There's been some good thoughts expressed here both regarding retaining the wheels better and potentially making the sport safer and less costly by taking steps to slow the cars down.
But I view them as two separate issues. I think its definitely possible to substantially reduce the problem of the wheels flying off without slowing the cars down, and rather than repeating myself, here's what I recommended the last time this happened (last year, Tim Wilkerson's car):
(Tim Wilkerson's response to a question about what happened)
“I really don’t have an idea,” said Wilkerson, who was working Wednesday afternoon in preparation for this weekend’s NHRA Virginia Nationals. “With these back to back races, I barely have time to do anything. I have already talked to Strange, and he wants the wheels and the hubs.
“It’s hard to say [what happened] because other teams have broken studs from time to time. It happens from time to time, but that was pretty bizarre right there. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore."
This makes a couple of clear points. Expecting the racers themselves to solve this problem, with all they have on their plates, is clearly not the most expedient way to fix this problem.
Sending them to the manufacturer is a step in the right direction, but to be fully candid, manufacturers have forces pulling on them from a lot of different directions, and while they can add a lot to fixing a safety issue like this you also need an independent party who purely has the racers best interests at heart making sure the best decisions are being made.
The NHRA should definitely have a safety head that actively performs this kind of function, and if they had that we wouldn't have seen this problem occur again.
Jared, your comment that-
You can make this sport as safe as HUMANLY possible but you CANNOT fix this or any problem with 100% certainty that it won't happen again.
is a good one, but this one of the cases were with a little effort we can make it very unlikely that we ever have wheel stud failures again.
Now that its pretty clear that the wheel studs failed, here's the 3 likely scenerios for the failures, and how they can be fixed.
Catastrophic Failure - this happens when a metal part is flat just not strong enough for its load, so even a brand new one can fail.
If this is the case, either the studs need to be made bigger or of a stronger material, or moved to a larger radius so they have less shear load.
Fatigue Related Failure - a metal part that is strong enough to take its basic max loads can still fail over time from fatique cracks that occur from the loads being repeatedly applied and released.
If this is the case, require that the studs be periodically replaced or magnafluxed for cracks. This is standard procedure in NASCAR, with the crew chief being required to sign off that this has been done. (Note that this is what Tim Gibson has also recommended).
Undertorquing - as was described by Strange in the linked article, an undertorqued fastener is subject to much higher loads than normal.
In any case, even if this wasn't the cause for this failure, I think NHRA should be doing spot checks on wheel torques in the staging lanes as even the strongest studs will be in trouble if wheels aren't torqued right. If a car in the staging lanes doesn't pass the wheel torque test, it would be subject to both a fine and a points penalty.
One other issue is regarding the use of wheel spacers. I feel they both make the wheel assembly weaker, and are also prone to cause problems through improper installation, which apparently was a factor in the Wilkerson failure. I feel the use of wheel spacers should not be allowed.
Implementing these fixes just isn't that bad, and if put in place this problem would likely never occur again. I also think that doing so would make wheel tethers unnecessary. Perhaps a wheel tether system can be worked out, but I'm concerned about the cost and complexity of it, and even with a tether system I think these other changes and procedures should also be implemented.
I'm very concerned however that the NHRA didn't take sufficient steps to solve this problem after it happened multiple times in the past (Wilkerson, Toliver, ...). They just don't seem to have anyone in the organization taking a proactive approach to making the racing safe for both the competitors and spectators, and a severe price was paid for that.
In any other organization, this kind of organizational failure would correctly lead to someone losing a job or some serious restructuring. Unfortunately, the NHRA seems to have everyone snowed into thinking that the normal checks and balances that are applied to the majority of companies and public institutions don't apply to them.
As I've stated in the past, I strongly don't believe this is the case, and that the NHRA could be forced to make some changes to improve their organizational activies, as was described here:
http://www.nitromater.com/nhra/23389-tom-compton-please-retire-2.html#post222629
Its very possible that this time around some changes could be forced on the NHRA from outside the sport as a spectator fatality unfortunately opens up a pretty ugly can of worms.
