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

Can anyone remember more torn up equipment in just a three-day period than this? (In no particular order and just off the top of my head):

Reutzel 

Snyder

Hampton

Peck

Kahne

Timms

Dietz (×2)

Kofoid 

Courtney 

Balog

Sweet

Scelzi 

Schuhart 

Holmes

Sams

Naida

Close calls: the rest of the field

Bad too. Not talking pull them in swap out the wing and an axel , all the s*** looked junked.

Just watching on TV, almost all had bent frames. The top bar on the front of Courtney's roll cage was bent downward. I don't have DV...did someone say Reutzel was injured last night as well. Certainly hope those hurt will be ok.

Reutzel's race team posted that he has a broken foot.  He's lucky it wasn't worse.

Many blaming the hole when most of these wrecks didn't involve it.  I like Buddy, but he made a mistake and wiped out 6 or 7 of the cars on the list way before the hole was a factor.  Many cars got swallowed up by the wall once the cushion moved right up next to it.  One of the more "wrecky" weeks of racing I've seen and everyone is looking for a scapegoat, so blaming the track.  

This has become one of my least favorite tracks. Way too many wrecks and injuries. I wouldn't be sad if sprint cars just avoid this track period.

Everyone bitches about Eldora when it slickens off and the bottom groove becomes dominant..."it's not the old Eldora". Well be careful what you wish for. This is old Eldora but with 2025 speeds and a dip going into turn 1. 

Violent wrecks some track some driver error some circumstances but all are costly. More than winners check in junked cars. Hopefully the driver have minimum injuries. The list incudes several that seldom wreck

Some did not involve the hole. Too many did. That hole was there last year. If High limit is without two of their top drivers for very long that will hurt them.

Reutzel is lucky to be alive. Been going to dirt tracks for over 40 years and I can't think of a crash as bad as his. First his flip and then to be hit not by one but by two cars going flat out and he was dead stopped on the track when he got hit by the first of the two hits. I was so glad and relieved to see him moving to get out of the car. 

I don't know if I've ever seen a weekend of racing or so many cars that have flipped get blasted by other cars still going full speed piling into the wreck. I imagine that's because of the insane speeds they're hitting at Eldora, but it seems like there's a lot of cars "with nowhere to go" just completely blasting into cars that are flipping. Happened to Sweet tonight too. 

Massive sprint car fan for 40+ years, but don't enjoy watching those kinds of wrecks.  I think we've been very fortunate the injuries haven't been worse 

 I'm guessing the 4 day payout to sit around $650,000. Wonder what the repair bill will be? Maybe the only winners here are the parts suppliers.

With Tyler,Brad,and Aaron all sidelined due to injuries fortunately not worse makes you wonder if the extra money,not a points race made a difference in the way peole raced each other. We all love good racing but the amount of violent wrecks was much higher last week than normal. Three of the top drivers in top 5 in points all hurt. The equiptment will be replaced but HL also lost three of their drivers . Brad will be back but Tyler season ending Aaron broken foot probably try to be back. The $200K to win is nothing compared to being hurt. Eldora has always been fast and dangerous but this year was a tough one. Macri drove well and Rico was again right there and Gravel showed he can pass cars.

I watched the first two nights on Flo and the last night on Dirtvision. I was there Friday sitting in turn one where all the action was. A few observations. I think there are a few things going on here, and maybe the most important isn't being talked about.

1) It's easy to blame track prep or the track. Many are blaming the track due to what many are saying there is a hole/rut in turn one that is causing the wrecks. This may be part of the problem, but not all IMO.

2) Others say it isn't the hole because some didn't hit it. It was the cushion or the track. The dirt was very heavy this week other than Saturday due to weather/humidity. On Friday night there were a few cars that ran high 12 second laps in qualifying, with most in the 13 second range. Rico was still turning mid 13s in the feature. Saturday, even after a rain delay, the track slicked off a bit. Not as fast. Only one bad wreck and that was early. Fast track, heavy cushion - another possible/probable cause.

3) Another factor that hardly anyone brought up. A picture says a thousand words they say. I found this on Twitter and I can't find again where I found it. There was a short conversation I found very interesting. Here is the picture;

Again, I don't know who took this picture, but it is a great shot. I'm not even sure if this is at Eldora or when it was taken, but that doesn't matter. If the person who took this shot reads this - please speak up for credit. They are a photogrpher it looked like.

What we are seeing here is the left lower frame rail (see arrow) hitting the dirt. You can also see how the left rear tire is deformed as this car is entering the corner. This is/has been a common problem for quite some time. How do we know? Because many of the cars today run a "raised rail" car - which means the left lower fram rail is 1 inch higher than the right - so it is one inch higher off the track. They know this condition already exists which is why they use the "raised rail" car.

A couple of things here. When the car goes into the turn the wing and air pushes down on the left rear as shown in the picture. Speed and entry angle are major factors to how much. We don't see a rut in turn 3 because entry angles are different. If enough cars have this condition, it would in time, create a rut in the corner, or at least contribute to a rut. If the frame rail becomes a plow, there is no other thing that can happen. Track prep is useless at this point, the rut is being put in by the cars. Another contributing factor.

More importantly, IMO, when the frame rail is hitting the ground, the suspension on that corner of the car (shock, torsion bar) is doing nothing. The frame is on the ground. That isn't good and why they have a suspension to begin with. Now you have a condition which I would consider "unsafe." How do we know this bottoming out of the frame rails are not contributing to the instability of the car which is part of what's causing the wrecks? In short - the frame bottoms out and helps bounce the car into the cushion/wall.

Conclusion; there seem to be a few things going on that might explain why these wrecks are happening, and not one single thing to blame. Maybe all of them are contributing to the carnage. We only hope as fans, and racers alike, the brain trust of racing has an adult conversation about this going forward before anyone gets hurt any worse than we've already seen.

I don't know where the technology is today, but the use of CAD and 3D modeling would prove without a doubt the geometrical limitations of frame and chassis design to prevent this.

Just my 2 cents.

I wonder if something like a minimum air pressure requirement on the left rear would be enough to keep frame rails dragging?

From my go kart days 44 years ago I remember we had minimum tire pressure rules. Guys would run there pressures down, allowing the sprocket to dig into the track, and help it corner. The minimum rule prevented that.

Thank you for a great overview. Like most other problems it is not just one thing that contributes to an issue, it's complex and a number of factors play a role.

Question from a non-technical mind: Is it possible to smooth out (?) some of those holes or ruts in a track like Eldora recently had?I see heavy-duty mechanical brushes on big equipment on road projects. The wire bristles have a nylon or plastic knots on the end. They use them to take mud off of pavement that has dried to near cement-like character. They look like they could eat the top layer off an asphalt street if you left them running in one spot. Could some equipment like that be used to take the high ridges off around holes and ruts, to smooth out the track?

Theres a 360 race out in Calirfornia Called the Trophy Cup. 1000% they tear up more equipment then Eldora has seen this year! 

I dunno. The Speed difference between running the 1/3 mile Thunderbowl Speedway and the 1/2 mile Eldora Speedway seems pretty major. Eldora crashes seem to just destroy the whole car.