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

I was watching the All Stars on tv this weekend when I saw James McFadden squirming to extract himself from his Kasey Kane Racing sprint car and I started thinking about how unsafe that narrow opening might be in an accident.

Over the last few years the cockpits have really enclosed the drivers.  I noticed it first in the midgets, but it has expanded to all the open wheel series. I know all of us from the "good old days" enjoyed seeing the drivers elbows up, but those wide open cockpits were also not the safest.

I have heard the enclosed cockpits are safer, but I think aerodynamics is the real goal.  To streamline the air moving around the bodyworks is the real goal.

As with all forms of racing, it seems no one will give this the serious thought it deserves until a driver is trapped in a burning car and the body panels prevent a quick extraction.

Should the body panels be lowered a bit?   Should side body panels be mandated to be easily removable from inside or outside the car?  Should they be hinged like and I shudder to type it...  door?

Thoughts?

I was watching the All Stars on tv this weekend when I saw James McFadden squirming to extract himself from his Kasey Kane Racing sprint car and I started thinking about how unsafe that narrow opening might be in an accident.

Over the last few years the cockpits have really enclosed the drivers.  I noticed it first in the midgets, but it has expanded to all the open wheel series. I know all of us from the "good old days" enjoyed seeing the drivers elbows up, but those wide open cockpits were also not the safest.

I have heard the enclosed cockpits are safer, but I think aerodynamics is the real goal.  To streamline the air moving around the bodyworks is the real goal.

As with all forms of racing, it seems no one will give this the serious thought it deserves until a driver is trapped in a burning car and the body panels prevent a quick extraction.

Should the body panels be lowered a bit?   Should side body panels be mandated to be easily removable from inside or outside the car?  Should they be hinged like and I shudder to type it...  door?

Thoughts?

Those panels are just held by Zeus fasteners.  If a driver needed to get out fast he could easily knock the panel off. The clips break before the rivets.

I really don't like all of the high side panels on the cars today, if a driver needs to get out he can probably snap or bend the panels to extricate himself if they are not injured. As a fan I like seeing the driver wheeling their car, and as a fan I'm not the one being subjected to flying clumps of mud or rocks...sometimes. I remember when the horizontal left side cage bars were called sissy bars, some drivers would not race without them, and some would not be in a car with them. I also remember of drivers breaking their left arm on those bars, of course that was before full containment seats. IMO, increasing the weight rule will just benefit all the titanium shops.  

I wonder how many of the driver today would be in the sport if we went back to the 80's body styles?

    ? How would increasing the weight rule help titanium shops?

yeah ya got me on that one. I guess it would depend on how much the weight requirement was increased. Sure cars must weigh a certain amount and with titanium a car can be lighter and a team can place ballast where it serves a positive purpose.

Thats the thing that most people do not understand. Everyone thinks "Lets raise minimum weight and teams will not buy expensive lightweight parts." Wrong. The teams that can will still buy those Ti parts and put the weight where they want to on the car for the best performance advantage. They could make the minimum weight rule 2000 pounds, and teams will bolt 600 pounds of weight in the places that helps them gain the most advantage and keep the light weight parts. Hell, you may want to be careful with that because if you make the weight rule high enough, teams that can will simply spend even more money for Tungsten blocks vs Lead, to use less material to make up the same weight.

Food for thought.

I was watching the All Stars on tv this weekend when I saw James McFadden squirming to extract himself from his Kasey Kane Racing sprint car and I started thinking about how unsafe that narrow opening might be in an accident.

Over the last few years the cockpits have really enclosed the drivers.  I noticed it first in the midgets, but it has expanded to all the open wheel series. I know all of us from the "good old days" enjoyed seeing the drivers elbows up, but those wide open cockpits were also not the safest.

I have heard the enclosed cockpits are safer, but I think aerodynamics is the real goal.  To streamline the air moving around the bodyworks is the real goal.

As with all forms of racing, it seems no one will give this the serious thought it deserves until a driver is trapped in a burning car and the body panels prevent a quick extraction.

Should the body panels be lowered a bit?   Should side body panels be mandated to be easily removable from inside or outside the car?  Should they be hinged like and I shudder to type it...  door?

Thoughts?

Thats the thing that most people do not understand. Everyone thinks "Lets raise minimum weight and teams will not buy expensive lightweight parts." Wrong. The teams that can will still buy those Ti parts and put the weight where they want to on the car for the best performance advantage. They could make the minimum weight rule 2000 pounds, and teams will bolt 600 pounds of weight in the places that helps them gain the most advantage and keep the light weight parts. Hell, you may want to be careful with that because if you make the weight rule high enough, teams that can will simply spend even more money for Tungsten blocks vs Lead, to use less material to make up the same weight.

Food for thought.

In that case, is it as simple as reinstating the rule that bolt-on weights are illegal?  If I remember correctly that was the case when the weight rules were first introduced (the 1200 pound rule).  Or is there something else that I'm not aware of since I'm not involved in car prep?

I have wondered for several years why no one else seems to see the obvious issue here...   Go sit in the grandstands. Watch Sheldon wrestle the steering wheel as he tries to get off turn 2 without lifting..  My goodness, even hot lap can look like ellbows up for the last lap sometimes..  Nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to being able to see the driver in a sprint car and watch him drive the car. Ever notice Sweet or Gravel turn the wheel 2 maybe 3 seconds before normal in anticipation of something happening in front of him.. and then see how they were right..  Keep the wing panels about the top roll bar. open the cockpit as much as safely possible for our view.. close it off and its just a stock car or modified,.

Thats the thing that most people do not understand. Everyone thinks "Lets raise minimum weight and teams will not buy expensive lightweight parts." Wrong. The teams that can will still buy those Ti parts and put the weight where they want to on the car for the best performance advantage. They could make the minimum weight rule 2000 pounds, and teams will bolt 600 pounds of weight in the places that helps them gain the most advantage and keep the light weight parts. Hell, you may want to be careful with that because if you make the weight rule high enough, teams that can will simply spend even more money for Tungsten blocks vs Lead, to use less material to make up the same weight.

Food for thought.

I agree with ya beezr. Just the way I see it, the teams that can spend the money will spend it, no matter where the spend it. If they are told they can't spend it in a certain area, they will find another to spend it in. 

Hardon, I am not sure on the frames themselves, but back in the day teams were doing things similar to that, expecially when the weight rules first started to come about. Guys were doing everything they could to lighten their cars up, drilling out the flanges on their steering wheel quick release hubs, I had heard Kinser had drilled holes in the 3 bar mount buckles on his seat belts. Guys were drilling holes and milling pockets in everything that had a little bit of extra meat to take away, then they were turning around and filling their nerf bars and bumpers with lead shot and siliconing the ends so it does not come out, running steel motor plates, 1/4" steel floor pans, kick panels, etc over the thinner aluminum counterparts in order to gain enough weight back to make minimum weight. 

Believe me, it does not make much sense to me. I guess if I still had my car, and I had to gain weight to make the min weight, I would use some heavier parts over the more expensive Ti items, (I would still try to be as light as legally possible on rotating and unsprung areas). I understand that you can take weight away from areas and add it back to better areas, however, most guys on a budget will not go for something like that. The issue here is everyone seems to be referencing the outlaws, most if not all of the outlaw teams have the budget to be able to do crazy things like that, so I believe the only thing that will change that is an astranomically high weight rule for a 410 sprint car and tell the teams no added weight. Then you add another factor of tech, checking to make sure there is no lead in the knerf bars, etc. Now, you run into the problem also of freeing up thousands of dollars per team from not having lightweight parts, most of them will probably put that money back into something else to gain an advantage, engine program maybe, who knows, but like I said, the teams that can spend it, will spend it no matter what they spend it on.

That was my thought exactly.  The light weight parts aren't going anywhere until they're completely outlawed in my opinion.  But a question I have for anyone working on race cars is lets say just for laughs they would outlaw adding weight to cars, whether it be bolt on or welded on or any other way.  Could someone put lead or tungsten inside of the tubes of the frame?  A couple of issues I see is with this would be, first off you would need to be comfortable cutting up a frame, adding the weight and then welding it back up.  Second of all would be keeping the lead or tungsten where it needed to be (so it wouldn't move from the front of the car to the back of the car or vice-versa), but I would think this would be easy enough to do if you're comfortable enough cutting up your frame, you could easily put a stop in.  I've never heard of this but I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of it, maybe it's already happening?  But does anyone see any other issues with this?  Would having the extra weight inside of the frame rails affect the way the chassis works? 

On a side note, this is why I've always believed less rules, not more rules is the way to lower costs in racing.  In this example, think of how much more expensive it is just to add weight and hide it.