Quote:
Originally Posted by W J
Carl, up in the mountains of northern New England---Vermont especially, they have run-away ramps off steep highway grades and hills for the semis and tractor-trailer rigs. They construct these ramps of very fine pea stone---maybe 1/4-3/8" diameter stone. Ramps are very soft and up to 2 feet deep. Maybe the fine pea stone would do a better job making the run-away racecar dig in and drastically slow it down better than the sand, but who knows?.....a tough thing to speculate---coming into a trap at a high speed---for sure....WJ
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That's one of the ideas I was talking about. It'll stop 80K pounds at 75MPH or faster in 100 feet or so.
The problem is it may shred the cars.
It's beginning to look a lot like we've got a bigger problem, and maybe shortening T/F and F/C to 1K feet isn't going to solve it. Unfortunately, it looks like NHRA is only looking at slowing the cars down. And trying to force a few tracks to get up to some sort of barely adequate minimum that may not be enough now.
NHRA needs to do a ton of testing, same as NASCAR did in 2001 and 2002 after Dale Earnhardt got killed. The problem is it will cost a ton of money. You need a place to test, maybe 1/2 dozen or so of each type of car, and a way to get them to hit the speed trap at speed, in a controlled manner. You might get pro teams, at least the few big money pro teams, to pony up an old worn out car or two each, maybe. But you need to test the sportsman cars, too. Where are you going to come up with all of those, and the time?
I'm just asking questions because I don't know the answers.
NHRA is going to have to come up with some seriously solid answers and results, especially if they're going to try to force track owners to spend massive money to upgrade. They're going to have to make sure the upgrades work, and make sure the tracks get a return on the investment, too.
But remember, it ain't just the pro cars or the alky cars that go off the end of the track. Don't forget Woodro at Gainesville, Pete at Orlando, or Wayne at Reynolds.
I skipped over something in the previous post. What works for a speed trap for F/C, T/F, P/S, and the alcohol classes could be deadly for a sportsman car and driver. Lets say you come up with something that would stop a 300MPH F/C with no chutes and no brakes. What happens when a 120MPH Stocker hits it? Say the F/C stops in 60 or 100 feet, but the Stocker stops nearly instantly. Or maybe it is a 140MPH Super Stocker, or a Comp car. What about a 200MPH Pro Stocker or a Pro mod car? It might save one guy, and kill another.
Both NHRA in particular, and drag racing in general, have gotten way behind the curve here. We've been pretty lucky, relatively speaking, in that these runoff crashes have not killed spectators or people on roads just driving by. It's a terrible thing that our friends are getting killed driving race cars, sportsman or pro, I'm certainly not minimizing that, not by any stretch. We've lost several to these crashes in the last couple of years, 3 F/C drivers, fuel and alcohol, come to mind right away (maybe one was a health issue). God forbid one go through that grove of trees and get on that road, or off the end of another track and into someone.