Pro Mod crashes (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Mike
- Start date
stitcherbob
Nitro Member
As a driver Randy, would you pull the chutes or try to correct in a situation like that? Or brake? I know it’s hard under the split second but now we have crew chiefs with remote switches that could actuate the chutes if that’s possible . Or put a yaw sensor in the cars that throw the laundry when they get too crossed up at a certain speed?
Always throw the laundry
I was in the finish line stands when Kenny Koretsky and Bruce Allen had their horrendous crash at the Texas Motorplex. Allen drifted right, out of the narrow 'Plex groove toward the wall, then quickly corrected back to the left under power at 200mph. That doesn't work. The car turned 90 degrees immediately just like Thorne's car did and for the same reason.
Hard to fault the driver; things happen awfully fast in one of those cars. I'm sure Thorne was just trying to keep his car out of the right lane to avoid a catastrophic wreck.
Hard to fault the driver; things happen awfully fast in one of those cars. I'm sure Thorne was just trying to keep his car out of the right lane to avoid a catastrophic wreck.
Randy
Nitro Member
These cars are pretty much like driving on black ice past about 300'. Any move out of the grove should be dealt with appropriately. If you like the paint job on your roof, that is. Funny cars have downforce so they are pretty much stuck to the track. These cars are like driving a potato cut in half. Not much there in terms of aerodynamics to keep it straight at speed, especially when one tire is out of the grove. Almost every crash you see there is a common denominator.
Nick Rienstra
Nitro Member
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….these cars need triple the downforce and roof/rear deck flaps MANDATORY!!! Same thing should be done to any door car over 150mph.
Randy
Nitro Member
Early on in testing at Sonoma about 3 years ago I was driving my Rick Jones Camaro pictured in my avatar. It was on a mid to low 6.60 run. The run was generally unremarkable until about 1,000' where it suddenly felt like I was on black ice with the back end swinging in a hammock. Car went from great to feeling like it was trying to do whatever. I hit the chute button and stepped off the gas. Coasting through it ran a 6.72 at 192 miles per hour.
I have a lot of runs from the old days when I drove my TA/FC over a second quicker and it never got so stupid so fast that far down track, and I felt like it wasn't going to end well. A cross wind had picked up that afternoon but I really didn't think much of it at the time. You really need to stay 10 feet ahead of these things as a driver.
On a side note, Rickie at Rick Jones worked with me on adding downforce and rake in the car which really helped. BTW my car was built by them for JR Carr for Mountain Motor Pro Stock and was a great car. The amount of work that goes into building these things is stunning. Seeing someone wad theirs up is heartbreaking.
I have a lot of runs from the old days when I drove my TA/FC over a second quicker and it never got so stupid so fast that far down track, and I felt like it wasn't going to end well. A cross wind had picked up that afternoon but I really didn't think much of it at the time. You really need to stay 10 feet ahead of these things as a driver.
On a side note, Rickie at Rick Jones worked with me on adding downforce and rake in the car which really helped. BTW my car was built by them for JR Carr for Mountain Motor Pro Stock and was a great car. The amount of work that goes into building these things is stunning. Seeing someone wad theirs up is heartbreaking.
Randy are you racing anymore?
Randy
Nitro Member
Thanks for asking. I'm not.
I started racing in 1971 at 16, then quit as driver years ago. I kept going as a TA/FC team owner, and finally quit after we had a great weekend at the Winternationals, 2012. After that I helped out a couple of teams for a couple years. Then, after my wife died in September 2018, I bought JR Carr's MM Pro Stock Camaro and put an 800" Sonny's hemi in it for Top Sportsman and drove it (lotsa fun!) but was forced to quit as explained below.
I haven't mentioned this before but I guess I should in case anyone else is at risk like I was/am. In Q1 of the Finals at Pomona in 2021 I made a gear change in the Camaro to try to step it up a bit, hoping to put it into the 6.50's. It knocked the tires off at the hit and shook hard, kicking the car sideways in the process, so I shut it off (Even Alan Reinhart announcing mentioned that it must have hurt). Kinda rang my bell which surprised me. The next day when I was on the computer the straight lines on the bottom half of the screen were wavy off to the right in my right eye. Still, I calmed the car back down and ran the rest of the race weekend with no more issues except I lost first round. The first of the next week I went to an ophthalmologist who scanned my eye, and told me I had retina damage in two places similar to macular degeneration, with separation. I tried to explain tire shake to the doc giving her the "head in the Home Depot paint shaker" description followed by the sledge hammer upside the helmet, and she said it probably didn't do me any favors. Since my Mom and grandfather both lost most of their sight because of MD at a much older age, I decided it would be better if I didn't rush things along, so I hung it up. So sad, I must say.
I had frame breaking tire shake in the TA/FC years ago that was much much worse than this was with no effects, but I was also much younger. Still...Lotsa fun.
Wow, I thought you may have sold the TS car but obviously didn't know why. Sorry to hear you were forced to quit, but you sure have a helluva racing career to look back on. I loved all of your cars, but you know I have a special place in my heart for that Arias powered, low slung A/A!
Randy
Most non drivers on this site do not realize just how severe tire shake can be on the driver. One day at Pomona I had a Big tire shake and that night I could not read the newspaper. from the day on I have needed glasses. prior to that day I had the most perfect eye sight. Randy you explained tire shake the same way I have said to others many times. this has happened to many others including Joe Amato.
Larry Sutton---Lions Starter and racer (RET.)
Most non drivers on this site do not realize just how severe tire shake can be on the driver. One day at Pomona I had a Big tire shake and that night I could not read the newspaper. from the day on I have needed glasses. prior to that day I had the most perfect eye sight. Randy you explained tire shake the same way I have said to others many times. this has happened to many others including Joe Amato.
Larry Sutton---Lions Starter and racer (RET.)
MM
Nitro Member
The advancement of the head padding both in the helmets and in the cockpit combined with having a poured seat have made the effects of bad tire shake a lot easier to deal with, in my opinion. I couldn't believe the difference in how I felt physically having the new padding and a poured seat versus how I used to feel after driving for several years without them.
Agree. The main reason I've never been a fan of the class. A lot of crashes, a lot of incomplete runs, and the crashes inevitably cause delay after delay at the event. Very annoying.
Chili
Nitro Member
There has been a lot less incidents the past couple of years compared to the earlier years of the class. In NHRA competition, only Al-Balooshi crashed a pro mod on track in 2022. This year the only incidents I can think of is Mason Wright crashed his car in Chicago, Samarukov on his burnout in St. Louis and Thorne in Vegas.
Randy
Nitro Member
Thanks for mentioning that. It was a great car and we had a lot of fun with it. Steve Reyes did this spread for us in the January 1981 issue of Popular Hot Rodding (almost 43 years ago!). Larry Sutton flipped the switch on the tree many times at OCIR for us.
Randy
Nitro Member
It was built for BB/FC (now TA/FC) back then. I had a McCracken Corvette body for it. At the time, stepping up wasn't in the budget as I was a 20-something year old kid spending just about everything I had to put it together.
The engine came courtesy of Nick Arias and his piston engineer, Dave Calvert, who contacted me about running it for them. I didn't own it. It was a 3 pushrod engine with a cast iron filled Chevy truck block with cast water jacketed heads. Jody Smart ran the heads before I did on his TAD. Nick, especially, wanted to see it make a lot of runs to prove the three pushrod deal would work, so I ran it at OCIR just about every single weekend if they were open for about three years with no problems. It's a long story, but we had a lot of fun with it.
There were a lot of dragsters running OCIR's "Quick 32" back then, and we had fun being in the middle of it with an altered that was way ahead of it's time. But it was 10.75:1 low compression engine on cruise, and threatened to dip in the sevens several times but never did. After running it for a long time, Arias took it apart and bumped the compression way up to see what it would do. On the first pass a rod broke and destroyed the block and trashed a head. It was on a very good run. At the time, I was looking to buy the engine from them. When it blew up I was engaged to get married and decided I needed to get my life in order, so I cancelled the engine transaction and sold the car. That was in 1982.
A side note, the scoop I used was made by Ron Butler and was supposedly off Bill Bagshaw's pro stocker that he crashed. Tim Hall ended up with it, and I bought it from him after he ran it on his A/Dragster. I gave it to Dave Calvert last year to hang in his den.
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