Soft Walls on Drag Strips? (1 Viewer)

[MaC]

Alan,

What Pellegrini said!!!

MaC

 

[Mr. Fix It]

How about having some way the parachutes would deploy to straighten to car out? Sort of a "deadman switch" like the motorcyclists use when the fall off their bike.

We have seen many times where chutes coming out early straighten the car up and slowed it down. This happens when a funny car body gets blown off after an engine explosion.

I don't know what happened in the Medlin accident, I'm just going by what I've seen in the past. The chutes may well have not helped at all or were too late to help.

 

[Bob]

NHRA drivers lobby for SAFER barrier after death

Cory Mac and JR Todd seem to think that NHRA should look into it. I do agree about the rebound factor as it pertains to the SAFER barrier, as well as the extra down time to repair the wall if it takes a major impact. I do think this will start the NHRA braintrust thinking about safety improvements though.

Bob

 

[Kevin]

How about having some way the parachutes would deploy to straighten to car out? Sort of a "deadman switch" like the motorcyclists use when the fall off their bike.

We have seen many times where chutes coming out early straighten the car up and slowed it down. This happens when a funny car body gets blown off after an engine explosion.

I don't know what happened in the Medlin accident, I'm just going by what I've seen in the past. The chutes may well have not helped at all or were too late to help.

Really something that needs to be looked at for all cars over say 200mph. For starters I think Pro stockers would be relatively easy to rig to auto-deploy a chute if the rear suspension unloads above XXX speed for example. dragsters and funny cars with no suspension would be more problematic but I am sure some bright person can think of a way.

As stated in the parent post we don't know the specifics of Eric Medlen's accident and this may not have saved him, but in general wouldn't stabilization and slowing be a good thing in a out of control situation? What would this have done for Ron Krisher, Bruce Allen, or Kenny Koretsky just to name 2 or 3 high profile but thankfully non-fatal pro stock accidents?

Soft walls in one form or another should certainly be considered and evaluated for their +/- factors, as well as black boxes like IRL and Champ car uses to recover data from crashes to apply to future rules / specs.

Totally safe? Nothing is totally safe. But as experience is gained sometimes in a heartbreaking way, and hardware & technology evolves it should be applied to improve safety not just performance.

 

[rosco]

If NHRA decided to use the safer wall, Evey track would have to move both outside wall's out an extra 6 / 8 feet in order to retain the width that each lane is today, without moving the outside wall's, each lane would be 6 / 8 feet narrower than they are at the present time and that would cause many more accidents in the top end as many cars get very close to the wall now

 

[yoda]

OK.. I went round and round (literally) with the ESPN Journalist that wrote the article suggesting that soft walls would have the same effect on making crashing safer as it has in NASCAR.. I am not a believer that the same incidents apply between the two types of racing (cars designed to go fast and crash verses cars that are designed to go REALLY fast, and do that with minimal materials..)

After his reponse, I thought, "What is this guy's side of the story? Could he be on the right track?"... Always try to remain open to other paths of thinking, yada,yada, yada... But it made me start thinking about what aspects of the walls WOULD NOT be feasable in regards to Drag Racing, in respect to how the cars would possibly react in coming in contact with the new walls. Wide thinking made me also think about what the effects would be when the cars DO NOT contact the walls..
Discuss please:

We all have seen the effects of cars that drop a hole or two and take a radical swing because the exhaust pressure on that side of the car suddenly goes away. Obviously a lot of downforce, as well as lateral force, coming out of the pipes.

Enough force to compromise the integrity of the walls after every SUCESSFUL pass? Its obvious that the existing walls have some sort of "Hot Wheels track" effect on how the cars stay straight now.. Do the current NASCAR soft walls possess the physical properties not to self-destruct and get blasted into the stands by Round 2 of Saturday qualifing? And if not, how will that affect the car if it does fail, in regards to wall sections (I keep envisioning the old F/C blower blasts from the 70's- when fiberglass bodies floated back to earth after being blown 50 feet straight up..)?
Those with the proper credentials in the construction/ manufacturing of the existing soft walls please sign in..

 

[Toejam]

If NHRA decided to use the safer wall, Evey track would have to move both outside wall's out an extra 6 / 8 feet in order to retain the width that each lane is today, without moving the outside wall's, each lane would be 6 / 8 feet narrower than they are at the present time and that would cause many more accidents in the top end as many cars get very close to the wall now

Ross, that would probably close 60% of the tracks across the Country. Take your average Joe Lunchpail track owner, NHRA says effective '09 all NHRA sanctioned tracks must have NHRA approved safety barriers or lose Sanction! You can bet your local Dragstrip that doesn't run any Div. races will simply say "We don't need an NHRA sanction". And the tracks who currently run Div. races, the ones barely scraping by will probably decide they don't want the hassle an drop the NHRA sanction rather than spend the necessary $$$$ this will all cost. Forget land developers, this will kill off tracks faster than Noise or others issues.

 

[yoda]

Ross, that would probably close 60% of the tracks across the Country. Take your average Joe Lunchpail track owner, NHRA says effective '09 all NHRA sanctioned tracks must have NHRA approved safety barriers or lose Sanction! You can bet your local Dragstrip that doesn't run any Div. races will simply say "We don't need an NHRA sanction". And the tracks who currently run Div. races, the ones barely scraping by will probably decide they don't want the hassle an drop the NHRA sanction rather than spend the necessary $$$$ this will all cost. Forget land developers, this will kill off tracks faster than Noise or others issues.

I don't know if it would be a bad thing if the tracks left NHRA for another, independant (insured) sanctioning body... One that doen't completely freak out and change all the rules whenever there is ONE accident, but investigates change for the better CONSTANTLY... Where was the talk of SoftWalls a year ago???? Leave the walls alone- it was a tragic ACCIDENT.

Sorry..tossing the soapbox into the scrap wood pile now....

 

[rosco]

Ross, that would probably close 60% of the tracks across the Country. Take your average Joe Lunchpail track owner, NHRA says effective '09 all NHRA sanctioned tracks must have NHRA approved safety barriers or lose Sanction! You can bet your local Dragstrip that doesn't run any Div. races will simply say "We don't need an NHRA sanction". And the tracks who currently run Div. races, the ones barely scraping by will probably decide they don't want the hassle an drop the NHRA sanction rather than spend the necessary $$$$ this will all cost. Forget land developers, this will kill off tracks faster than Noise or others issues.

Are you saying that it would be OK for tracks to add the Safer Barrier wall and lose five feet of width on each lane, if they did that with out moving the outside walls, there would be more cars hitting the wall than ever, how many now just barley miss the wall without hitting the wall by just inches, what I said is, that if the Safer system was to be installed at Drag Strips the current configuration will not allow these changes without moving each outside wall out at least 5 feet, this would be the minimum amount needed to just keep todays width.