I'm curious if the internet messageboards were around back in the day what kind of panic we would be seeing when Jim Nichol's car broke in half agains't Prudhomme at Indy? Or when Shirley had her major crash in Montreal? Or when Gene Snow had his Blowout at Dallas in '93? Or when Scott Kalitta had a blowout at Sonoma and almost went over the Guardrail in '96? Or when KB had his blowout at Pomona when his car broke in half?

We're going to ***** this sport down so much that '330 ft racing will rule the day.

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Shift for Brains!!!!

Gene Snows blowout was Sonoma in 89, might be 90! Well the one I remember anyway. But on to the last bit, if they ***** this sport down, I'm just going to go to div races and watch TA. I wouldn't go to see slow runs by fuel cars, I go to see the envelope pushed! And Jet I can tell the difference in times, it's clear as day when a car is hauling! For an example (Non fuel) Frank Manzo at Indy, I could tell I was going to see a .40 pop up, you know when a run is quick! If you can't tell, then maybe my mind takes things in differently! People are becoming real paronoid these days, Like Joe said if we had msg boards back in the day I wonder if people would go up in arms when Johnny West had his big bang up, or Al Hoffman in GNV, or when Jerry Caramito lost his spill plates....

I think some people are forgetting what the true essence of Drag Racing is all about

Yes I want the racers to be safe, but let's look at some of these deals, Blaine would probably be with us today if the track had concrete barriers in the top end, Darrell if they had better protection around the cages, it still freaks me out looking at pics of the cages being so open behind the driver. Jimmy Nix if the cages were built better back then, he may have had better protection when he hit the pole. Right now besides the sad passing of Eric, which imo was a real freak accident these cars are the safest they have ever been. Look at John, through the changes they made, he didn't suffer any head injuries. Where his car broke was freak! The good year tyre is probably the best it's been, I really can't recall many blowouts in the past two seasons. I can count more then a dozen from 93 alone! Flame at me, I have my opinions you all have your's. Hopefully someone can see what some of us are trying to say.

And PS Rooman, thanks for coming on here, your words are always good to read. I could Hijack this thread by asking you a question about a certain something we were talking about in indy but I'll PM you about that.

Mike

Aside from when he had the crash in Sonoma in 89, (something fell of the car and punctured a tire) He also had a bad one in Dallas--by memory, he blew a tire in the lights, the car took a hard left into the wall almost head on and the car spun back around and headed back to the right wall, but it stopped before he hit it. The front of the car was pretty much gone in front of the footbox. He got out ok.

Man, that was a bad one. It's too bad they didn't learn about guardrail openings with that crash, before Al and Blaine had to deal with them.
Better Yet, when Kalitta had the wing come down in Houston 90 and he hit the wall opening something fierce. He was messed up, but could of been much worse.

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Go Hight!!! Prock Rocket 2008 Style
Quickest to 1000' 4.00
Quickest to 1320' 4.63

That's the only way you're going to get a new Plueger chassis at this point. Since Steve's been nostalgia racing with Bucky and the only new chassis I've seen in his shop was one for Big Jim back in February and he really wasn't in a rush to finish that one. Should be interesting though to see how many people come see him this weekend at the CHRR. I'll be at his shop in a few weeks and look foward to talking with him about what he thinks of all this and what he would do.

Although the chassis thing needs to be worked out (improved foot box in the FC's and heat treated vs non) it seems that tires are constantly the unchanging variable. Look back over the last 5 years and most of the nasty crashes (TF and FC) have been from chunking or delamination of tires. Whether it's knocking wings off dragsters or vibration FC's to pieces they just keep failing. I know all about Goodyear and the big money looser TF racing is, but this spec tire is not working out. No competition for tire technology and no real profit margin = crappy tires. The only thing keeping Goodyear honest is the worry of lawsuits and most the racing community wouldn't go there either. Open it up over the off season, let them try to build a bigger mouse trap, my guess is Hoosier, M/T, someone will make a better tire or even Goodyear. If a team is chunking out the GY then maybe they'll switch to a different brand that another team is having success with. Moto-GP bikes run on different tires, according to their people they make no money on those tires either....but they do on the street and street/strip guys that shell out money after every track day on them. If you ARE going to go with a spec tire than subsidize Goodyear or whomever and make sure the tires are done RIGHT. Don't let the tail wag the dog (Goodyear telling the team and NHRA they'll just have to slow down), MAKE them do it right. Even if the teams end up subsidizing (which HD should be anyway, it's there "show"), it would still be cheaper then replacing bodies, chassis, wings, and occasionaly drivers every time they have a "failure". I Garantee that if MSD was having Mag failures every couple of runs and blowing up motors and hurting drivers it would not take long for every team to dump their product and move onto something else.......of course MSD would not tell them to "slow down" to fix the problem, they would find the cause and make it right.

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Nemo

He was VERY lucky to not be more seriously injured in that crash. That was a bad one.

My humble opinion to slow down the cars and help prevent tire failures would be to reduce the size of the wing on the rear of FC and TF cars. Keep the rev limiter, 2 pumps and same size blower. With the reduced wing, less fuel and energy in motor equals less carnage to engine parts. A win win equation for all concerned!
What do ya think?

New rumor this morning (Tuesday), that Robert will be in a Worsham chassis for Vegas. ?
No word on Ashley yet.
Waiting for the "Rooman Report" to update us.

That was exactly what I had in mind. The main thing that it would accomplish is less down force on a tire that is already running on the ragged edge of it's design parameters.
Assuming that a better tire can be made that will take what they're throwing at it? Has fuel tire design already been exceeded?

Someone on another board who knows him says he is done talking about it.

The reason they have these big wings/spoilers is to create down force to try and maintain some semblance of traction down track. Making the wing smaller might slow them down but the reason they would slow down would be excessive tire spin. This just creates more problems for the tire provider.

In my opinion the only way to for certain slow the cars is to mandate a maximum size fuel pump/pumps along with a max pulley ratio. Ultimately no matter what engine size you have, boost level etc. the horsepower is ultimately how much fuel you can efficiently burn. Limit the fuel mass and you limit the power.

I dont have enough "mater cred" to be a full on keyboard crewchief-but.....
back half numbers havent gone up nearly as much as front half over the last few years. (288mph in 660ft??) What stresses the tire (and chassis )more-the acceleration from 0 to 280 plus in 3 seconds --or the centrifical forces up at 300 for 2 seconds?

Mike, Snow had a First round Tire Blowout agains't Prudhomme at Dallas in '93!

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Shift for Brains!!!!

I wonder how they would feel if you took some wing and fuel pump away, but let them use traction control. That way the Et's and Speeds would be similar but the pressure on the tires would be less, and should be really close racing as well. I would miss the peddling every now and then but it would also get rid of some "track prep" gripes.

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Nemo

My Ph.D is in economics, not in engineering or physics, so I don't know the answer to this question. But it strikes me that it might be a a good one. It also strikes me that those of us aren't chassis builders or engineers ought to stick to questions, because we probably don't have the answers. And didn't Alan Reinhart say something about rumors a while back?