A driver FINALLY speaks up! It's frightening to hear Gary state that he can't wait for Pomona to get out of a chassis that may still be dangerous.
He is ready to pay for his own Hadman car, but there is a HUGE problem.
As I have posted, it appears that NHRA has their head in the sand, hoping to get through the final two races without another FC disaster.
If a driver had been this seriously injured in a NASCAR race, you can bet your ass that something would have already been done to improve driver safety.
One more time - NHRA has no one on their technical staff who is capable of addressing this issue and apparently doesn't give a $$$t about driver safety.
NHRA needs to do something NOW so teams can start on new cars for 2008, IF the association has a clue.

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"The Counterfeiter"

I think NHRA cares about driver safety. They have just been getting bad advice and relying on the wrong people, people with a conflict of interest.

All this goes back to the fact that upper management used to be made up of former racers. Now it's degreed bean counters. Those bean counters don't have engineering degrees and didn't spend every dime they had to race a car at one point in their lives.

I think the right decisions will be made. There is just too much evidence and too many voices (like Scelzi's) that will make a difference.

RG

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"The Doctor"
www.wannaberacing.com

Randy - you have certainly been the leader in keeping maters informed and I'm sure we all appreciate that. That being said, I'm sure someone at NHRA does care about driver safety. However, it appears that those degreed bean counters are doing . . . nothing. I hope you are correct that right decisions will be made. Let's hope they do not come too late.

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"The Counterfeiter"

I have refrained from commenting on this subject because I do not really know the difference between different manufacturers of chassis or construction methods.

But I will say this: these issues seem to be isolated to team Force for whatever reason (they make more power, more downforce or whatever). I have not heard of any other team having these issues. John's accident was terrible and hopefully can be prevented in the future. BUT Murf Mckinney has built chassis for a very long time and to be thrown under the bus the way he has and staring down the barrell of losing most of his business, my heart just goes out to the guy.

The flip side of that coin is that I am pleased to see Gary step up and speak his mind without fear of the repercussions. I do think that more of the pros and owners should be able to do this. I think MANY of Gary's suggestions (moving the scoreboards, better lighting, etc) are easily rectified and should be taken into account. I also thought it was interesting that he said he gets no traction with the PRO organization.

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Think Intergalactically. Act Interplanetarily.

Joe,

Since I do a fair amount of fabrication on the side I follow chassis construction trends and rule changes pretty closely. I wasn't even aware they were using heat-treated tubing in Funny Car. The only announcement I ever remember was the changes in the construction of the back-half of the dragsters.

I'd be interested to see where the push came from to start using it on the Funny Cars!?!?

Personally, I never like the idea of the heat-treated tubing in the first place. It creates issues in other areas of the chassis.

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Greg Stanley
2007 NorCal Top Comp Champion

As usual I know enough to be dangerous but I worked in a Aircraft heat treating facility but not as an engineer.

There are aircraft engineers who are experts and they might say " Hell's everyone knows you change the property's of the heat treated metal once again when you apply the heat from a welder to it".

Now we had a pretty large furnace but I don't think it would hold a complete FC Chassis of green metal with all tabs already welded on.
In fact you would be mixing different grades anyway because of the already welded metal.
Those guys with the slide rules can figure anything out.
Stretch , sag , flex no problem. LOL

My view is the cars make plenty of HP so a hundred lb's or two in extra strength especially in the cage area won't limit ET's and safety trumps everything else anyway.
I'll go back to munching tofu again.

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THE CORRECT ANSWER TO THE ENERGY CRISIS IS D ALL OF THE ABOVE !

RG... reading my mind again!!

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Greg Stanley
2007 NorCal Top Comp Champion

Sounds like he has to pay for the new pipe out of his own pocket.

Yea I agree, the problem (or one of them) is everybody that makes the decisions come from a corporate background. I'm not sure how many former "racers" are left, but not enough. Scelzi done right by speaking his mind, hopefully more will. I would buy my own car too if I felt it would help my safty, heck I buy alot of my own safety equipment now when the city goes with "low bid" for my fire gear.

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Nemo

The thing I like is that he stated big words, and backed them up with big actions. Buying a brand new car from a source he can trust.

Actions always put an exclamation point on the words spoken.

Think that is he wants to... and not get Don involved... that way, if he moves on at the end of the year, he still has his own pipes...

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Comfortably Numb- Fly Navy, Build SEABEES
A friend helps you move, A Real Friend helps you Move Bodies
http://www.myspace.com/ocir_forever

Greg:

If you read the spec and take it literally, heat treated tubing in a funny car chassis is illegal under the SFI spec. And Gary knows this wasn't a new problem that just showed up at Force's.

RG

Is it possible to order a Murf chassis made completely of "N" tubing? Is there a problem with him using "N" tubing or does he just think it does not matter? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

I am going ask a couple of questions about all the posts and story's I have read. I am looking for answers and not trying to stir things up. A lot of the quotes and tales have been told over the last 30 days and these are the things I have read. Just wondering if I got it right.

1. Is Scelzi saying that part of the reason that he got out of TF was the chassis and how it was made.

2. Is the current SFI spec that open that people (NHRA) are not sure if the chassis is in spec.

3. Are all the reports about John Force's crash related to "heat treated " tubing and the fix is just a bandaid.

4. Am I to understand that Eric died because his head struck the roll cage over a hundred times.

5. Is Murf car's the only cars to suffer this type of chassis failure.

6. JFR is buying a Pluger chassis (From Paton) to create a clone for all future JFR cars to be built in house.

7. Nobody runs a Mustang Body and Murf car only JFR.

8. If you get enough experts on a subject you will come to a solution but maybe not a answer.

9. Two chassis builders use "heat treated tubing" on FC's and all others don't.

10. If not for the luck of the chutes getting stuck on the wall we would have losted our biggest star.