John Medlen (1 Viewer)

[none]

Bobby Bennett / Jon Asher,

Great Story.. John Medlen is a amazing man. Talk about taking lemons and making lemonade.

Torco Racing Fuel's Competition Plus.com - Drag Racing's Internet Magazine - JOHN MEDLEN DISCUSSES SAFETY

 

[amanda Speed]

Fabulous article! John Medlen is truly an incredible person.

 

[sammi]

Auto Racing is going to be a much safer place because of John Medlen. My hat's off to JFR and Ford for devoting the time and resources to preventing another tragedy. So, the question is, what are the other team's doing to forward safety in drag racing? It is pretty obvious that JFR took their eye off the racing ball to address this critical need. It is too bad other teams took advantage of JFR's shifting focus. I have a feeling when they complete their work in the "Funny Car of tomorrow", they will go on a tear the likes of which we have never seen in the sport. Maybe other teams could take a break from bowling alley building and real estate speculation and help in this very important initiative.

Mark

 

[Nunz]

Man that was a fantastic interview. John is truly an exceptional individual, and we really owe him for staying involved and putting forth the effort to prevent any more catastrophies in the future. Hats off to John Medlen and the whole Force team.

 

[Zak]

Auto Racing is going to be a much safer place because of John Medlen. My hat's off to JFR and Ford for devoting the time and resources to preventing another tragedy. So, the question is, what are the other team's doing to forward safety in drag racing? It is pretty obvious that JFR took their eye off the racing ball to address this critical need. It is too bad other teams took advantage of JFR's shifting focus. I have a feeling when they complete their work in the "Funny Car of tomorrow", they will go on a tear the likes of which we have never seen in the sport. Maybe other teams could take a break from bowling alley building and real estate speculation and help in this very important initiative.

Mark

Why take something good that John Medlen and JFR are doing at then take cheap shots at other teams?

Thank goodness JFR and Medlen have class

 

[PJ]

Auto Racing is going to be a much safer place because of John Medlen. My hat's off to JFR and Ford for devoting the time and resources to preventing another tragedy. So, the question is, what are the other team's doing to forward safety in drag racing? It is pretty obvious that JFR took their eye off the racing ball to address this critical need. It is too bad other teams took advantage of JFR's shifting focus. I have a feeling when they complete their work in the "Funny Car of tomorrow", they will go on a tear the likes of which we have never seen in the sport. Maybe other teams could take a break from bowling alley building and real estate speculation and help in this very important initiative.

Mark

I have to be honest here, I think that this is a completely unfair assesment. Force is in the spotlight right now beacuse of this tragedy. So any changes he makes good or bad will be magnitized. Yes he has devouted alot to safety recently but sadly he also has extra people available right now to research such things. Other drivers and owners throughout the years have added much to the safety of racing.
When Capps had the horrible body implossion a few years ago Snake came up with something to keep the body off of the driver. Jim Head just this weekend mention about seat changes he had made, the holes in the funny car windows didn't always used to be there. i could go on and on plus there are so many other safety improvements that we never see.

Lets face it these men and women are strapping themselve into missles. There is no guarantee of safety so to blast them for doing things and having a life outside of racing is low. They ALL have safety in mind

 

[Nunz]

Good post PJ.

 

[Rajunz]

...............So, the question is, what are the other team's doing to forward safety in drag racing?............

Jim Head has always focused alot of his resources on building safer racecars!

 

[Pete]

WOW! Talk about a man motivated. I am so thankful, as a lot of others are, that JF has kept JM onboard and allowed him the resources to turn this negative into a positive. As time goes on, a lot of these innovations/changes will trickle down to all categories and make the sport safer as a whole.

I had a chance to talk with John Medlen at E-town....and I have had conversations with him in the past, prior to Eric's accident and he is truly a changed man, both spiritually and with his focus. He has one goal in his eyes and you can see it by his actions.

Thank you JFR for taking the safety of the sport to the next level!

On the Jim Head comment, did anyone notice how fast ESPN went over to his pits to see what he was doing in the driver's seat area, after he invited them? Also, how Dunn and Page mentioned it again during the show.........I didn't think so.
Lets just show more footage of Cory and Larry's crashes

 

[afx421]

john medlen is trully incredible! tragicly he lost his son, but he wont give up on making a safer race cars for others. hats off to mr medlen. trully a hero, like father like son.

 

[paoldtimer]

What a great article and kudos to John Medlen and the whole JFR team for trying their best to make sure this never happens again!!

 

[.]

Great article!

I still want to know what happened to the tire though and this article doesn't give any details. I always knew the tire was somehow at fault for the massive vibration but after reading this it seems that the tire failed but only partially came off the wheel or something. Anyone know what actually happened with that particular tire that was so unusual compared to all the other tire failures of the past and caused such a huge out of balance vibration?

 

[willy]

Great article!

I still want to know what happened to the tire though and this article doesn't give any details. I always knew the tire was somehow at fault for the massive vibration but after reading this it seems that the tire failed but only partially came off the wheel or something. Anyone know what actually happened with that particular tire that was so unusual compared to all the other tire failures of the past and caused such a huge out of balance vibration?

In the article John mentioned working with Weld Wheel..reference was to an 'enhanced bead seal to help hold the tire on the wheel better.' Not that THAT is where the failure was..but that's the only mention of anything tire.

Just to read his take on the whole harmonics/vibration deal..and the 90g's it produced is scary shit.

 

[.]

In the article John mentioned working with Weld Wheel..reference was to an 'enhanced bead seal to help hold the tire on the wheel better.' Not that THAT is where the failure was..but that's the only mention of anything tire.

Just to read his take on the whole harmonics/vibration deal..and the 90g's it produced is scary shit.

That part of the article you mention is what made me wonder exactly what happened. I may be reading it wrong but it reads to me that the tire failed but only partially came off the wheel which caused the huge inbalanace.

You're right David, that is amazingly scary to have an imbalance that large to create those kinds of forces. It's one thing to survive an 90g impact that only lasts fractions of a second, another thing to be exposed to them for seconds.