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

Over the years I've heard a few people comment they ran out of brakes. Seems like I've heard this no3re often this summer than all previous summers added together. I'm surprised how willing drivers are to get in front of a camera and anounce to the world they had no brakes. Hmm. I get it, the driver never wants to pull out of a race but brakes seem to be a safety item, for everyone , not just the single driver. You can't race without a helmet or seatbelts and if you wanted to the lack of either would not destroy anyones car nor injure the opponent. Seems to be acceptable to race with no brakes and risk others but not acceptable to go with a seat belt.  Functioning brakes should be mandatory.  Sweet was only 20ish laps into the A main and already lost brakes prior to eating the Salsa!

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

Rotor was glowing orange when he hit scelzi so that tells me the brakes technically work. He just faded the hell out of them dragging the brake all the time trying to keep the car straight.

Coming from a racing background....you can go from having great brakes, to the next lap having to pump the pedal one time, to the next lap pumping twice etc....... it can go from zero to 100 within a straightaway. So, it's a matter of seconds, if not less. Judge all you want to. Especially when youve never sat in a 410.  You have within less than the "pump of a brake pedal" to decide if your brakes are working or not.. which is about less than you can blink. One of the only racers who admits when he's wrong, admitted they fucked up. Pretty cut and dry, racing deal. Not being a dick, but racing deals really do happen, get over it and move on.

Of all drivers in the world right now, I have no problem believing Brad when he says he had no brakes----or at least lost most of them.  He is harder on the brakes than anyone else I've ever witnessed.  Not a slam on him by any means.  Just so many different styles.  

100% and I just know this from working on our little cars. The officals even do safety checks first and that is one of the first things they check is if the brakes after functioning. My son has gone out, raced and when its time come in has had to turn the engine off to stop because of a phantom brake issue. A lot of things can happen in any race car to make  the brakes not function properly and some of the guys I know who driver sprint cars have told me they have lost brakes in part of the feature without warning and have had to pump them. This thread is just another primary example of someone who knows nothing about the cars but hears what they want to hear, sees who is involved and wants to be overly critical even though said driver was honest and took the blame. 

Schuerenberg also had a brake failure last week, but I think that was about the first time out for that 11 car this year.  He said that they also had brake problems the night before.  As hard as Sweet's car hit Scelzi, it was quite obvious that Sweet had no brakes.

I'm going to suggest that the brakes wear through the race, and in some circumstances I'm sure they wear out completely.  For the most part, I don't think they just give out all once, but there must be exceptions. In this case, Sweet probably had brakes right up until the time he didn't, or perhaps didn't have enough brakes to slow him down before he ran into Courtney. That must be an extra heavy-duty adrenelin rush when you slide a sprinter into a corner and suddenly the brakes don't work like they're supposed to. 

Can you shed some light on a technical question about sprint car brakes? With good brakes being part of how a sprint car gets around a track fast, why isn't a second rotor used?