TBK-Light.com

Motorsport videos and chat.
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 8:44 pm

All times are UTC+01:00




Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 1988 posts ]  Go to page Previous 196 97 98 99 100 Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 3:25 pm 
Offline
Honorary Member
Honorary Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:20 pm
Posts: 16677
Has thanked: 254 times
Been thanked: 1160 times
with roofs over them for when it rains


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 3:34 pm 
Offline
Moderator - Shareholder
Moderator - Shareholder
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:05 am
Posts: 10060
Has thanked: 432 times
Been thanked: 519 times
Beezle wrote:
Dumb question: Why do we need a fence anyway on places like vegas (apart from the stands)? What would happen without the fence and the adboards? A car would fly over the wall and out into the flat empty desert. Alsmost like a gravel trap. Besides the drop from it's flight it would'nt even suffer a impact....


Ever stood at the top of a banking? I did at Daytona. That shit is fucking high.


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 3:38 pm 
Offline
Admin - Shareholder
Admin - Shareholder
User avatar

Joined: Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:41 pm
Posts: 4658
Location: Bingley, UK
Has thanked: 138 times
Been thanked: 251 times
Beezle wrote:
Dumb question: Why do we need a fence anyway on places like vegas (apart from the stands)? What would happen without the fence and the adboards? A car would fly over the wall and out into the flat empty desert. Alsmost like a gravel trap. Besides the drop from it's flight it would'nt even suffer a impact....


Not sure if serious...


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:16 pm 
Offline
Sent from my SCH-R910 using Tapatalk
Sent from my SCH-R910 using Tapatalk
User avatar

Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:52 pm
Posts: 16492
Location: Garden Grove, CA
Has thanked: 139 times
Been thanked: 213 times
There's billboards, parking lots...

_________________
Ducks Angels Sounders Spurs
Image


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:18 pm 
Offline
Honorary Member
Honorary Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:20 pm
Posts: 3010
Location: Unknown
Has thanked: 24 times
Been thanked: 34 times
lol, "flat empty desert"


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 5:31 pm 
Offline
"club baby seals", sounds like some delicious sandwich
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:19 pm
Posts: 9038
Location: Belgium
Has thanked: 161 times
Been thanked: 363 times
why don't they extend the banking itself so the track turns into some kind of huge bubble


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:26 pm 
Offline
Junior Member
Junior Member

Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:20 pm
Posts: 454
Has thanked: 12 times
Been thanked: 52 times
Beezle wrote:
Dumb question: Why do we need a fence anyway on places like vegas (apart from the stands)? What would happen without the fence and the adboards? A car would fly over the wall and out into the flat empty desert. Alsmost like a gravel trap. Besides the drop from it's flight it would'nt even suffer a impact....




Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:28 pm 
Offline
Gold Member
Gold Member
User avatar

Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:15 am
Posts: 3926
Location: Southington, Connecticut
Has thanked: 73 times
Been thanked: 233 times
nea wrote:
Beezle wrote:
Dumb question: Why do we need a fence anyway on places like vegas (apart from the stands)? What would happen without the fence and the adboards? A car would fly over the wall and out into the flat empty desert. Alsmost like a gravel trap. Besides the drop from it's flight it would'nt even suffer a impact....


Not sure if serious...

It's Beezle, he's serious.


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:53 pm 
Offline
Isnt CCTV a Chinese television channel
Isnt CCTV a Chinese television channel
User avatar

Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:06 pm
Posts: 4544
Has thanked: 251 times
Been thanked: 268 times
Elevated ground of course...
Here is what I thaught of:
Image
The angle of the red wall parts is designed not to get into the gap between cockpit front and roll bar.


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:02 pm 
Offline
Honorary Member
Honorary Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:20 pm
Posts: 16677
Has thanked: 254 times
Been thanked: 1160 times
Right... so what about space and cost?


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:09 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
you know a better plan would to make cars that dont go flying everytime someone presses the push to pass button.


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:19 pm 
Offline
Moderator - Shareholder
Moderator - Shareholder
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:50 pm
Posts: 20807
Location: Dortmund/Cologne
Has thanked: 142 times
Been thanked: 1009 times
Brendan24 wrote:
It's too bad that a Lexan like material, except stonger doesn't exist. If catchfencing could be replaced with a clear smooth surface material you'd have better safety and visibility.


Zandvoort has those on the frontstraight, although I'm not sure whether it's just glass or something like that

Image

but of course the poles are still there...


Top
PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:15 pm 
Offline
Honorary Member
Honorary Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:20 pm
Posts: 3010
Location: Unknown
Has thanked: 24 times
Been thanked: 34 times
There's an ethnic joke in there somewhere.


Top
PostPosted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 10:16 pm 
Offline
New Member

Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 9:11 pm
Posts: 9
Been thanked: 1 time
Hi Guys,

Since that tragic day Ive been thinking about how we can prevent an accident like the one that killed Dan Wheldon. I worked for a good few years as a motorsport journalist and knew Dan pretty well having interviewed him quite a few times. I spoke with him just before his amazing win at Indianapolis this year and after being the journo responsible for announcing that Mario Was considering coming out of retirement to race in Vegas, I called Dan. He said he would love to do it but wasn't sure about the safety of the place. We chatted about how Dario had already mentioned that he was concerned having run Cup cars at the venue that an Indycar racing around the track at 230mph in packs was very dangerous.

I spoke with many individuals about the race but everyone (bar the drivers) seemed to be just focusing on the BIG PRIZE and not the safety aspects of the $5m purse on offer.

I spoke to an old contact of mine at Lola who used to supply the chassis to the IndyCar series back in the day and he suggested that a very promising idea would be to introduce some NASCAR-style panels to the top of the side pod, on the side of the cockpit (in front of the wing mirrors) and positioned on the floor tray immediately under the drivers seat (ie before the venturi's/skirts at the back of the car). He told me that placing them at certain angles and at certain positions on the car would result in there being only a 5-10% chance of the car getting airborne - considerably less than current probability rates...

He said that a similar design he had explored would keep the car from getting airborne at high speeds and that it is something he struggled to get through IndyCar officials who were dealing with the last supplier - especially as the new design was already decided upon months before it was officially announced...

Dan's passing should be used as a definitive opportunity to research more thoroughly how to prevent similar accidents occurring in the future. Perhaps not racing with 34 cars on a 1.5m track is a start...

My own thoughts on an alternative for the fencing is to get rid of the thing in the first place and to raise the outer ground level to the same as the height of the track where it meets the barrier. Placing an asphalt area which is slightly banked upwards further still (to reduce the speed of a sliding car even more) will prevent roll hoops from digging into the ground, and would be safer in general as the cars would just slide around the surface.

I'm curious to hear other peoples thoughts...


Top
PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:24 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
Welcome to forum, JamesonJack!

Interesting to hear about the Lola engineers view on openwheel oval racing, maybe the aero-panels on the sidepods would have worked like the Hanford Device, maybe helped to get rid of close pack racing. I hope IndyCar will take a look on this, they did have some fins after Kenny Bräck's accident, but soon they were ditched. Anything to prevent airborne accident is a welcome idea, if you ask me.

Your idea about how oval fencing should be replaced sounds interesting, but might be too "spectator-unfriendly" and expensive to do. But I have to say that fencing is the only thing that hasn't changed much in racing during the last 50 years. And it should, it seems to be out-dated in all terms.


I would like to hear more about Wheldon and the Vegas weekend from you.

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


Top
PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:38 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
A lot of ovals only have grandstands from Turn 4 to Turn 1, so it's something that could be implemented around the rest of the circuit. It doesn't have to be a huge run off, so it might not be too expensive. Just enough for the car to land and hit some tyres I suppose. I had a similar thought when I said in my last post that Wheldon would have been better off clearing the fence and not hitting anything. I do think Beezle was trying to explain something along the same lines.

The main problem I can think of is that you'd still need catchfencing around the spectator areas, and it could leave an exposed area where the run off ends, and where the fencing and grandstands start. And going over a wall upside down can leave your head exposed to an impact, much like Campos at Magny Cours.

And yes, welcome!


Top
PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:49 pm 
Offline
"club baby seals", sounds like some delicious sandwich
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:19 pm
Posts: 9038
Location: Belgium
Has thanked: 161 times
Been thanked: 363 times
I still think the extended 'run off' idea has way too much flaws, especially concerning the actual speed of the cars. If cars get airborne like Wheldon's (full throttle and full speed) and you would be using the idea of implementing some sort of run off area, it would need to be rather huge because my gut feeling says the radius of flying would be rather big. (I'm no engineer by any means, so prove me wrong if I am).

Oh and by the way, always nice to have good contributing new members!


Top
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 7:26 am 
Offline
Australian - All the animals look so strange
Australian - All the animals look so strange
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:50 am
Posts: 6824
Location: Owstraya
Has thanked: 9 times
Been thanked: 53 times
I think a lot of the issues involve the design of the fence in which it pretty much "grabs" the cars on impact and rips them to shreds. The high strength perspex idea as used at Zandvoort is a possible solution I reckon as, overcoming its impact resistance would at least not rip the cars to a million pieces and certainly prevent the Brack/Briscoe affair in that regard, not to mention the obvious spectator view advantages. No doubt they would have looked into it though, I guess the problem with perspex is if it does break on impact then you are kinda stuffed.


Top
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:21 am 
Offline
Silver Member
Silver Member

Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2010 9:51 pm
Posts: 1679
Has thanked: 133 times
Been thanked: 93 times
the extended run off idea might seem good at first but we'll see another "freak" accident that will come along and show that all that money to add that was still the wrong decision.. in all these airborne crashes (wheldon, brack, conway and so on) these cars hit fence before they reached their full height and distance. im sure most of here have seen and remember quite well Takashi Yokoyama's crash. look how far and high that car flew before hitting the signage over head. had his car been in the direction of the stands it would have cleared the fence and results disastrous. letting one of these cars fly freely may be just as dangerous as being launched into fencing due to the resulting landing impact and possible further roll's. unfortunately there is never a situation in which a driver is completely immune to the risk of death in this sport. i would be the last one to ever minimize dans passing in any way, shape or form but this possibility comes with the sport. we've seen plenty of freak accidents (most recently kanaan at baltimore) with much better out comes and no one is up in arms about those track designs yet had kanaan been killed everyone would analyze the shit out of it as well.


Top
PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:34 am 
Offline
New Member

Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 9:11 pm
Posts: 9
Been thanked: 1 time
Hi folks and many thanks for the warm welcomes!

I have to say the Lola engineer is definitely on to something and my hope is that the idea is given further time to develop as it seems that it is the ONLY solution to stopping the cars getting airborne.

With the run offs outside the turns I do think that in todays technological world of simulations, we should be able to computer generate the effects of a car going over the wall and into a gradually steeper-banked outer run off area layered with high friction asphalt. I think they would be a far safer option but yes you are right that generally the circuits are enclosed with spectator seating from T4 through to T1.
So, can we not have some sort of NHL-style transparent screen which is strong enough to absorb the impact from crashing carbon-fibre cars impacting it at 200mph? I think that by over lapping the screens from left to right (thereby following the direction of the racing line) by about 10 metres and by having the poles supporting them protected from being hit by the flying cars, we should be able to prevent similar accidents where the pole does the damage.

I will upload a diagram of what I mean but hope the above description is good enough though I doubt it!

Now for my chat with Dan... When I last spoke to him he was full of the joys of spring as his favorite race was coming up and he felt absolutely sure he was going to win the race. "How do you know that?" I asked, "You've only been with the team a few weeks and a little out of practice..." His response was succinct: "I know I don't know them as well as other times I have raced here but THEY know who I am and how I run at Indy - and that's what matters mate!"
I couldn't disagree. We chatted about a few other things and then I asked if he was hopeful the run at the 500 would lead to a full time ride for the remainder of the season:
"You know, you can never tell in this game what happens tomorrow. A few years ago, I was the champion then for a few various reasons beyond my control, I found myself watching the races from home! Its been hard sitting on the sidelines and not competing with my friends and rivals so I am hopeful that we can get a good result in the 500 and get a package together for the rest of the season but in the current climate, it will be tough. Saying that, this end of season run at Vegas could be massive so its an interesting possibility. The purse on offer is certainly tempting!"
I mentioned to him that Mario Andretti had told me he was tempted to return for the one off race:
"Ha!" Dan chuckled, "that doesn't surprise me at all. He is a great champion and loves racing. But for me, getting a ride for Vegas will be difficult but you can rest assured mate I will be doing all I can to get one."

We chatted about a few other things and planned to meet up sometime in 2012 to go karting if I was able to get to the USA and near St Petersburg.

He was a lovely, lovely bloke and its a crying shame he was never seen in an F1 car. However, European racing's loss was America's gain and they loved him for who he was both in and out of the cockpit.

I'll always remember the best interview we did which was for Karting magazine a few years ago. I was commissioned to write a piece on how Dan and Darren Manning (driving for Chip Ganassi at the time) became professional racing drivers and how important karting had been for them as children. Dan was so animated, reliving every little detail and imploring young kids to ensure that above all else, they enjoy themselves and not take it too seriously - at the beginning! "If the realisation kicks in that you ARE good at it, THEN you can kick some serious ass!" he proclaimed.
Obviously, that quote was omitted from the article along with many others!

Dan's passing was tragic and for me it was the first time a driver I knew had been killed and man was it tough. I spent over an hour chatting to the respected F1 journo Nigel Roebuck at the Autosport Int Show last January and over a few cups of coffee we spoke of many things and after discussing his relationship with Gilles Villeneuve, Nigel said that while deaths in the sport are less frequent today, I would get to know a driver well who would get killed on the track one day and that I would never see the sport in quite the same light as before.

Never, for a moment, did I think it would be Dan though.


Top
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic  Reply to topic  [ 1988 posts ]  Go to page Previous 196 97 98 99 100 Next

All times are UTC+01:00


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 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