Nascar press conference

[Lawrence C Leung]

Helluva point there. I never really thought about them reusing old cars. 

You are absolutely correct. Parts of the car must be destroyed in order
to absorb the energy of a crash. The more energetic the crash (i.e. high
speeds) the more must be destroyed. By the same token, it's fairly rare
to see a F1 or CART racer go head on into the wall like Dale did. That
seems more the product of the closeness of the racing and the "aero"
package of the WC cars than how much the car disintegrates. I kind of
recalled that the last CART racer (a rookie, I believe) to go straight
into the wall didn't make it. And I don't recall the wreck that killed a
rather promising Canadian (for some reason, his name completely escapes
me, he was the #1 for John Forsythe's Players team) so I can't comment
there. And don't forget, the wreck that killed Senna was essentially
straigtht into a wall. The cause of the crash isn' t the issue here, but
the results of the crash is. The amount of energy to absorb of a straight
in crash is awfully hard to disappate without making the car extremely
long and massive, at least at the current technology levels.

But could you imagine NASCAR boys saying, working in Carbon Fibre and
corrugated aluminum, "that floorboard is just 'bout ready to come out of
the kiln, Bubba! Get ready to mount that 9" Ford rear end and 'dem leaf
springs to it just as soon as it cools!"

LL - NY


On Mon, 19 Feb 2001 15:51:05 -0500 "Dave Aukerman" <aukdav at wcoil.com>
writes:
>Just caught some of the live feed.
>
>Also can't help but htink that maybe they are building the cars just a 
>bit
>too strong.  Very little visible damage to them in the big hits, 
>whereas the
>open wheel cars seem to absorb a much tougher hit with the driver
>walking/crawling away.  Something has to break.  Seems as though the 
>drivers
>are getting the short straw here.  You never really hear of a F1 car 
>being
>reused as the stock cars do after a big shunt.
>
>
>