Lets fix the problem with the wheels flying off... (1 Viewer)

[Paul]

The last time a funny car lost a rear wheel from a wheel stud related failure I took a lot of heat on here for stridently suggesting that this is a problem that definitely could be fixed and definitely should be fixed.

The general gists of the arguments were "hey, sometimes things just bust", along with some "we don't need no d*** engineer to tell us what to do" and also some "by the way, if you haven't ever driven a funny car, get lost".

Some racing related parts failures are very hard to analyze and fix, such as the top end fuel engine failure that unfortunately happened to Scott Kalitta.

However some parts failures are pretty easy to fix, and this is one of them, and for that reason the problem should be put behind us before a driver or spectator gets killed.

I don't think I have to get out the slide rule to tell you how much destructive energy is in a rear tire flying down the track by itself at 250 mph, if it clipped another car and then flew into the stands people could definitely get killed, as happened many years ago with Indy cars before they got smart and took steps to make sure it would never happen again.

Daniel Wilkerson was very lucky not to get seriously hurt in this incident, thank God for that, but we've now just dodged two bullets with this problem, I don't think it makes sense to keep rolling the dice on this one. It would actually be pretty irresponsible not to fix it at this point.

A good metallurgist will be able to analyse the wheel studs and tell us if the failure was catastrophic (the parts are just not strong enough) or was from "worn out" parts (ie they need to be periodically checked and replaced) or was from undertorqued parts.

In any case, with some reasonable effort and not too bad a hit on the pocket book, we could make sure this problem never happens again.

It may require bigger wheel studs, or perhaps the same size but with a stronger material.

It may require regular magnafluxing and replacing of the wheel studs, which is a standard practice in NASCAR for critical chassis parts, the crew chief must sign off before each race that this has been done.

Or it may require spot checks in the staging lanes that all wheel nuts on all the cars have been torqued properly.

Even if we had to do all the above, its just not that bad fellas, and it really needs to get done so this problem never happens again.

Sincerely,

Paul Titchener

 

[handsome]

yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnnn. . . . here we go again.

 

[Todd]

What seems strange to me is BOTH tires came off. That kind of tells me there was more to it that sheared wheel studs. It almost appears that there may of been something wrong in the rear end. Dose anybody know if the wheels had the axles attached to them still?

At least know body was injured or killed. But it should be investigated as to what went wrong.

 

[handsome]

What seems strange to me is BOTH tires came off. That kind of tells me there was more to it that sheared wheel studs. It almost appears that there may of been something wrong in the rear end. Dose anybody know if the wheels had the axles attached to them still?

At least know body was injured or killed. But it should be investigated as to what went wrong.

looks like one side broke the studs then the other side couldn't support the weight on its own. .. .. .i would be willing to bet that Tim Wilkerson has gone over the rear and studs with a fine tooth comb. not to mention teams such as Force, Shumacher, Bernstein and others have offered tech help and even contacts to help resolve this issue already. nobody wants to see this ever happen again so i am sure nobody just said "oh well lets go to richmond and hope it doesn't happen again"!

 

[mastertone]

I hope they do something before they have to install a catch fence the length of the track like NASCAR has. That would suck.

 

[Paul]

yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnnn. . . . here we go again.

You're confusing me Bruce, so if Daniel W. hadn't used up one of his nine lives to avoid getting hurt this time around for this problem, you'd still be yawning?

Nancy M., the concern you showed for Daniel in your earlier posts was touching, are you still feeling the same way about this issue that you did the last time around?

Last time we had this problem there was a sentiment expressed that "don't worry about it, the powers that be are taking care of it".

Given how well those powers have "taken care" of the NHRA over the last 10 years, I think they will need a little prodding to take care of this one, as apparently nothing was done the last time this happened to the Toliver car. As far as I know they didn't even look into the problem, or if they did they kept it totally quiet, which doesn't make any sense.

This is just not that hard or expensive of a problem to fix, lets fix it before some young racer or fan gets hurt. To not do so is just flat wrong.

 

[topnitro]

Dan's spill certainly looked scary. Glad to see he's fine.

This side of the Atlantic we had a 'wheel off' type incident in September at the European Finals meeting at Santa pod. Stig Neergaard from Denmark was running in the first round of eliminations (with tuning from John 'Bodie' Smith) and, as the amateur footage shows, it was pretty scary. Stig got away with it lightly (compared to Daniel's basher) and appeared to have little contact with the wall. The errant wheel then kept within the walls and didn't cause any further mischief:

YouTube - Santapod TF round 1 Micke Kågered vs Stig Neergaard

Two 'wheels off' incidents in one month..... that ought to set off at least a minor warning bell somewhere.

 

[handsome]

You're confusing me Bruce, so if Daniel W. hadn't used up one of his nine lives to avoid getting hurt this time around for this problem, you'd still be yawning?

Nancy M., the concern you showed for Daniel in your earlier posts was touching, are you still feeling the same way about this issue that you did the last time around?

Last time we had this problem there was a sentiment expressed that "don't worry about it, the powers that be are taking care of it".

Given how well those powers have "taken care" of the NHRA over the last 10 years, I think they will need a little prodding to take care of this one, as apparently nothing was done the last time this happened to the Toliver car. As far as I know they didn't even look into the problem, or if they did they kept it totally quiet, which doesn't make any sense.

This is just not that hard or expensive of a problem to fix, lets fix it before some young racer or fan gets hurt. To not do so is just flat wrong.

paul, the yawn is because these message boards are calm and full of the latest news UNTIL something bad happens. then there are all kinds of people that have THE idea or stand up and say I KNOW WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!. how about giving credit to the teams and guys behind the scene that ARE all over these situations. like i said above, i doubt ANYONE is saying "lets hope it doesn't happen again next week". Nancy didn't want speculation about the crash because she didn't know how daniel was, but now you are going to speculate on how, what and when something NEEDS to be done. why not just leave it to the guys that are responsable for these cars, because they have hands on knowledge of what happens to these cars.

 

[Paul]

why not just leave it to the guys that are responsable for these cars, because they have hands on knowledge of what happens to these cars.

Bruce, I've been involved in safety issues with race cars from both sides, from being a racer and from being involved with creating and enforcing safety rules.

One thing became crystal clear to me from those experiences, leaving safety issues to the competitors alone is a guarantee of big problems. Even with sportsman level racers there is way too much pressure to perform and desire to compete well at any cost to count on racer's themselves to make reasonable safety rules and to abide by them without some structure applied.

In addition, as smart as today's crew chiefs are, you sometimes get involved in situations where some outside expertise can really add to the best solution of a problem. Critical parts failure is one of those situations.

There has to be an active organization with well qualified and experienced appointees settings safety guidelines, updating them when needed, actively enforcing them and drawing on expert advice when it can help.

That doesn't seem to be happening here. The NHRA hasn't even issued a statement at this point saying they are looking into this situation. Last time this happened the general sentiment here was "don't worry about it, they're taking care of it".

Nothing happened then, and in absence of any statement from the NHRA about the problem, it appears nothing is happening now.

We got lucky and dodged two bullets from this problem (although one hit Tim Wilkerson's wallet pretty squarely), it will be irresponsible if the NHRA doesn't take some actions to fix this problem at this point.

 

[handsome]

o.k paul. if you say so.

 

[DrRocket]

o.k paul. if you say so.

Bruce, I've been a mechanical designer since 1972.

I happen to think Paul is making some genuinely valid points.

I think your rather sarcastic "blow off" of his post is somewhat insulting.

I happen to think he's made some good observations and points in his posts. Why are you so dismissive of them????

is this personal, or what????

I'm just asking.......

 

[.]

Dose anybody know if the wheels had the axles attached to them still?

There's only one axle and it is not attached directly to the wheels. The axle drives floaters attached to the rear-end housing and the wheels are mounted to the floaters.

 

[handsome]

Bruce, I've been a mechanical designer since 1972.

I happen to think Paul is making some genuinely valid points.

I think your rather sarcastic "blow off" of his post is somewhat insulting.

I happen to think he's made some good observations and points in his posts. Why are you so dismissive of them????

is this personal, or what????

I'm just asking.......

nothing personal, just saying that you all act like nobody on these teams think of any of these points you all are stating. i would bet the farm most of these teams think safety first and formost. and when something like this happens they are all over the whys and how comes, and of coarse the how to prevent. plus you don't think for a minute wilk wasn't second guessing putting his son out there and the last thing he wants to read about is people's ideas of what he should have or needs to do. how do you think the guy feels that torqued those wheels? did wilk give him the third degree on if he did! who ever torqued them probably wanted to crawl in a hole and hide maybe from guilt wondering if he could have caused this to happen. and then he turns the net on and people want to post speculation of did this happen, or they should, or they need. i mean why don't we worry about how come haddock blows the rods out? can't we come up with a better rod? rods break all the time and nobody is on a soap box about that! wheel studs have caused (what) 5 wreck in the past 10 years? broken rods have caused how many wrecks and fires? how about oil getting on the track!!!! i think they shouldn't be allowed to run oil in the motors cause if a rod comes out it will cause a wreck and in the world of motorsports, we can risk that!

 

[yoda]

Bruce, I've been a mechanical designer since 1972.

I happen to think Paul is making some genuinely valid points.

I think your rather sarcastic "blow off" of his post is somewhat insulting.

I happen to think he's made some good observations and points in his posts. Why are you so dismissive of them????

is this personal, or what????

I'm just asking.......

How about this:

To Arend, Schu, Virgil, etc- those of you with a hand deep in the game with a Nitro car-

Did you get any memo from ANYBODY telling you to look at your car's wheel studs AFTER Toliver's incident, with either results of the incident, or a spec that the association is looking for before you pull it to the lanes?

How about this week?

Is there something that you guys know about? We, as just "fans" here, don't need to know the details- hence why the memo doesn't need to be made public. But the concerns being expressed here is that NOTHING is being done at all. And the problem definiately qualifies as a hazard to the lives of both drivers and patrons- the idea of a 200+mph tire zinging over the wall into the stands is not out of the realm of reality, and if it's due to something that COULD BE addressed, but HAS NOT BEEN, the repercussions to the entire sport could be devistating.

So, just wondering- has there been an edict from NHRA or SFI on at least what everyone SHOULD be aware of back there?

Just a Yes or No answer will be fine...

 

[Paul]

nothing personal, just saying that you all act like nobody on these teams think of any of these points you all are stating.

Bruce, I can understand your sensitivity on this. But its already been well proven in many forms of motorsports that the competitors themselves have way too many balls to juggle to also be responsible for making sure that the competition is as safe as it should be, and in heat of the moment and under pressure, safety is usually not the first thing on a competitors mind.

I'm not blaming the racers for this situation of having to now watch a "second bullet" be dodged after we've already seen the "first bullet" (the Toliver incident) already be launched, like I said, they have too much to do to be soley responsible for the safety of the cars.

It should have been the NHRA that took care of this problem. I hate to say it, but if this had happened in NASCAR it wouldn't have happened a second time, they know its not in there interests or the racers interests to allow problems like this to occur.

They actively investigate clear safety issues like this one and take measures to fix problems like this when they occur, taking input both from the race teams and any experts that clearly can help.

As I already mentioned, this isn't a hard to analyze situation like an engine failure at high RPM as in Bruce's connecting rod example, its a simple failure of a simple component. To be candid, its embarrassing and irresponsible that the NHRA didn't do anything to prevent it the last time it occurred.

It could be as simple as just having spot checks on wheel nut torques in the staging lanes.

 

[yoda]

It should have been the NHRA that took care of this problem. I hate to say it, but if this had happened in NASCAR it wouldn't have happened a second time, they know its not in there interests or the racers interests to allow problems like this to occur....

Do we know for sure that NHRA has not already done something?

 

[.]

Are the studs an "off-the shelf" type part or are they custom? How are they made? What materials are the studs and nuts made from?


Here is a pic

 

[Paul]

Do we know for sure that NHRA has not already done something?

Martin, if they did, its still a major PR blunder not to announce on the NHRA website that they are proactively working to take care of this problem, and just like the last time this happened, I haven't seen any mention of the situation at all.

If I were a corporation looking to become a sponsor, I'd definitely go looking elsewhere when its clear that with the NHRA, both literally and figuratively, the "wheels are falling off".

I'm really concerned about the overall future of drag racing if a reorganization of the NHRA doesn't occur that causes some accountability for those in charge when the organization underperforms, as this one continues to do over and over again.

As I've written in other posts, I believe that the current situation where there are no checks and balances to replace those in charge when they underperform is both very bad for drag racing and also on legal shakey ground.

The currently legal structure of the NHRA requires that its members are to have significant input into the decisions of the organization, and I believe that its possible that the current membership could force a reorganization to cause this to happen, thus putting some accountability back in the NHRA.

For more on this, see this thread:

http://www.nitromater.com/nhra/23389-tom-compton-please-retire.html

 

[yoda]

This subject has nothing to do with PR.

And actually, it has nothing to do with informing the public about anything. All I want to know is if they have been in contact with the teams?

 

[Treeshaker]

A whole lot of assumptions are being made here and we all know what the results are when we ass-u-me.

The causes in the 3 cases high lighted here were each different. Has the sanctioning bodies looked into each situation - yes. Was there a memo written - no. Is there a new rule - not that I am aware of at this time.

Contrary to somes opinions, the crew chiefs and car owners do talk to each other when failures occur and they try to implement proceedures with in their team to keep it from happening to them.

The full story of why the wheels came off, or Scott's accident, or why Force's team chassis were breaking when no one else's were, will probably never be made public. But 95% of the people involved with professional nitro racing know, because it affects their lives and livelyhoods.

And as far as engineers, we lost two front wheels at national events (one on each car) due to an engineer's design of a front spindle made mandatory by NHRA to replace our aluminum spindles that he said was not strong enough. Our aluminum spindles would bend (we bent several) but did not break (never broke one). His design would not bend and broke quickly.

Racers are street smart, when they see a weak link they come up with quick and inexpensive ways to fix the problem. Race cars are going as quick and as fast as they are because of the inginuity of the racers willing to try new things, seldom by the input of outside engineers.

And Haddock's explosion was caused by a crank failure.