FC Girl
Nitro Member
Toliver's runaway tire. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter HEMI6point1
- Start date
Paul
Nitro Member
Nate, I also think metal fatigue is the mostly likely explanation, and careful examination of the failed studs by a fasterner expert would be an easy way to find out. Likely regular replacement or at least examination of the studs would make wheels falling off cars never happen again.
C'mon you guys, would this be such a terrible burden to keep a tire from flying into the stands?
I sure wouldn't want to be the car owner explaining to somebody (or a jury, unless its OJ Simpsons one) why their family member got killed from a flying tire with the old tired "gee, this is drag racing, sometimes parts just break" mantra.
But I don't think there's much more to say on this topic at this point, there's enough here now for readers to make their minds up one way or the other, and hopefully if the NHRA isn't looking at this situation, readers will put some pressure on them to do so, so I'm done for now.
Unless of course someone comes up with some more good names for me, in which case we'll have to keep it going for the entertainment value.
Paul T., the 'ol pig nazi' himself
Draw 3D
Nitro Member
It's been a few years, but, the expression "never happen again" was NOT used in engineering terms, the probability maybe lowered substantially, but 100% is highly unlikely and I would suspect any company and/or group who would make that claim, specially on products made from raw materials.
B
Buzzz Miller
We just need to park all of the cars from top fuel to 18 second imports, postpone the NHRA 2009 season and not let another car down any drag strip on the planet until we can build a stud that actually works, (for a change), and a connecting rod that will never break.
Safety first!!!
Safety first!!!
Paul
Nitro Member
Hey, studs, schmuds, for at least a couple of weeks you can use paper clips instead and I won't say a thing, I just found out my younger son made his high school basketball team.
The little punks got a shot too, he didn't get it from me, I can barely hit the keys on my calculator.
Paul T. (a new kinder and gentler version)
PS - you know now that I think about it, if somebody got me a date with Pam this immunity period would probably last forever and you'd never hear from me again.
The little punks got a shot too, he didn't get it from me, I can barely hit the keys on my calculator.
Paul T. (a new kinder and gentler version)
PS - you know now that I think about it, if somebody got me a date with Pam this immunity period would probably last forever and you'd never hear from me again.
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HEMI6point1
Nitro Member
Wow, I just asked a simple question and it turned into a huge debate. Sorry about that. 
Paul
Nitro Member
Ok, I admit it, I'm celebrating and I had a few, but being the nerd ball I am my mind still started thinking about safety programs in general.
I know the perception is that I'm a "safety nazi", so here's a story back from when I was fighting on the other side. The reason I'm telling this story is because I realized that it points out that even a calculator button pusher like me will throw safety to the wind to get a competitive advantage, and you need a pretty active safety program to keep competitors racing safely. If the rules aren't always being refined, both loopholes and unforseen parts problems are going to pop up that need to be fixed.
This is probably going to be long winded, so anybody with anything better to do should probably skip on.
I used to bracket race many years ago at Fremont dragstrip and had a great time doing that (if you lost, $1.75 got you a beer you could barely hold in one hand, and you could go drink away your sorrows with the other losers).
I was going to engineering school at the time so $ was tight and I was racing on a budget. This was "Jackpot" racing during the week with a cash payout and money brackets during the bigger weekend races, so it was pretty competitive. It was on a no deep stage pro tree, so both driver and vehicle reaction time were really important.
There was typically just one slick tire bracket which had a big mix of cars (and bikes) in it, and to have a chance of winning you had to be able to cut 4xx lights. On faster lighter cars with a transbrake, this was no big deal. On a bigger slower car like mine without a transbrake, I was cannon fodder.
I couldn't afford a transbrake transmission at the time, but one day I got a brainstorm that I might be able to fab up a "poor mans" transbrake. Without a transbrake I was foot brake racing, pumping the brakes as hard as I could to hold against the converter and then trying to release them as quickly as possible. But a low .500 light was the best I could do with this method.
Staring at the brake system a little I realized that if I could speed up its release I'd probably cut a better light, so I scrounged some solenoid controlled hydraulic valves at an industrial junkyard and put one on the output line of my master cylinder so when energized it would dump off all the brake pressure more quickly than releasing the pedal. So when I saw yellow, I would hit a switch to dump the brake pressure while also flooring the throttle.
This worked, and gave me better lights, not yet as fast as a transbrake, but better. I then tried improving the system by putting a line loc on backwards on the front brake lines, so with the backwards line-loc on all the applied pressure went to the back brakes only. This also helped a little, but I still wasn't quick enough yet.
I became convinced that there was probably an additional advantage for the transbrake in having the entire system activated from a single finger tip button, rather than the separate foot throttle and switch system I was using.
So I found a big solenoid and fabbed it up to open the throttle right at the carbureator when the button was hit. So now I pretty much had the "poor mans transbrake" complete. To use it I would stage, turn on the backward line-loc to take the front brakes out of the system, pump the brakes as hard as I could to lock the back wheels, bring the torque converter up to stall and hit a single button on my shift knob. That would quickly dump the brake pressure while also quickly flooring the throttle.
After a fair amount of futzing, this was paying off, I was now getting high 400 lights with my car and I began to get competitive. As a final refinement, I figured that if I could get the brake dump and throttle solenoids to open faster the system would be even quicker. So I hacked up a inverter that bumped the 12 voltage battery voltage up to 100 volts to charge a big capacitor, so now when you hit the switch it dumped a big voltage spike into the solenoids to open them really quickly.
This finally made the car competitive with transbrake cars, I could consistently cut lights at .450 or faster, and I started getting some wins, which meant $ in the pocket which was really fun. My biggest claim to fame with this cobbled up system was winning the "East-West Muscle Car Shootout" at Fremont (must have been early 80's), a special bracket race they held on the day of a match race with Shirley Muldowney.
But this system was a safety nightmare. When the brakes got dumped at the throttle hit I was dumping the extra brake fluid into a container hidden under the car (a coffee can painted black). Having a brake setup like that makes it much more likely to fail of squirt brake fluid under your tires.
Because of the way the system worked, the "transbrake" like button I was using on the shift knob worked backwards, you pressed it to floor the throttle, release the brakes and launch the car. So any accidental bump of this switch at the wrong time was asking for big trouble.
What's my point? Two of them, first never underestimate the ability of competitors to throw safety to the wind to get a competitive advantage, be it with substandard wheel studs or a rule-skirting cobbled up system like my poor mans trans brake. Having the competitors or crew chiefs only being in primary control of the safety program is asking for trouble. Competitors should have input but you need a strong independent party actively working to continually be improving safety. I'm not sure if that's being done well enough in the NHRA right now.
Final point I guess, racers need to accept that the rules are going to need to be continually refined to solve problems with parts that are being pushed to the limit while also when required banning innovations like the one I described above that just aren't safe enough to be used.
What's interesting is that as dangerous as this system was, I don't believe the current rules would restrict it from being used again, pointing out the need to be continually refining racing rules. I wouldn't do it again, back then I was young and crazy, now I'm old and lazy (and a safety nazi).
Paul T.
I know the perception is that I'm a "safety nazi", so here's a story back from when I was fighting on the other side. The reason I'm telling this story is because I realized that it points out that even a calculator button pusher like me will throw safety to the wind to get a competitive advantage, and you need a pretty active safety program to keep competitors racing safely. If the rules aren't always being refined, both loopholes and unforseen parts problems are going to pop up that need to be fixed.
This is probably going to be long winded, so anybody with anything better to do should probably skip on.
I used to bracket race many years ago at Fremont dragstrip and had a great time doing that (if you lost, $1.75 got you a beer you could barely hold in one hand, and you could go drink away your sorrows with the other losers).
I was going to engineering school at the time so $ was tight and I was racing on a budget. This was "Jackpot" racing during the week with a cash payout and money brackets during the bigger weekend races, so it was pretty competitive. It was on a no deep stage pro tree, so both driver and vehicle reaction time were really important.
There was typically just one slick tire bracket which had a big mix of cars (and bikes) in it, and to have a chance of winning you had to be able to cut 4xx lights. On faster lighter cars with a transbrake, this was no big deal. On a bigger slower car like mine without a transbrake, I was cannon fodder.
I couldn't afford a transbrake transmission at the time, but one day I got a brainstorm that I might be able to fab up a "poor mans" transbrake. Without a transbrake I was foot brake racing, pumping the brakes as hard as I could to hold against the converter and then trying to release them as quickly as possible. But a low .500 light was the best I could do with this method.
Staring at the brake system a little I realized that if I could speed up its release I'd probably cut a better light, so I scrounged some solenoid controlled hydraulic valves at an industrial junkyard and put one on the output line of my master cylinder so when energized it would dump off all the brake pressure more quickly than releasing the pedal. So when I saw yellow, I would hit a switch to dump the brake pressure while also flooring the throttle.
This worked, and gave me better lights, not yet as fast as a transbrake, but better. I then tried improving the system by putting a line loc on backwards on the front brake lines, so with the backwards line-loc on all the applied pressure went to the back brakes only. This also helped a little, but I still wasn't quick enough yet.
I became convinced that there was probably an additional advantage for the transbrake in having the entire system activated from a single finger tip button, rather than the separate foot throttle and switch system I was using.
So I found a big solenoid and fabbed it up to open the throttle right at the carbureator when the button was hit. So now I pretty much had the "poor mans transbrake" complete. To use it I would stage, turn on the backward line-loc to take the front brakes out of the system, pump the brakes as hard as I could to lock the back wheels, bring the torque converter up to stall and hit a single button on my shift knob. That would quickly dump the brake pressure while also quickly flooring the throttle.
After a fair amount of futzing, this was paying off, I was now getting high 400 lights with my car and I began to get competitive. As a final refinement, I figured that if I could get the brake dump and throttle solenoids to open faster the system would be even quicker. So I hacked up a inverter that bumped the 12 voltage battery voltage up to 100 volts to charge a big capacitor, so now when you hit the switch it dumped a big voltage spike into the solenoids to open them really quickly.
This finally made the car competitive with transbrake cars, I could consistently cut lights at .450 or faster, and I started getting some wins, which meant $ in the pocket which was really fun. My biggest claim to fame with this cobbled up system was winning the "East-West Muscle Car Shootout" at Fremont (must have been early 80's), a special bracket race they held on the day of a match race with Shirley Muldowney.
But this system was a safety nightmare. When the brakes got dumped at the throttle hit I was dumping the extra brake fluid into a container hidden under the car (a coffee can painted black). Having a brake setup like that makes it much more likely to fail of squirt brake fluid under your tires.
Because of the way the system worked, the "transbrake" like button I was using on the shift knob worked backwards, you pressed it to floor the throttle, release the brakes and launch the car. So any accidental bump of this switch at the wrong time was asking for big trouble.
What's my point? Two of them, first never underestimate the ability of competitors to throw safety to the wind to get a competitive advantage, be it with substandard wheel studs or a rule-skirting cobbled up system like my poor mans trans brake. Having the competitors or crew chiefs only being in primary control of the safety program is asking for trouble. Competitors should have input but you need a strong independent party actively working to continually be improving safety. I'm not sure if that's being done well enough in the NHRA right now.
Final point I guess, racers need to accept that the rules are going to need to be continually refined to solve problems with parts that are being pushed to the limit while also when required banning innovations like the one I described above that just aren't safe enough to be used.
What's interesting is that as dangerous as this system was, I don't believe the current rules would restrict it from being used again, pointing out the need to be continually refining racing rules. I wouldn't do it again, back then I was young and crazy, now I'm old and lazy (and a safety nazi).
Paul T.
willy
Nitro Member
So Paul..your take on safety now is fueled by guilt..(just kidding)..
Nothing wrong with wanting to be safe..but I see this as kind of a fluke that is a very rare occurrence..that should be solved with a little investigation..bad batch or whatever.
And it's obvious you don't take it lightly..but I don't see a 100% non-failure rate in the future.
Nothing wrong with wanting to be safe..but I see this as kind of a fluke that is a very rare occurrence..that should be solved with a little investigation..bad batch or whatever.
And it's obvious you don't take it lightly..but I don't see a 100% non-failure rate in the future.
Paul
Nitro Member
Today throw some Jack Daniels in the fuel mix also and I guess maybe I might swallow that analysis without complaint. What the hell, put a wheel stud in there also, I'll analyze it on the way out.
Paul T. (proud dad today)
yoda
Nitro Member
Paul, is ther something we haven't heard about today??
d'kid
Nitro Member
Do we say Congrats? Is this a sleep is a thing of the past, or a 'my kid did something great today' Proud Dad thing?
d'kid
Things sometimes break just because they break , like that o-ring that failed on that space shuttle years ago and caused it to explode . Just because something failed doesn't make it anyones fault , thats why accidents are called accidents .
Heres a hypothetical accident that could happen and be nobodies fault . Say out of a batch of 100 spark plugs you get one bad one and it goes into a nitro motors then a second into the runs it fails causing the fuel to not detonate causing the pressure to build up and hydraulicing the cylinder head which causes oil and raw fuel to get on the headers that were firing which causes the whole thing to go up . Sometimes bad things just happen .
PS: That accident discription was purely hypothetical and was not meant to represent any accident that has happened in the past .
Heres a hypothetical accident that could happen and be nobodies fault . Say out of a batch of 100 spark plugs you get one bad one and it goes into a nitro motors then a second into the runs it fails causing the fuel to not detonate causing the pressure to build up and hydraulicing the cylinder head which causes oil and raw fuel to get on the headers that were firing which causes the whole thing to go up . Sometimes bad things just happen .
PS: That accident discription was purely hypothetical and was not meant to represent any accident that has happened in the past .
mike cummings
Nitro Member
The o-ring failure on the Challenger wasn't just an accident caused by a faulty part. It failed because the operating conditions (air temperature) were outside it's design parameters.
Thats right they launched after being told it was too cold , I remember that on a documentory I saw . Must of skipped my mind .
Nitrohaulic
Nitro Member
Maybe fuel cars and pro stocks should have different diameter wheel studs?
Why not just go up the next 1/8" from 5/8" to 3/4"? The problem happens so seldom that I bet that would take care of it forever. Alcohol and nostalgia cars would get the hand me downs.
I dare anyone to say that something wouldn't have been done HAD one of the wheel/tire combos that have already come off in the just landed in the wrong place and killed people. Is that what they're waiting for?
One guy gets killed and there's titanium cage shields for something that may never happen again. Several wheels come off of cars without killing anyone and nothing's done. That's screwed up.
As far as safety Nazi goes, what was Wally Parks?
Why not just go up the next 1/8" from 5/8" to 3/4"? The problem happens so seldom that I bet that would take care of it forever. Alcohol and nostalgia cars would get the hand me downs.
I dare anyone to say that something wouldn't have been done HAD one of the wheel/tire combos that have already come off in the just landed in the wrong place and killed people. Is that what they're waiting for?
One guy gets killed and there's titanium cage shields for something that may never happen again. Several wheels come off of cars without killing anyone and nothing's done. That's screwed up.
As far as safety Nazi goes, what was Wally Parks?
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Paul
Nitro Member
Ok Bill, that was funny, thanks for starting my day out with a laugh. Man, I over celebrated a little and my head feels like a frozen pineapple. Now that you mention it the JD bottle didn't really warn about that, I think I better find the Jack Daniels forum and . . .
Paul T.
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