TBK-Light.com

Motorsport videos and chat.
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 11:26 pm

All times are UTC+01:00




Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 294 posts ]  Go to page Previous 111 12 13 14 15 Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:14 pm 
Offline
Silver Member
Silver Member

Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2010 9:51 pm
Posts: 1679
Has thanked: 133 times
Been thanked: 93 times
Wickens had successful surgery over night, placing titanium rods and screws in his spine. The extent of the spinal injury is still is still not determined.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/m ... 050555002/


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:23 pm 
Offline
Platinum Member
Platinum Member
User avatar

Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:08 am
Posts: 6260
Location: Birmingham, UK
Has thanked: 13 times
Been thanked: 434 times
They can & should look at doing something with the fences, But I think the bigger thing is why are modern Indycar's seemingly so much more prone to lifting enough to get into the fence than they were 20 odd years ago?

Up until the 2003 IRL car I don't really ever remember cars lifting let alone hitting the fence on ovals been something that happened. Cars lifting happened with alarming regularity in the IRL & it's still been a talking point post IRL/CC merger (They did adopt IRL cars/formula after all) but I just don't remember it ever been something that happened in CART/CC or the first few years of the IRL.

Are cars getting together differently, Hitting the wall at different angles or perhaps is it something to do with the safer barrier? Something seems to have changed that is making this sort of accident more likely than it once was, Just a matter of what.

Or maybe i'm just wrong?


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:24 pm 
Offline
Honorary Member
Honorary Member

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:05 pm
Posts: 13488
Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Has thanked: 710 times
Been thanked: 703 times
Oh right, can't believe I forgot about Dixon's crash.


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:29 pm 
Offline
2011 TBK-Light Best Looking Member award winner
2011 TBK-Light Best Looking Member award winner
User avatar

Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:02 pm
Posts: 11707
Location: 24 hours from Le Mans
Has thanked: 146 times
Been thanked: 542 times
I think the simple answer to why cars are more prone to reach the catchfence these than in the heydays of CART is that the racing is closer, obviously. Pack racing was of course the first culprit, but the racing is still mighty tight nowadays, even compared to the Hanford races (tight means close quarters, not competitive, Hanford meant slingshots). They just race differently


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:29 pm 
Offline
Bronze Member
Bronze Member
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:47 am
Posts: 717
Has thanked: 7 times
Been thanked: 5 times
StefMeister wrote:
They can & should look at doing something with the fences, But I think the bigger thing is why are modern Indycar's seemingly so much more prone to lifting enough to get into the fence than they were 20 odd years ago?

Up until the 2003 IRL car I don't really ever remember cars lifting let alone hitting the fence on ovals been something that happened. Cars lifting happened with alarming regularity in the IRL & it's still been a talking point post IRL/CC merger (They did adopt IRL cars/formula after all) but I just don't remember it ever been something that happened in CART/CC or the first few years of the IRL.

Are cars getting together differently, Hitting the wall at different angles or perhaps is it something to do with the safer barrier? Something seems to have changed that is making this sort of accident more likely than it once was, Just a matter of what.

Or maybe i'm just wrong?


A big part is flat bottom car designs that are now mandated.


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:33 pm 
Offline
Platinum Member
Platinum Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:48 pm
Posts: 10342
Has thanked: 293 times
Been thanked: 279 times
I think part of the problem in the 2000s was the pack racing formula. The cars were side by side, lap after lap, and getting really close to each other for a bit of side drafting. The chances of wheel to wheel contact were far higher than the 1980s/90s package.

However, there has to be a fundamental problem with the cars as well. I don't remember anyone launching into the air from hitting debris until the 2000s.

I can only think of a couple of examples of the older cars getting air randomly.



Also another one where a car hit the barrier, and then did a ridiculous launch across the track on its way to the infield. Can anyone remember who that was? I would guess early 90s.


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:35 pm 
Offline
Platinum Member
Platinum Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:51 pm
Posts: 8057
Has thanked: 1465 times
Been thanked: 428 times
StefMeister wrote:
They can & should look at doing something with the fences, But I think the bigger thing is why are modern Indycar's seemingly so much more prone to lifting enough to get into the fence than they were 20 odd years ago?

Up until the 2003 IRL car I don't really ever remember cars lifting let alone hitting the fence on ovals been something that happened. Cars lifting happened with alarming regularity in the IRL & it's still been a talking point post IRL/CC merger (They did adopt IRL cars/formula after all) but I just don't remember it ever been something that happened in CART/CC or the first few years of the IRL.

Are cars getting together differently, Hitting the wall at different angles or perhaps is it something to do with the safer barrier? Something seems to have changed that is making this sort of accident more likely than it once was, Just a matter of what.

Or maybe i'm just wrong?


Nah, it's the design of the cars that is to blame. Back in the CART days the cars were effectively chiselled off bricks with wings attached, meaning the only downforce produced was that from the wings.

Around the turn of the century designers started re-thinking aero and discovered if you shaped the entire car like a plane wing, you create a low pressure zone under the car which sucks it to the ground (let's call this modern day ground effects) the downside of that as we all know is that it's a very thin line between taking advantage of that low pressure zone to "suck" it down, and loosing control of the area and it producing lift and going into an aerodynamic stall like a lot of these cars have done recently. The flat bottom doesn't really come into it (lost of people point to this as a cause) because the aerodynamics are being produced from the top, not the bottom, because the car is shaped like a wing, when equal air goes both over the car and under it, you go for a nice flight solely from the cars shape, the wings cannot counteract that level of lift.

If you look at an Indycar compared to an old CART car from a side on view you'll see what I mean, this years car is an improvement, the sidepods are flatter and don't appear to produce as much downforce, but compare that to the old CART car that has a perfectly flat top to the sidepods, then we'll, there's your answer.


Last edited by Ian-S on Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:36 pm 
Offline
Platinum Member
Platinum Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:48 pm
Posts: 10342
Has thanked: 293 times
Been thanked: 279 times
Found the other one I was thinking of. It's like a computer game with terrible physics.



Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:05 pm 
Offline
The Finnish Paul Page
The Finnish Paul Page
User avatar

Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:07 pm
Posts: 6308
Location: Racing is in my blood
Has thanked: 725 times
Been thanked: 563 times
You guys do realize that Wickens car rode over RHR car's front wheel and nose, right? It was not trying to launch itself in the air like predecessor of DW12. The only proper blowover for DW12 I can think of is Briscoe at Fontana 2015, and that was heavily helped by other cars momentum and the grass. Other airbourne accidents are more or less about two cars getting together with significant speed difference.

90s CARTs weighted a lot more than 00s and 10s IndyCars and the downforce levels with pack racing was a disastrous concept. DW12s especially with domed bottom and 2018 spec aeros are far better, but there's still some work to do.

And that wall in T2 is just waist high. Which one of you honestly thinks it's good enough? And don't tell me it's too expensive and needs the whole track rebuild and there's no money, that's cheap talk. Add armco on top the concrete and raise the safer barrier to completely cover that armco plus some extra. Would have made a hell of a difference on Sunday, although that was a "perfect storm" situation - RHR spun and lost speed, Wickens carried on, lifted the nose and hit on the top of the safer barrier before continuing on the fences.

_________________
"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:12 pm 
Offline
Silver Member
Silver Member
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2015 12:41 am
Posts: 1221
Been thanked: 86 times
NVirkkula wrote:
You guys do realize that Wickens car rode over RHR car's front wheel and nose, right? It was not trying to launch itself in the air like predecessor of DW12. The only proper blowover for DW12 I can think of is Briscoe at Fontana 2015, and that was heavily helped by other cars momentum and the grass. Other airbourne accidents are more or less about two cars getting together with significant speed difference.

90s CARTs weighted a lot more than 00s and 10s IndyCars and the downforce levels with pack racing was a disastrous concept. DW12s especially with domed bottom and 2018 spec aeros are far better, but there's still some work to do.

And that wall in T2 is just waist high. Which one of you honestly thinks it's good enough? And don't tell me it's too expensive and needs the whole track rebuild and there's no money, that's cheap talk. Add armco on top the concrete and raise the safer barrier to completely cover that armco plus some extra. Would have made a hell of a difference on Sunday, although that was a "perfect storm" situation - RHR spun and lost speed, Wickens carried on, lifted the nose and hit on the top of the safer barrier before continuing on the fences.
Don't forget Indy a few years ago, when they were going to go for the track record but a series of blowovers occurred that caused them to back the speeds down. Those were all single car wrecks.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:19 pm 
Offline
Gold Member
Gold Member
User avatar

Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:57 pm
Posts: 2654
Location: www.instagram.com/troutart
Has thanked: 364 times
Been thanked: 157 times
Coldtyre wrote:
The poles are not really the problem, any kind of "soft" fencing will bend, grab the car, and spin it around while tearing it apart. Something smooth like a Plexiglass, or even a plain opaque wall in areas with no cameras/spectators, would do a better job in letting the car slide along and bring it back down on the track.

The damage to Franchitti in 2013 was all done all by the body/head rotating very fast, faster than the brain could rotate, the brain then hitting inside the cranium as a result. No tub can protect you from that if the rotational acceleration is violent enough, which is what inevitably happens with catch fencing (with or without poles)
I'm glad he doesn't have a very bad concussion like Franchitti - from what we know anyways. Franchitti was alert but forgot a couple weeks before and after the crash, and had a lot of bruising on the brain leading him eventually to call quits after several concussions in his career.



the change of direction / spin is induced by the poles. from the images of the fence you can see the car penetrated the mesh which gave little to no resistance. the cables running parallel to car's motion behind the mesh did most of the work keeping the car from exiting the track, but its the vertical support poles that provided violent resistance to spin the car back down onto the track.

kenny brack's accident at texas happened exactly the same. you can see the reinforced gate is what redirected the car back into the track. hence the car parts wedged against it. see also kyle larson and austin dillon at daytona


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:23 pm 
Offline
Gold Member
Gold Member
User avatar

Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:05 am
Posts: 2840
Location: Louisville, KY
Has thanked: 568 times
Been thanked: 274 times
NVirkkula wrote:
You guys do realize that Wickens car rode over RHR car's front wheel and nose, right? It was not trying to launch itself in the air like predecessor of DW12.

Exactly. Nothing to do with aero or being on a superspeedway or anything like that. I finally remembered a crash that was very similar to this one: Buddy Lazier and Lyn St James at Phoenix in 1996:


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:26 pm 
Offline
Gold Member
Gold Member
User avatar

Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:05 am
Posts: 2840
Location: Louisville, KY
Has thanked: 568 times
Been thanked: 274 times
De Cesaris fan wrote:
Found the other one I was thinking of. It's like a computer game with terrible physics.


Nothing aerodynamic about that. Crawford's car got launched because it ran over its own wheel. Very similar to what happened to Johnny Rutherford in 1980 at Phoenix:

The same type of thing is also what caused Katherine Legge's car to go so high into the air when she flipped at Road America.


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:39 pm 
Offline
Junior Member
Junior Member

Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:20 pm
Posts: 454
Has thanked: 12 times
Been thanked: 52 times
I go with a combination: both the close "pack racing" and certain aerodynamic changes cause more catch fence problems... in the IRL days at least.

Catch fence crashes did still happened before, just not as frequently. Examples I can think of include Tom Sneva (Indy '75), Salt Walther (Indy '73), Jeff Krosnoff (Toronto '96), the end of Indy in 1996. Stan Fox in 1995 at Indy was an "almost". And of course there was an era before catch fences when occasionally cars went "out of the park" (eg Jerry Unser flipping over the wall in 1958 @ Indy).

All of those were wheel to wheel contact or multiple cars into the same wall. The Wickens crash honestly is in this category and I can't see this being very avoidable.

Nonetheless the pack racing formula that the IRL adopted did not help matters at all; wheel to wheel contact is going to be more of a potential concern if you are going wheel to wheel for the entire race. And there does seem to be some aero changes (as Ian-S alluded to) that made these cars more prone to catch air. Johnny Rutherford in 1980 and Jim Crawford in 1990 got major air, but that was due to running over their own tires. The IRL cars seemed prone to flipping on a whim (think 2015 Indy).

My impression at least is we are moving away from both aspects, so that's good. The Robert Wickens style accident is still possible without pack racing and bad aero, it's just hopefully like before where it happens rather rarely.


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:44 pm 
Offline
Platinum Member
Platinum Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:08 pm
Posts: 15979
Location: Joined 1st TBK: November 25th, 2005 ***Joelma Building, Sao Paulo***
Has thanked: 155 times
Been thanked: 923 times
De Cesaris fan wrote:
Found the other one I was thinking of. It's like a computer game with terrible physics.



that one looks visually interesting, the landing might had been quite painful, bottom first from a certain height

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2023: throwing cautions and red flags unnecessarily


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:44 pm 
Offline
The Finnish Paul Page
The Finnish Paul Page
User avatar

Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:07 pm
Posts: 6308
Location: Racing is in my blood
Has thanked: 725 times
Been thanked: 563 times
FiatFan83 wrote:
Don't forget Indy a few years ago, when they were going to go for the track record but a series of blowovers occurred that caused them to back the speeds down. Those were all single car wrecks.



While this is a good point, the IndyCar Series did do some changes to car design for the season after that. Including those holes in front of sidepods, higher tub fin, domed skidplate and most of all, "roof flaps" on top of the diffuser. Removing rollbar intake cover was also done in mind to keep cars more planted. Sato collecting the slower backmarker this year at Indy compared to Dixon year before is telling that these updates have helped.

That Lazier and St. James crash from 1996 is a good comparison to what happened to Wickens and RHR but in much higher speed and with lighter car that is more wingshaped.

If the front of the tub would be more like 1995 Reynard than wedge it is today could also be a good thing.

Image
Image

_________________
"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:55 pm 
Offline
Gold Member
Gold Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:50 pm
Posts: 4079
Location: SuperModified Country...
Has thanked: 90 times
Been thanked: 337 times
If this crash had happened in the IRL era Dallara's he'd have cleared the catch fence. His car ran over Hunter-Reay nose and got maybe 2 feet into the air before hammering the wall. It did not try to take off. It was a higher speed version of the Lazier/St. James crash above.

They had an issue with the cars going over when turned backwards, but that's been solved with Indycar's air brake system at the back of the cars.

Given the right circumstances, even the old CART cars that everyone loves so much would take off. If they didn't, Jeff Krosnoff would still be alive.


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:30 pm 
Offline
Aeroplane Bloke
Aeroplane Bloke
User avatar

Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:25 am
Posts: 3948
Location: Chicago
Has thanked: 54 times
Been thanked: 414 times
NVirkkula wrote:
And that wall in T2 is just waist high. Which one of you honestly thinks it's good enough? And don't tell me it's too expensive and needs the whole track rebuild and there's no money, that's cheap talk. Add armco on top the concrete and raise the safer barrier to completely cover that armco plus some extra. Would have made a hell of a difference on Sunday, although that was a "perfect storm" situation - RHR spun and lost speed, Wickens carried on, lifted the nose and hit on the top of the safer barrier before continuing on the fences.


Armco to support the SAFER barrier mounted on top of a wall that’s not designed to handle a sheer load like that? I’m not a engineer by any means but even my dumbass can see that is a godawful idea. All the SAFER barrier is steel and foam mounted against the concrete and that itself cost $600 per foot. The cost to do the outside wall at Pocono by that rate is almost $8,000,000. You want to put shitty guardrail as the support for an even higher SAFER barriers plus extra? If you used concrete you would need a thicker, less brittle supporting wall from top to bottom.

Also tell me where the money is just laying around for this project.

edit: quote formating on an iphone is bad


Last edited by Tristar 7AT on Tue Aug 21, 2018 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:49 pm 
Online
Gold Member
Gold Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:10 pm
Posts: 2329
Location: Blashyrkh
Has thanked: 113 times
Been thanked: 109 times
Been reading through all this, here's my two cents.

Most of you make valid points regarding the old Champcars/Indycar Vs. the IRL or the current cars, both ways. There was also Scott Sharp at Loudon in '95 but also Brack and Fittipaldi at Michigan in 2000 where one went up and over and the other didn't. I'm not trying to take any sides here, but no one can argue there were far less cars airborne or in the fence 20-25 years ago than today. If the issue is design/aero, pack racing, cornering speeds, drivers being more or less disciplined, we can discuss that all we want we still won't reach a clear verdict. As @
User avatar
westracing01
mentioned, if this happened in the IRL era, Wickens would have probably gone over. Have a look at Briscoe at Chicagoland, he shot up like a rocket and nearly cleared the fucking fence. The speed his nose went up is mindblowing, so IndyCar has clearly worked on these issues.

What bothers me is that we have come to see almost every year a driver up in the fence and no one is talking about the root cause here, which are the cars getting into it. Until someone is willing to spend millions of dollars on R&D alone, forget actual tracks replacing the catchfence and all of us biting our nails every race until someone puts the thing to the test, we won't see it go away. I hope I'll be proven wrong, and soon.

I'm not saying not to try and find an alternative to a technology that is a century old. I majored in anthropology and work in SAP, so I'm no engineer, but logic tells me it's a lot cheaper, easier and a lot faster to try and stop the cars getting airborne than trying to find an alternative for the catchfence. If the cars kept hitting the wall due to tires blowing, you would find a way to fix the tires, not the wall.

Wickens being ok is the most important thing right now.


Top
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 10:12 pm 
Online
Founder of the Yaytree
Founder of the Yaytree
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:27 pm
Posts: 28003
Location: Birmingham, UK (Not near DEGA :( )
Has thanked: 1281 times
Been thanked: 1862 times
westracing01 wrote:
If this crash had happened in the IRL era Dallara's he'd have cleared the catch fence. His car ran over Hunter-Reay nose and got maybe 2 feet into the air before hammering the wall. It did not try to take off. It was a higher speed version of the Lazier/St. James crash above.

They had an issue with the cars going over when turned backwards, but that's been solved with Indycar's air brake system at the back of the cars.

Given the right circumstances, even the old CART cars that everyone loves so much would take off. If they didn't, Jeff Krosnoff would still be alive.


Yup, CART cars were heavier and had ground effect working in their favour, (look at the Kenny Brack crash in Michigan 2000 for an example of wheel to wheel contact where the car settles back down instead of taking off), but sometimes the physics involved in wheel to wheel contact is insurmountable

We go through this every time it happens, it's not something anyone involved in the series is unaware of. We're not going to change anything here, but i guess this is therapeutic for most of us, we're trying to understand what happened to we can rationalise why a terrible thing happened to a pretty likeable guy by running through every minute detail

ITT coping mechanisms.

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley


Top
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 294 posts ]  Go to page Previous 111 12 13 14 15 Next

All times are UTC+01:00


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: codename_47, Juihi and 10 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Limited