TBK-Light.com

Maybe they should just add another 10-15 feet of tires. It'll look like shit but have so much padding that the impact will be mitigated amazingly.

I'm actually surprised they have tires there. I swore they used to have some sort of styrofoam/attenuated barrier contraption.

Was styrofoam when Boat hit it. Think tyres are better actually.

Isnt stryrofoam in general a horrible energy disipater? It seems to me like it would just break apart without absorbing much.

And messy too. Looked up more recent, Tage hit tyres in '16 but looks like there was styrofoam in that mixed in?



Year before it was still all styrofoam, and yes it does look like it does absorb much.

Foam works pretty good at Oswego Speedway. There must be a reason they don't use rubber behind the SAFER barrier no?

Pigot released from the hospital according to his Twitter

thought it was a pretty good race overall. RLLR looked pretty stout all month, so not terribly surprised to see them get 2 cars on the podium.

Regardless if it's May or August, the drain is still at full force after the racing is over for the month. At least on the bright side we don't have to wait as long for 2021's race (COVID-depending of course)

The feeling of being Briatored

My heart sank when I saw that lone wheel, a destroyed pit entry barrier and no car to be seen. Thankfully, those cockpits are tough.

I think that we saw the worst of a typical accident exiting 4, so I don't worry much about crashes like Pigot's, but more about the restarts/battles. People always turn sharply towards that wall when defending, or go for the gap going 2-3 wide. A small misjudgment or contact, and you have an insta-death head-on impact regardless of the material you put there.. I'm sure they can find better in the future, to correct that weak spot of the track's safety.

As for the race... I felt it was a sadder version of the event we watch and love. No spectators, many top drivers just falling out of contention throughout the race, none of the backgrid outsiders managing to get back in front, SC finish... Obviously, not every Indy has to be a photo-finish, but I don't know, everything felt empty and anti-climactic and I'm glad nobody was unnecessarily injured in the process.

Congrats to Sato for an error-free run, a deserved win, and for taking the fight up to Dixon.

The SAFER barrier is only used on the types of wall angles where you hit with a less direct angle, like the outside and inside walls on an oval. They need to have it be soft enough to absorb impact, but also firm enough to not cause the car to go too far into the barrier and get violently grabbed like a tire barrier would. (Think about the wreck Daly had just a few weeks ago at Road America when he popped his shoulder out of socket after the tire wall grabbed the car). The pit wall edge is more of a direct blunt angle situation, so tires make a lot of sense there.

so extending the pit wall all the way up to the north chute would just take the problem to another place?

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

So RHR was upset with Veekay after the race, anyone know for which exact incident?

No idea, but he generally drove very agressive in the beginning.

I remember there's been multiple official evaluations of the placing of that pit wall. And it was determined that on the main straight, that's the least dangerous position for the wall that they have right now. Pit needs to have garage boxes for 43 cars and it can't be pushed much further towards T1 or infield due buildings. Usually cars have already settled down or at least scrubbed off speed a lot before hitting that wall like Pigot did. That's probably the worst way to hit it apart from restart madness where someone turns another car towards the wall. But even then, restart speeds are closer to 250km/h than 350km/h, so it's a rare situation to solve with potentially moving the freak accidents to other location.

I think the wall did exactly what it was expected to do yesterday. Maybe it's a bad look when car darts back to live race track, but other drivers were already slowing down at that moment.

I don't know, maybe add that high grip tarmac on the "run off area" and area between pit entry line and wall to slow cars even more. But would it risk cars to change direction during spin?



I'm more concerned about short chute tyre barrier.




edit: And the place is huge, so is that distance between exit of T4 to the pitwall.

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

They could design a new harder safer barrier designed specifically for pit entry walls. So it won't be just plain concrete. AND add tyres at the front to help it all.

I realize there is the wall angle and some speed difference between the 2, but a quick comparison of Swede Savage's crash in 73 and Oliver Askew's yesterday, really shows how safe these cars are now. Also, any footage from then shows how the pit entrance area used to be and it's way better now lol

Bingo. That angled wall to protect the pit entry caused way more problems than it ever helped.

The big problem is there is very little that can be done to move that wall anymore, at least not without a complete overhaul of the majority of the front stretch. Somewhere there's going to be a blunt end to the wall, it's just a matter of how far back toward T4 do you move it.