car, hit that concrete barrier. HARD.

then either the chassis, motor, God only knows.....hit the boom.

It's difficult to get this across to people who did not see that shot, and probably will never.

i will never forget it.

REX

 

[Nitrohaulic]

Shut down areas should be constucted to handle an unconcious driver. It should be like a bowling alley that guides the ball in the lane area. At the end of the track the sand needs to be maintained like the infield of a major league baseball stadium. If it starts to rain, cover it up so you don't have heavy wet hard sand when racing resumes. The sand needs to be spec'd, capable of doing it's job, not whatever was available locally like gravel and rocks or dirt.

All the yearly updates we have to do to our race cars are expensive. If we don't do them, we can't race our car. Tracks need to be held to the same standard if they want a National or Divisional event where our cars are going 250 to 300 miles per hour. There should be a standard "set in stone" design for shut off areas. Spec'd nets, walls, sand and length. And the nets should be installed, SFI dated and approved just like the products we are told to run on our cars.

Is it time to have an SFI spec for track shutdown/catch areas?

 

[Muddy]

Sure we all saw how good the SFI spec was on the funny car chassis and how well they stood behind it last year.

 

[Nitrohaulic]

Well, I agree with Randy. Certain parts of cars deemed to be criticial to safety have to be reinspected and tagged every so often. To require that on so many parts, then not have a standard for track shutdown/catch areas? What's required in this area to be an NHRA sanctioned track that can host national events? Someone looks at what you've got and says "Okay"? If that's left up to the tracks then, all those parts should be left up to the racers.