Nascar press conference - rant off

[Lawrence C Leung]

On Fri, 23 Feb 2001 00:41:46 EST JanDebL at aol.com writes:
>Regarding the guardrails I predict there will eventually there will be 

Don't steel guardrails do this? Perhaps they ought to be installed
between the track and the concrete walls. They will absorb some impact
energy, but won't act like a massive inelastic concrete wall, and they
won't (if designed to be smooth, with the overlaps positions with the
trailing edge in the direction of racing. Won't work for F1 at Indy in
that instance though, so maybe welded rails at Indy) suck in a car like a
softer surface will. I do have concerns of the elastic collision and the
associated forces though. That will require softer cars. 


>
>collapsible, but self rebounding structures that will reduce the 
>impact but 
>not delay the restart.  I'm surprised the F1 guys don't have a larger 
>concern 
>for the unforgiving walls at Indy.
>
>The same goes for the deformation structures in the chassis.
>
>Regarding the head / neck support - long before HANS - I remember 
>several 
>stock car drivers with and eyebolt sticking out of their helmet 
>attached to 
>an inertial reel to control head movement.  I don't follow the sport 
>close 
>enough to know what happened to that device.  Whether it might have 
>helped 
>last weekend, we will never know.  What bothers me is that we didn't 
>even try.
>
I believe that they used those releive neck strain at speedways (don't
follow this sport much myself.) they had a similar strap for CART and the
IRL. Doesn't serve the same purpose of HANS, which tries to keep the head
and neck moving as one unit with the torso. Any separate movement, and
Basal Skull Fracture.


>If the mentality remains that injuries / fatalities are an accepted 
>part of 
>any activity, then certainly nothing will change.

How true. It took Senna's loss to get F1 to adopt some of the safety
items in CART. Note, CART probably has the strongest Driver's Association
of all of the series. It's probably the most safety oriented of all of
the series too. Gee, wonder why.....

>
>Thankfully the people Germany feel much differently and that why we 
>all love 
>our Audis.
>
People whom care about performance tend to care more about everything. It
does concern me that M-B is more a bottom line company than I had thought
they were. I wonder when those compromises will start to be noticable.