tragic loss at englishtown

[promod]

this was taken saturday durring first round of qualifying .. what a tragic loss of a great driverhttp://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n46/spyder64/IMG_0086.jpg

[convergent]

True, and it was seemingly unnecessary. Hopefully this will cause NHRA to set some new safety standards for track design. Looking at a satellite image of that track, it is absurd how short the sand trap is.

[GVal]

The satellite imagery is misleading. Englishtown's runoff is actually significantly longer than many other strips on the NHRA circuit. Earlier that same day a top fuel dragster had its chutes fail and he was able to slow down and make the turn well before the sand trap.

What happened to Kalitta is nothing short of tragic, yet nothing could have helped it. His chutes burned up and he was evidently unconscious after the initial explosion because the brakes were never used. He hit the sandtrap at full speed and went flying through hitting the pole for the safety netting, then was launched into the woods behind the track.

RIP :(

[convergent]

I looked at the satellite image. The "sand trap" is very short, followed by a cement wall. And there really is no place in a sand trap for a concrete pole, which is what Scott hit.

I understand that there is a long slow down area that is paved, but cars going over 300MPH do not slow down well on a flat paved surface if their chute/brakes fail. The track was built when the top speed of cars racing there was around 200MPH, as were many other tracks. I believe it was Jim Head that talked about the state of the shutdown area during the event, and mentioned that there was even a crane sitting down there in the area where Scott hit. That sand trap should be designed to accept a car hitting it going top speed. If that were the case, we'd not be having this conversation. The cost of doing that is not prohibitive. It took Dale Earnhardt's death for NASCAR to make major safety changes to tracks which have saved lives. When you have a total of about 20 pro nitro Funny Car drivers and 2 of them die in a little over a year, and one more nearly did... there is a safety issue. That's a 10% death rate. In my mind, I don't necessarily blame the track, because it usually takes something like this to wake people up... but this death was avoidable. As Jim Head said, he always analyzes every wreck and makes changes to his car to prevent whatever happened in that wreck. His assessment was that in this case there was nothing they could do to the car to prevent it, but there was plenty they could do to the track to prevent it. I agree.

I used to drag race and haven't been to that track but raced on several in Virginia including Richmond. I can't believe the Nitro guys race there. Of all the tracks I went to, that one was scary to me because the slow down area was so short, it was all I could do to stop. I blew an engine at top speed and nearly bought the farm, and I was going no where near as fast as these guys go.

[GVal]

His assessment was that in this case there was nothing they could do to the car to prevent it

Nonsense, let us not forget the failure started with an exploding engine.

The extended pavement is much easier for a driver to regain control on. Tires need the grip to allow the brakes to work. If the brakes fail, the grip of the tires keeps the car down while the chute does its job. This time, the chute failed and the driver could not work the brakes.

Sand isn't a miracle stopping substance. When anything carrying the momentum and speed of one of these cars hits it, it is going to keep going regardless of the drag. That's why there is safety netting. Unfortunately, Kalitta hit the pole at the end of the trap for the netting and his car took off into the woods a flaming wreck.

Again, it was an absolutely tragic accident, but, at the risk of sounding insensitive, I think people are too quick to blame something with no face like "the track" or "the governing body" since it is hard to place any fault on the deceased or his crew.