Another Racer Killed at E-Town

[danny waters sr]

Thoughts and prayers to the family and friends . Neal was a great person and loved drag racing. Godspeed my friend

[Lew Silverman]

How incredibly sad! My thoughts and prayers are with his family. At least he was doing what he loved when he left us. G-d speed!

[Div5Fan]

His final pass was his career best. Very sad news.

[W J]

Originally Posted by FINESPLINE

Sorry to say but from watching the video from 2009 crash and seeing in person the 2008 crash , the sand pit is way too short for the speeds of T/F F/C T/AD T/AFC. A runaway car just skims across the sand into the nets. This could be a real problem due to the road crossing behind the end of track and safety devices . There is just no room to elongate the sand pit.

Have to agree 100%.....It's evident the major safety changes & improvements that were made for safely stopping a high speed run-away down at the very end of shut-down after the Kalitta fatality ('08) and the '09 F/C crash still need more attention, although when chutes aren't deployed, bad things often happen.... WJ

[Carl Juliano]

I always wondered if there is something other than sand that would cause more resistance for the car to slowly "dig in"?, it seems the sand isnt soft enough in some cases, and the cars seem to skim across it.

[Alan Roehrich]

Any media used for a speed trap has to be constantly stirred and groomed, or it settles and compacts. Let it sit, get rained on, or generally weathered, and it will get relatively slick and hard. Vibrations from cars on the track, and trucks on that road only help that process (speaking of E-town). It also needs to have a pretty serious uphill grade, as much as you can put on it without cars digging in and going end over end (Force did that a few years back). Pea gravel, or creek gravel may work better than sand. They use it at some circle tracks and road courses, as well as in runaway truck ramps on highways. But you have to be careful how you stop the cars, and how fast you stop them.

Although it will really screw up the guys who like to coast, if they'd put an uphill grade on the shut down right after you pass the finish line, increasing as it goes, it may help slow the cars down.

The net issue is a harder problem to solve, since you have to stop the cars without stopping them so fast the driver can't survive, and without tearing the car apart. That's going to be really difficult and expensive, and given the difference between the widely varying cars, it may be nearly impossible, at least with just one net system. Different speeds, weights, and car structures will make it hard to make a net that stops all of them without destroying some of them. At least to NHRA, changing nets when you change classes could get cost and time prohibitive.

[W J]

Originally Posted by Carl Juliano

I always wondered if there is something other than sand that would cause more resistance for the car to slowly "dig in"?, it seems the sand isnt soft enough in some cases, and the cars seem to skim across it.

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

[gmonde]

it is certainly a sad situation that has happened,as a racer i certainly dont take anything for granted,it can happen in any class and any speed ,,,my thoughts go out to the family and friends for such a loss gmonde

[Alan Roehrich]

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

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.

[Earle Holt]

Very sad. Prayers for his family.