The crew chief for the car has been a good friend for more than twenty years.

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I saw it happen with a blown small block Chevy on Nitro in a front engine car (1960's) .
The intake gasket was sucked into the ports ,and the engine continued to run in the shut down area on oil from the valley.
The car had a pedal clutch so the driver was able to stall the engine when he stopped.
With all the smoke it looked like Force's car when he closes the blades at the lights.

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"Win a Few - Lose a Lot"
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As happened with the first new Impala bodies, maybe the area across the windshield was weaker on this body than the blow out panel anchors?

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Jim, the fuel shut-off, even though it's mounted on the brake handle, works independently, see the picture of my car below.

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Thanks Jerry.

Brian.

Paul, if I had read your original post properly I wouldn't have questioned your suggestion. I read it that you wanted the parachute release attached to the brake lever - my bad!

Hey Jim, no problem, it was probably from my thick American accent.

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Paul, just another keyboard "expert"
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I would like to show chicago.

[code]http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=41.464488~-88.060409&style=h&lvl=19&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=24917930&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&ss=yp.chic agoland%20speedway~pg.1~sst.0&encType=1[/code]

I, for one, do not approve of the location of that high tension tower. Nor the unguarded net posts.

(you have to copy what's between the code tags)

Well you can be sure that the power company has an easement for that tower and heck will freeze over before anything changes about it.

However, this looks like an example of a track with road crossing -- and essentially nothing on the other side (Englishtown, Columbus, Norwalk??). Seems like a creative person could come up with scheme that -- for a handful of days a year -- allows track personnel to be stationed there stopping traffic for fuel car runs, and a small annual easement to be worked out with the adjacent property owner to allow emergency run offs when the pooh hits the fan...

It looks to me like road is at least 4 - 5 feet higher than the track and there is a concrete wall in the cutout of the berm right before the road. Can someone that races there confirm that?

Talk about nowhere to go...

I measured the shut down of Route 66 on Google Earth. From the finish line to the front of the sand tap it was .52 of a mile. Thats a pretty long shut down!

I don't see unguarded net posts and the high voltage transmission towers are on the other side of the concrete guardrail. Honestly, I don't see a problem with this track. Even if you did go through the sand, through the 1st net, through the 2nd net, through the pile of tires and cross Rowell road.... it's a wide open field on the other side.

Well, I hadn't seen that view before. It's hard to run google earth when Hughesnet cuts your internet off after 200 MB transfer (including email) in a rollign 24 hour period. Earth plus a few youtube's and i'm out of internet.

i have run at chicago... tons and tons of shut down... so i think that pic is a bit misleading in my opinion.

in a situation with a truly run away nitro car the shut down could be a couple miles long and the outcome will most likely be poor. Kalitta's event was horribly tragic and the circumstances at englishtown were far less than ideal. could the outcome have been different? there really is no way to ever know.

not long ago a girl had her neck broken when her jr dragster tipped over making the turn off at the end of a run. that was a horrible event to have happen to a lil kid but is the answer to ban jr's? no... just learn from the event as much as we can and make things better. there is no perfect shutdown area or anyway to predict every incident that can occur. look at shelly howard's tragic incident. who in the world would ever have imagined that?

i'm a fire/medic in kc and i have seen people killed in 20mph crashes that seemed so unexplainable. on the flipside i have seen people walk out of cars that were unidentifiable... literally without a scratch on their bodies. speculation is just that... anybody's guess.

i can tell you that making things 'automatic' on these cars is not always a good thing (at least not things that can affect the behavior of the car on the track). it's not a simple stop and go situation. these cars are not driven... they are 'wrangled' and 'fought' and 'man-handled' down the track... and then all over again to get them to stop.

and on the subject of a run away car... a nitro-motor is an animal. if that motor decides it's gonna be a run away (ie, broken pieces, dieseling, compromised controls, etc) there is nothing your gonna do to stop it! and in that scenario i'm not sure what the answer is? with a truly run away car a longer shut-down=faster speed on impact and a shorter shut-down=no time to think of options and respond! it's a real catch 22.

just my thoughts and a little input

My Top 10 list of potential mandates/ideas. Open for criticism.

1. Chute Launchers (all cars): Propel the chute out, without the delayed propellant of a pilot chute. also gets chute past wheelie bars. Could be implemented immediately?

2. Auto chute releases: body burst panel linkage (all FC) as well as auto release when fire bottles activated (all cars). Could be implemented within 2 weekends?

3. Neutral in reverser/transmission: If engine starts dieseling, clutch is "welded" together (on pro cars) and cannot be disengaged. Neutral allows disengagement. Implementation on all cars is both protective (nitro cars) but also preventative (all other cars)

4. Mechanical pinion brake: If hydraulic main brakes fail, a cable-activated pinion "emergency" brake can be activated to at least help slow the car (all cars)

5. Chassis mounted (secondary) chute levers: If roof buckles but does not come off chassis, still allows driver to release chutes (all FC) could be implemented within 1 week?

6. Front brakes: require front brakes on all competition vehicles (redundant, apply to TF). Mandate minimum 6" wide front tire for nitro cars, 4" for all others, with 18" minimum height. could be implemented within 6 weeks?

7. max fuel line size: cut size (inside diameter) of main (pre-pump) fuel line by 15% with minimum wall thickness, to slow cars down. Could be implemented within 4 weeks? So a fuel line previously 2" I.D. would now be 1.7" I.D. (nitro cars only)

8. Auto Chute release on rev limiter (extension of #2): If data logger detects engine RPM over set speed for 5 continuous seconds OR overall engine-on time over 8 seconds, deploy chutes automatically. Timer activated when motor first reaches pre-set RPM upon launch, after computer is activated.

9. Outboard chute mounting: Require all competition vehicles (other than motorcycles) with top speed over 150 MPH to have 2 parachutes, all others 1. Require single chute as center mounted on rear of vehicle; All 2 chute systems to be mounted on outer edges of vehicle (exclusion of rails, maybe P/S?) and deployed simultaneously.

10. Wheelie Bar guards: In the event of launcher failure or incomplete deployment, a cover (either plastic, fiberglass, or sheet metal) to be placed around wheelie bars on all competition vehicles to help prevent entanglement of the parachutes. Measuring 3 feet wide and 2" longer than the rear edge of the wheel (starting at the point where bars come out from under body), with 25 degree turndowns at sides that are 12 inches long. Mounted so as to be level (using shorter struts in front than back) and directly attached to wheelie bars.

"All cars" being inclusive of any competition vehicle other than motorcycles and JR dragsters.

I love the shutdown area at Pacific Raceways in Seattle. Talk about safe racetracks, here's one for you.

I, for one, can't wait to hear what Tony Pedregon has to say when the NHRA arrives at this oober-safe racing facility.

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