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

See post above. I'm a slow typer.

Ok Murphy, so how do we fix things? Perhaps someone from the WoO should be making safety recommendations to the different tracks they race at or better yet, each track could review their safety issues every year. Local drivers should try to get together to raise their concerns to help prevent stuff before it happens.  Peace brother...

     That's a hard question. When I was in high school- 1977-78- a racer got killed in a sprint car at my home track. It was determined that in a crash his head had contacted the wall on the front straightaway. Here it is 40 years later and with all the safety improvements in the cars and the tracks and the rescue teams, we've had the same thing.

     The main difference between then and now is the wings. Ideally, the wing works like a big cushion when there's a roll-over absorbing alot of the enregy of a crash. If the top of Jason Johnson's cage contacted the wall, it sounds like the wing wasn't between the cage & the wall to cushion that inpact? I've seen cars roll and lose their top wings. Then they start snap rolls and other scary looking maneuvers. Maybe there's a clue about safety in there.

     My observation is that the cages need to be taller. In 1978 the rule at our local track was that there had to be 4" of clearance from the top of the driver's helmet to the top of the roll bars directly above. In 1978 the sprints had 4 major verticle bars in the roll cage. In 2018 they have 8 including the down tubes. They should be and are safer, but they can be improved and they should continually improve just as they have since 1978.

     Off the top of my head, in 40 years they have improved fire suits, helmets, shoes, gloves, arm restraints, seats, belts, roll cages, removable steering wheels, tubing specs, tear-offs, fuel cells, shut-off valves, drivelines, axle tethers, and added wings. That's a lot of improvements. We need to keep going in this direction.

What about my thought on making the top of the cage bigger in all directions?  You wouldn't necessarily have to change from the hip rails down much.  But angle from there up out on each side and make the whole thing taller.  You'd likely need additional bracing here and there.  The idea is the further your head is from the tubing the less likely for your head to hit something.  It would be radical change to something that hasn't changed much since downtubes were added but I'd think it would have to be safer.  

Someone correct me if I am wrong please. It has been tried before I am quite certain. The problem with making a roll cage bigger is that tubing is more likely to bend in an impact if it is longer. Best to let the designers and fabricators try implenenting their new designs based on knowledge and expierence gained over the years. If it was that simple I believe it would be used in race car construction today. Actually modern roll cage designs are a huge improvment over what was standard equipment in the past. Thankfully the designs keep getting better and better and have no doubt saved many race drivers from injuries. 

Is anyone working on a wing restraint system to keep the wings from comming loose in a wreck? Could this be worth persuing?

    Technically that is correct. It's like building a bridge, the longer the span the more stress put on the materials. The answer would be to use strong tubing. It could be bigger diameter, thicker walls, or higher test steel.

     In 40 years I believe we've also seen an improvment in materials science and materials testing. There would now be better ways to, for example, build a chassis with some differing roll cage options and test how they would hold up in different crash scenarios. It would be a lot like the videos that are out there of tests done with a crash test dummy in a sprint car chassis driving straight into a concrete wall at simulated speeds.

     When this discussion came up before-I think when Gravel's cage bent or broke- there was discussion that changing the way the cage was built would affect the chassis performance, therefore racers wouldn't do it because it slowed down their cars. I thought that was bogus until I remembered a legendary racer about 30 years back saying he'd race without a roll cage if they would let him and if it made the car faster. Yikes!

     One other area of car construction that I always wonder about is the nerf bars. (In my area, a nerf bar is the term used for the "bumpers" on the front, back and sides of a sprint car.) What's used now looks to be about as strong as the frame on a $9.99 single use bag lawn chair. If the nerf bars has a little more size and strength to them it might help when 2 cars come together, especially if one of them is stopped.

    I think that's an angle worth pursuing. We've all seen crashes where the wing stays on and acts like a parchute causing the car to sort of flop around. Unfortunatly we've also seen crashes where the wing gets ripped off and then things get ugly.

Not so fast! I have not been there myself so someone correct me if I am wrong. From a video or two It appears there is a substantial run off area all around the racetrack except the front straightaway as you have pointed out. Lernerville may actually be the safest racetrack around. The billboards in the photo are set back quite a distance from the actual racetrack. I think you might owe Lernerville an apology!

To the common person they look pretty far back! Unless your in the sprint car flipping towards them at 80 miles per hour, then they probably look pretty close!

What would you estimate a safe distance might be for a race car flipping at 80 MPH? 100 feet perhaps, as it appears to be (in videos)? Anyone have a knowledgeable opinion of this particular racetrack? Are you saying Lernerville is not a safe racetrack? To my knowledge it is generally (commonly) accepted that a racetrack with run off area is considered safer and prefered over one that does not. 

     On Google maps the billboards measure 80 feet back from the top of the corner in 3&4. There is a also a concrete wall at about 60' back. The pits look to be behind that a ways. With the open corners and some runoff space it looks a lot safer than a lot of tracks.

Thanks Murphy. Stuff happens sometimes no matter how safe we try to make things. But, we all try to make racing safer. Be safe everyone...

Good observation. We all probably agree there will always be room for improvement to racetracks and race cars. What if sprint cars were made of same size but thicker wall tubing than what is currently used today. I believe this would make roll cages ECT. stronger (safer) without changing the design much howevern It might make some race cars a bit out dated. It probably would not add much weight but may be worth it to save a few drivers. Someone may want to try the concept out and see if it catches on. Patrs breaking away like at Indy is a whole different situation for race cars going over 200 MPH and that's like comparing apples to oranges. I believe for a sprint car  it is probably better (race drivers might agree) if the car stays relatively intact. I know someone mentioned parts like wheels and stuff being designed to break away while absorbing impact forces but that is related to 200 MPH on pavement not 100 MPH on dirt. Anyone agree on this?

Been done by I believe David Gravel earlier this year.  They added some additional tubes and bracing to help with the roll she on the car. What they found is they were uncompetitive. The chassis didn’t work with the track the same as it did before. The chassis itself is also a suspension component as nonsensical as that sounds. They ended up going back to the way things were.

If you mix the older and newer chassis I fear the older chassis as you are suggesting would be at a disadvantage. Downright forcing all teams to scrap their current cars over say the 2018 offseason will put a lot of local teams out of 410 racing if not racing entirely.  This would hurt the WOO car counts as well obviously being they rely on the local racers to help fill out their fields.

Racing is dangerous, let’s not kid ourselves about this.  These guys and gals that drive these things are driving the apex racecar on dirt if not in all oval track racing. Nothing else has a higher HP to weight ratio, and these guys are doing this on dirt.  Things should be done but we have to be measured and calculated about how it’s gone about. Because if we don’t we risk loosing what we have car count and track wise. 

Thanks brother. I agree with most of your post. But, we have all seen older race cars compete sucssefully with newer race cars as long as they have the right parts bolted on. I doubt if anything will make a lot of race cars obsolete suddenly. Car counts are very important as we know but safety must keep up somehow with increased speeds. At some point insurance for racetracks may become a big issue otherwise. A lot of people don't know at one time auto racing in the USA was more popular than the 3 major stick and ball sports combined. Making racing great is a part of making America great again. We can all be proud of this!

Seems like sprint cars have done away with a rule NARC (N. CA) used to have, that the drivers head had to be 6 inches below the top of the roll cage. Roll cage padding has also become antiquated. Perhaps it's a good time to review this safety issue. WoO has a new update on additional roll cage side tubes on their web site. Thank you WoO, good job. Be safe everyone...