Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

There was a cell phone photo of the cage going around yesterday of the uncovered chassis on the hook.  It was completely caved in on one side.  Hide it so it doesn't become a social media spectacle?  A couple more inches in the the wrong direction and this would have been a much bigger spectacle thsn a couple of leaked photos.

Stan Meissner

As a side note a lot of people on this board are or were involved hands on and spent years in the pits and infield around the cars and drivers.  I don't recall a situation that didn't have a more serious outcome where a chassis was hidden after the accident.  If the intent was to squelch discussion it's having the opposite effect on me.  My next milestone will be 70 in a few years, I've seen a lot, even dumped my CF card in the WoO laptop in their trailer so I have been as close as I could get without being on the payroll.  Wasnt born yesterday and I'm definitely going hmmmmmmm over this one.

Stan Meissner

They still haven't really said anything concrete about what may have failed, and where it failed. Does the public need to know? No, not really. My guess is that a qualified chassis builder could assess rather quickly whether or not it had to do with the design and material, or a freakish happening. I would hope that they will involve other builders in the assessment of the failure to ensure as well as possible that it doesn't happen again. And too, there will always be that exception to the rule, no matter what painstaking efforts are applied.

I am not part of the team nor was I there but This is to everyone questioning Barry and CJB's decision to cover the car. Have any of you thought about what they had to do to get ready to race the next night. First they probably had to talk to David to see if he was going to be ok and ready to race the next day, next they had to get a back up car down and ready. There's a lot of things to be done. Knowing Barry and the professional he is I would guess he wanted a chance to evaluate the frame before everyone came to conclusions. It's not something that could be done correctly  in 5 minutes in the dark while there was more important issues to address. 

Just my my two cents. 

I think we just need to all be happy that there wasn't an injury.   Given the damage on that cage I'm thinking Shaffer's front bumper couldn't have missed his head by much.   

EXACTLY!!!

Not to take sides in this issue for or against any decision that Barry Jackson made, if this had happen in New Jersey, the State Police would have be on top of this.  The State Police control all aspects of the sport in the state and have trained accident investigators at each event in the state.  A few weeks ago two TQ drivers and one champ-kart driver were injured at an indoor event in Atlantic City.  The State Police were all over the three race cars even as the drivers were being placed into ambulances.  The police were taking pictures of steering wheels, helmets, and other parts of the involved race cars.  More telling was a State Police Officer telling a fan leaning over the upper deck railing that the fan did not need to take a picture of the extraction process getting a driver out of the damaged race car.  I am not sure of some would think that is a form of censorship, but at least the police took charge of the situation.  A few days latter, the Racing Division of the State Police made a change in the seat requirements for all open wheel divisions in the state.  Some people think that the State Police are too involved, but as a former race official, I never had any issue with their involvement.  Their goal was to make the sport safer for all, drivers, crew, fans and even officials.  I for one welcomed their involvement.  I hope what Barry Jackson said he is trying to do by having officials and manufactures examine the damage without unnecessary speculation makes the sport more safe for all.  Take care   

#1.  The state of new Jersey has no business sticking there noses in and starting a investigation.  For what ? 

I can understand jackson's point. Today's social media is not opening a discussion with what they feel the cause or the fix would be. The professionals are not interested in what anyone has to say except for other professionals in the sport. Unfortunately,  teams, drivers, everyone understands just how fast today's cars are.  A sprint car wreck at speed today equates to one thing. It's usually total junk. 

It was a ugly crash with the car coming down on top of the cage at least 3 times. I was just glad to see both drivers ok.

I'v seen many teams cover a car after a bad wreck. 

Obviously you cannot see that the 1st impact was on the rear of the cage & then again on the complete cage on the last flop on the track. Cages are more suceptible to fold up in these impacts from landing in the opposite direction the cars are going.

I was thinking it was .0 2 thin.......

Not hiding anything other than what people who have not a clue about structure or conformities of these race cars start spouting off false shit about their inexperianced thoughts about what they think they feel went wrong. Let the builders figure it out, not the National Enquirer pit pass clowns who roam the tracks & seem to know it all & everybody involved.

I'll just grab my popcorn and wait for the CJB 5 car to roll out of the trailer some time this year with a "safer constructed cage".  That was the whole point of the press release correct?  Good thing we have tethers on the front axles and drag links, those sure do keep the drivers safe with three openings to the cockpit.  Why "halos and chicken bars" aren't mandatory on these things yet is beyond me???  In the meantime, back to eating my popcorn and waiting!

I'm not going to mention names, but the tethers your talking about are a good thing, a darn good thing. We did lose a driver because of not having those in place. A halo or chicken wing as you call it does help, but so does tethers. That car came down on it's cage square. That is not good. Very glad to see both walk away.

I don't care why they covered the car. But I will say they need to update the chassis construction around the drivers' heads to make them all safer. It's been the same way for many years and it's time for a better change. Thankfully they have a huge wing to cushion 99% of the collisons while flipping.

     Can you explain what you mean by halos and chicken bars?


     Around here, one of the tracks made the non-wing sprint class add what they called halos on top of the rollcages. It was basically just another set of top bars set about 6" above the existing ones on the car. It seems like it would be no different than making the rollcage 6" taller.

So after the tough talk about how the cars need to be safer did CJB load up and go home to build a safer car for their driver? No. they rolled out another unsafe car, strapped the driver in, and hoped for the best. Barry Jackson has the unique opportunity as a car builder to have his actions match his words and build a safer car. Will he do it? In another statement he said the drivers deserve better.  So far it's just lip service.

There is no way that a proper "redisign" with safety as a consideration could be made in 1 day. C'mon, be realistic. To redesign this and make it safer, which is the point, will take research and development .  An overnight quick fix without research, development and crash testing of some sort could easily make things worse. If the point is to make things safer, it will take time  had tap severe accident as such occurred say at the finale at Charlotte I'm guessing results may have been seen for the start of this season and even that would be a push. You criticize Jackson for so called tough talk yet continuing to race. Would you have rather he said nothing at all even while having concerns? Myself I commend him for stepping up, saying something, and inviting those in the sport who can make a difference to look at their car and learn.  Absolutely nothing would have been gained by asking all of us armchair racers and keyboard jockeys for our input, myself included. 

The photo of the car on the hook that was going around the night of the crash showed the cage collapsed all the way down to the top of the arm guard.  "Arm chair expert" insults aside it doesn't require an engineering degree to know that's not a good thing.

Stan Meissner

Just talking about the problem will not solve anything or make it safer for the drivers. Jackson builds a very good car, what was believed to be as safe a car as any in the business. Why not announce he will be the first to build a safer car with better tubing in the cage. I agree with him that you cannot make the car safe from every possible scenario, but steps can be taken sooner than later by all chassis manufacturers to make the cars safer. Is it not worth the safety of drivers to build a sturdier, yes even heavier chassis, to protect the drivers. They are not a throw away commodities like today's chassis.

My only point of reference working with extreme machinery was on the flight deck launching planes.  We had a couple of incidents of mechanical failure on an A7 and F8.  The planes exploded part way down the cat track.  After checking myself over where I got hit by shrapnel we cleaned up the mess, pulled the deck plates and did a waterbrake job and went back to work.  Unfortunately in our case we lost two pilots and the failures we're with the aircraft and not the cat.  I guess that left me a little jaded on this subject but in my mind the solution is to acknowledge the problem and fix it.  On the gator the pin that the cat pendant attached to failed half way down the track and the aircraft didn't have enough speed. 

In the case of a crumpled roll cage either the tubing was defective or it wasn't heavy enough.  Halos and triangulation wouldn't have done anything to prevent a complete collapse of the whole right side.  True, Sprint cars are constructed to absorb impact forward of the firewall but the cage must remain intact for obvious reasons.  Based on what I have seen they'll need to address this as soon as possible.  

Fortunately nobody was injured but it was an eye opener this early in the season.  

Stan Meissner