I'm all about safety for the drivers and so what if soft walls take a little extra time to repair if it can keep drivers out of the hospital then i say go for it. Although if goodyear made a tire that could hold up that would help. I think the safety of the drivers should be looked at again. Maybe new padding that holds the drivers helmet from moving at all side to side. Also why not have a guard that won't let the throttle from hanging open. Hello why this is not a rule yet i don't know. Safer walls could still help on a side impact if designed properlly. I say lets get some info from everyone to help resolve some issues.
Thanks for your time Tony Derhammer
O.K. First of all, I want to say that everything that Martin posted, I could not agree with more...Just a Qiuck note about the padding in the roll cage area, There is padding there, Special padding that is, The Problem does not lie there, The problem is, The human Body is going xxx MPH, The car and body hits a Wall and stops from XXX to 0, The Brain has no where to go inside the skull and bounces around, Thats the problem, Just Keep praying for Eric and His Family Please. Just My 2 Cents
Dead on Larry!!Soft walls would not work on dragstrips for the same reason they are not used on the straightaways of oval tracks - they do not work well when the force of the impact is parallel to the wall or nearly so. In fact, in those cases, the soft walls tend to throw the vehicle out of control and back into the track. Most drag racing wall contact is parallel to the wall. It might help in some cases, but would make the majority of the accidents worse - and would add hours to the down time.
To my knowledge, none of the Force team members use a HANS device. They use a competeing device that is not held in place by the shoulder harnesses but instead use a strapping system around the body of the driver....Unless a chassis failure compromised the belts (causing the HANS device to be ineffective), something may have impacted Eric's helmet. ...