Re: 4ksq roll cage

[Mark Nelson <mnelson@brls.com>]

There are plenty of shops and car builders throughout the country that
do excellent cage work, but specialize mostly in road cars and off-road
racing.  If you think that Europeans have the best cages, I think I'd
beg to differ in that all you have to do is go and look inside a winston
cup car (no flames please ;-).  Show me a rally car cage that can barrel
roll down pavement at 200+ mph =).

In all seriousness, I would argue that US car builders make some of the
best cages.  Go look inside an SCCA Trans Am car for instance.  I got to
see several of them at the Reno Grand Prix, and those cages look VERY
well built and VERY well designed.  When you have someone like Jack
Roush or Tom Gloy building the car, you can bet that it's going to be
professionally built in every regard.  If you want more tubing, then go
look in a SCORE trophy truck.

Basically, I think in something like a rally car, you have several
strategic points where you want to make sure that the cage takes the hit
and then make sure that the impact is dispersed throughout the car,
instead of being centered in one area.  While this does take thought and
planning and some engineering expertise, I don't believe that the
Europeans have anything on us in their technology for roll cages.  If
anything, I think that many US cage builders have much more improved and
practical ideas than what I've seen on the WRC cars.  Just my 2 pennies.

cya!
-mark nelson

<<
I am sure there are many race shops in Arizona but I have never heard of
any 
rally spetialists from there or any good recent cars built in that are
and 
competing nationally. Please tell me if you know.
Mike Z>>