Hight's FC body goes into the stands...was anybody hurt?

[Marchboom]

the reason bodies are flying off is the way teams are mounting them now a days! years ago the tubing tied the front latch to the hood and went back to the tubing in front of the motor. . a few years ago the teams quit tying the tubing together. the front latch tubing is completely separate from the tubing infront of the motor. this was done to get the body to flex which is why you see the front lips dragging the track as it comes up on the finish line. BUT the result is now when the burst panel blows and splits the hood to the fenders , there is no latch to hold the hood and back of the body down! that's why the noses stay attached with the latch in tact and the back flies off.... look at pics of Height's , Grey's , Beckman's or Hagan's and they all have the nose still on it while the rest of the body blows off!

Being carbon fiber I'm assuming that they are stronger than earlier bodies. But it appears that the weak point is about 2-3 ft from the front. Reinforce that area with tubing, possibly increase the size of the body burst panel, then see what happens. But the fact that the front of the body stays with the car is a definite indication that more engineering is needed.

 

[Percboy]

Quite the video... clearly (miraculously) nobody was stuck.
Robert Height Blow Up... Body lands in Stands - YouTube

 

[DrRocket]

DANG!! That one peice from the side would look pretty sweet on the wall in my shop!

 

[bing]

It's making the rounds this morning:

Y! SPORTS

Even made it on the nightly news 'down under'

 

[rckymtn3]

I would rather have a whole body hit me than a thin Frisbee-like panel come scissoring my way. At least the whole body has a bit of air-braking to it's motion.

 

[James]

If thats Gainesville,theres alot of people that body lands on. Theyre ten deep at the fence at gville. Thankfully these things are a super rare occurance(parts/pieces ending up in stands).

 

[Silly Savage]

There was a feature on this weekends TV coverage about Johnny Gray's flopper ... they put a titanium plate over the fuel tank and added to and rearranged the tree under the body to strengthen it in the middle to hopefully prevent it from splitting.

Saw that...also noticed that Hagan (I think..) had something very similar on his fuel tank.

 

[mick]

i remember the fuel spraying forward in j. gray's vegas explosion.
i get the adding structure to underside of body, but the titanium plate on
front of fuel tank is there to prevent puncturing a hole in tank, but
what is puncturing it? reverse fuel pressure? gray's deal was like a fire hose
spraying forward.

 

[Silly Savage]

i remember the fuel spraying forward in j. gray's vegas explosion.
i get the adding structure to underside of body, but the titanium plate on
front of fuel tank is there to prevent puncturing a hole in tank, but
what is puncturing it? reverse fuel pressure? gray's deal was like a fire hose
spraying forward.

I believe the body latch that would contact the chassis to lock it down, is coming back into the tank and making the punture. I may be wrong...