Tasca injuries (1 Viewer)

[JHOLE]

Peter,

Just discussing, if a mistake is made once every 15 years, considering all the Funny Cars that make runs do you see it as an epidemic?

I think that there are more pressing matters to address. I know this isn't the perfect metaphor but, If a carpenter hits his thumb and breaks it it doesn't take a new policy for the other carpenters to not hit their thumbs. All the others just automatically pay more attention.

Alan

You're speaking to the wrong crowd Al... You're using a carpenter's analogy with a drywaller crowd..

Hell, as soon as one drywaller gets drunk.. - the rest fall over themselves to join in... ..

 

[M Jones]

Not trying to beat a dead horse but what if the guy lowering the body pulls a muscle and looses control just enough, the possibility for serious injury is there, a simple Guard over the linkage should not be too hard. we have belt guards. Blower straps, will it take serious injury before it’s addressed

 

[mole]

You're speaking to the wrong crowd Al... You're using a carpenter's analogy with a drywaller crowd..

Hell, as soon as one drywaller gets drunk.. - the rest fall over themselves to join in... ..

YEAH....AND THEN THE TRIM GUYS COME IN AND NEED TO WORK WITH THE DRYWALL GUYS PROBLEMS LEFT BEHIND......GEEZZZZ.......WE END UP DRINKING WITH THE REST OF THE CROWD....

 

[none]

Mark,

I respect your opinion but in my mind it's not needed. If you have a Funny Car and wanted to build something like you describe I don't think anybody would stop you. I also think that an error that has now happened twice this century isn't call for alarm.

Also having thought about it, Tony's deal at Indy had to do with the throttle stop not being able to be removed and I don't know if Tasca's was the same problem or not.

Alan

 

[camaro]

using the logic 'it only happens every 15 years, therefore it is not that urgent to address' is not good safety practice. yes, it happens infrequently but the consequences of getting run over by a 2500lb car are to high to accept. Everyone has a 80% chance at winning at Russian roulette but no ones crazy enough to play!

 

[Pete]

Mark,

I respect your opinion but in my mind it's not needed. If you have a Funny Car and wanted to build something like you describe I don't think anybody would stop you. I also think that an error that has now happened twice this century isn't call for alarm.

Also having thought about it, Tony's deal at Indy had to do with the throttle stop not being able to be removed and I don't know if Tasca's was the same problem or not.

Alan

If someone got severely injured or worse, it would be followed by a rule. Instead of being reactionary, why wouldn't NHRA want to be proactive?

Here's what I think should be done: NHRA requires the throttle stops to be removed only after the body is lowered. The person that greets the car after the burnout resets the stop to a "closed" position and the car idle back to the starting. The cars are controllable to a point, with the stop in place and won't open the throttle any further if accidentally hit. It may be difficult to remove the stop after the body is lowered, but I'm confident they could figure a new method out.
If the car needs throttle control to back up, then the same as above, except the crew member sets the stop to closed after the car backs up, body is raised and work begins, then stop removed after the body is lowered.

 

[TD5023]

using the logic 'it only happens every 15 years, therefore it is not that urgent to address' is not good safety practice. yes, it happens infrequently but the consequences of getting run over by a 2500lb car are to high to accept. Everyone has a 80% chance at winning at Russian roulette but no ones crazy enough to play!

Teams are free to address it if they choose to do so. If they don't, then they either feel it detracts from some other aspect they deem important or they think that a careful and precise crew should be able to prevent it adequately without intervention. If rules were implemented for every unlikely event that might cause injury, the rulebook would quickly become a rule-encyclopedia and it would be unenforceable, not to mention very expensive to be compliant. Safety is absolutely important and there are areas that need addressed, but at some point, the benefits fail to outweigh the loss in practicality (and could potentially cause new problems that didn't exist before).

 

[TSK]

With the throttle stop in place, there is still enough throttle movement to allow the cars to do burnouts. Even with the stop in place, waiting until the body is lowered to remove the stop is not going to prevent somebody from getting run over if the body hits the throttle lever. The brakes will not hold the car if that happens.
The only way to prevent another accident is to put a guard over the throttle lever. You don't want anything touching the throttle lever with the engine running.

 

[stitcherbob]

It was 1990 (Johnny West) until 2008 (Scott Kallitta)....18 years , until a Funny Car ran off the end of Raceway Park and crashed again.....and now we have all sorts of invasive shut downs and other knee-jerk rules (1000ft) from it that have affected the racing. Just sayin'....

A larger hole on the body around the linkage would help

 

[none]

2005 Indy to 2019 Pomona 2 is 336 races. If you figure 16 car field making 4 qualifying runs and then add in eliminations that's 94 Funny Car runs per weekend. (And I know that it's not always 16 cars or 4 Q's but I'm using round numbers) That's 31,584 runs. Add in match racing, testing, licensing and whatever else. Can I call that another 5,000 runs in 15 years?

So a crewman makes a mistake one time for every 36,500+ runs? I want those guys working for me.

I lost a fingertip in an industrial accident in 1990, I made a mistake. That company is still in business and to my knowledge it hasn't happened again. (I still have friends that work there) Not because they thought that new safety procedures and guards were required, because everyone including me, learned from the mistake and knew to be more careful/pay more attention when working with that machine.

I know that you don't all see it that way and that's fine. It's just a discussion and I am sharing my thoughts on the subject. Someone once said that he could guarantee that nobody ever got hurt racing ever again, all you have to do in NEVER start the car.

Alan

 

[none]

using the logic 'it only happens every 15 years, therefore it is not that urgent to address' is not good safety practice. yes, it happens infrequently but the consequences of getting run over by a 2500lb car are to high to accept. Everyone has a 80% chance at winning at Russian roulette but no ones crazy enough to play!

James,
Using your Russian Roulette analogy I agree. If there was a 20% chance of hitting the throttle every time the body was lifted, it would need to be aggressively addressed. But that's not the case.

If I told you that once every 15 years on average someone you know would have a traffic accident would you see the need to quit driving? No matter how safe you drive, there is always some risk.

Alan

 

[paulnhra]

As with any near miss, you can learn and make things better in the future.

 

[ironpony]

Chris,
If this happens once every 15 years I don't think a rule is necessary. (Tony's was 2005) I think that every owner/driver in the pits has already told his car chief "Make sure this can't happen to us." And every crew guy who lifts the body will be paying extra attention.

This has already fixed itself.

Just my opinion.
Alan

So the owner/driver didn't tell his car chief after Tony's incident "Make sure this can't happen to us"?
Or are you saying it takes 15 years to not think about it and then get reminded again and then be safe for another 15 years and so on?

I mean it hasn't happened in 15 years Within an hour of hearing about it, everyone made a point to double check their cars and all the body lifting guys were reminded the pay attention when raising or lowering the body. My personal opinion is that nothing more is needed in the way of rules or memos.

If I make a mistake in my shop once every 15 years, I don't see a need to change shop policy for that.

And no disrespect taken, just discussing.

Alan

So why exactly are we running 1000' then ?

 

[M Jones]

Allen I agree with your odds, I just wouldn't want to be the one telling the family members that it should not have happened due to odds, that can't bring them back, when i drove we didn't have throttle stops, I have no knowledge of them so I can't comment on them, I believe this has happened a few times with no one getting hurt, I would like to see teams address this for there crews sake, we can always replace cars and parts, never human life or limb, just getting old and soft, no disrespect to anyone commenting on this, a lot of great input

 

[RM FAN]

So why exactly are we running 1000' then ?

Its called common sense.

 

[none]

Mark,

You nailed it! If the teams want to address this they certainly will. Most think it's unnecessary.

Here's a perfect example. The Crew Chief shut off switch that allows them to kill the car from the starting line. The rule on that states......
Wait! There isn't a rule on that. It was a good idea, and every team realized that this could save them money, parts and possibly prevent an accident. So they all did it. No rule needed.

Alan

 

[M Jones]

I’m not trying to say rules, just common sense like your example about the kill switch, time will tell

 

[ironpony]

Its called common sense.

Common sense tells me not to stand in front of a 10k HP car idling at 2800 RPM in gear. Common sense tells me not to stand in front of any running car in gear.In the case of Scott it was not the trip into the sand it was the boom truck parked in the sand trap, common sense Huh ? Do not park a 30k LB lift in the shut down area.

 

[z28]

What happened to the Tasca team while testing in Arizona? I heard a couple of crew members got hurt?

They could go to throttle by wire and eliminate all those problems

 

[stitcherbob]

They could go to throttle by wire and eliminate all those problems

I don't know if I would trust fly by wire.....the amount of interference generated by the mags making welder quality amperage usually cause the TV cameras to fuzz up when too close, and then you had the situation at the '94 Slick 50 Nationals when Jim Epler won 3 races when his opponent red lighted. He red lighted himself in the final, but the consensus was that there was some sort of electrical interference between his car and the tree during the previous rounds.