While I may be going to college to major in mechanical engineering, I don't need a 32,000 dollar degree to know that you don't want ANYTHING to go from 250+- MPH to 0 MPH too quickly, even if the driver has the HANS or whatever device JFR uses. After so many negative G's, the brian will slam against the forehead.
While I think the Von Smith deal was uncalled for (especially with that tree there), I think having a net at the end of the sand trap would have been a bad move. I think it was better that he was able to run out into the grass and slide it to a stop, than go from 250 to 50 in under a handful of seconds.
I think the best thing for any shutdown area to have is a minimum 350 foot sand pit with 2 standard nets at 50 and 125 foot, a chain of interlinked tires (with 3/8" grade 4 bolts holding the tires tread to tread) at 200 and 300 foot, and a 3 layer wall of tires in front of any solid object, such as a wall, that may be at the end of the sand pit.
Now, as I expect to get hammered over the tire chain idea, here's my explanation. Tires have often been used in road course racing as a precurser to hitting the concrete wall, before the SAFER barrier was put into widespread use. But I think water barrels are just bad debris waiting to happen. When you hit a water barrel, the plastic collapses, and water goes everywhere. No real protection. It would help if the barrel was metal, but then you get into safety concerns. Tires are a good compromise because they will stretch, deform, and asorb energy. But they also have rebound.
My theory is that when a body car (a dragster would just go under it, which you can't really avoid even with a net) hits the chain, the tires would stretch into a horizontal oval, asorbing the energy and slowing the car down, but when all the energy is asorbed that cna be, the bolts will either shear (remmeber, grade 4) and pull through the rubber, the chain will come apart (getting rid of the action-reaction effect), and the car will go into the second chain with a slower speed. So the car would hit 50 foot of sand, a net, 75 more feet of sand, another net, 75 feet of more sand, a tire chain, 100 feet, another tire chain, 50 feet of sand, then a 3 layer tire wall. Between digging into the sand and hitting 4 restraint devices, I couldn't imagine a whole lot of things making it to the end.
