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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 3:56 pm 
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electrodevo wrote:
dicksplash wrote:
Salt Walther in '73.
Tom Sneva in '75.
I can't remember anyone else with that fate.


Krosnoff, Zampedri, and Stan Fox as well. But yeah, the pack racing has made the catch-fence type crash that much more likely. (Other than Krosnoff, I don't know of any fly-into-the-catch-fence crash outside of Indy during the CART years.)

No meant to be picky, but Stan Fox never made contact with the fence. He just slammed into the wall and got collected by a fellow competitor.


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 3:58 pm 
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electrodevo wrote:
dicksplash wrote:
Salt Walther in '73.
Tom Sneva in '75.
I can't remember anyone else with that fate.


Krosnoff, Zampedri, and Stan Fox as well. But yeah, the pack racing has made the catch-fence type crash that much more likely. (Other than Krosnoff, I don't know of any fly-into-the-catch-fence crash outside of Indy during the CART years.)


I'm quite pedantic in general, so I have to say that Stan Fox wasn't in the catch fence.

Point remains. There have been more cars in the catch fence, or as high as the catch fence, since the start of the IRL era, than in USAC/CART from when the rear-engined car broke through until 1995.

How is that? It can be because aerodynamics have been developed further than the speeds of the cars since then, meaning the cars will stay bunched up much more. That, combined with the tracks that has been included in the schedule (IMO a heritage from IRL's early years when there weren't many tracks available so they had to go for tracks more suited to stock cars), has meant that the risks in IndyCar hasn't decreased as much as in the rest of all car racing. That combination proved tragically deadly last Sunday.

IRL/IndyCar has been broken for the last 15 years, and now is the time to make it right. Randy Bernard could very much be the man to fix it, I hope. I hope he has not been deterred by this. Speaking of, does someone know what ratings Sundays broadcast got?


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 4:17 pm 
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dicksplash wrote:
does someone know what ratings Sundays broadcast got?


Not sure. Sadly they probably would have been quite high as news of the accident broke.

I'm liking everyone's personal little tributes. I've been wearing my chequered flag wristband for the past couple of days.


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:05 pm 
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It was 1.5


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:57 pm 
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dicksplash wrote:
How is that? It can be because aerodynamics have been developed further than the speeds of the cars since then, meaning the cars will stay bunched up much more. That, combined with the tracks that has been included in the schedule (IMO a heritage from IRL's early years when there weren't many tracks available so they had to go for tracks more suited to stock cars), has meant that the risks in IndyCar hasn't decreased as much as in the rest of all car racing. That combination proved tragically deadly last Sunday.


True, your point is correct: there are far more fence crashes in the IRL era. Fortunately, that fix is pretty simple.

The IRL uses high downforce on the ovals as a means to slow cars down. High downforce means high drag, meaning cars bunching up because they can't pass each other (due to the drag) but can close up to you in slipstreams (less air drag there). I think high downforce is half of why these cars take off so easily as well... they are using a large rear wing to achieve this high downforce, right? Well, if you get a little bit of air, that wing is all of a sudden going to act in reverse. Hence the flips in this car for merely running over debris.

So if you take away downforce from that rear wing, the cars should spread out more, and the cars should take off less. There are much better ways of slowing cars down.


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:58 pm 
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Ian-S wrote:
Chris A wrote:
ChasKrall wrote:
FWIW, the crash that claimed Tony Renna was in a G-Force chassis not a Dallara. It's not just an inherent design flaw in the Dallara that sends it airborne.


In that case the G-Force chassis must have been even worse then, because from what I understand Renna just spun and caught a little of the grass before flying across the track and well up into the fence. At least in the Dallara accidents we've seen there's been a little more stimulus for take-off than a simple spin.


The cars (excluding this crash) get airborne because they are traveling at a speed where induced drag (lift - from the shape of the car) exceeds aerodynamic drag (downforce - from the wings) if the aerodynamic drag is removed, it's complicated, but basically the shape of the car excluding the wings produces lift, the wings and floor produce downforce, the two are constantly fighting one another and if one is removed, depending on the velocity of the object, it will take off, regardless of it's weight or shape (and of course if the object is traveling at high speed, the only variable that can be instantly removed is the aero drag), all cars are affected by this, from Formula 1 down to your road car.


I have to quote this from a few days ago, because there's something else in the mix here people don't understand.

While all racing cars will feel the affects of wheel to wheel contact, some will fly further than others.

The thing that made the IRL cars, both G Force and Dallara, take to the air and fly a lot futher than any other series car would was not due to an inherent flaw in the chasis themselves more an inherent flaw in the way the rules would force the engineers to run the wings.

The IRL rules package forced so much downforce on the cars to enforce their kind of artificial pack racing that the engineers would run the cars with something called negative rake.
I once had bookmarked a Auto Atlas forum thread from a long time ago (after Brack's crash, I think) which explained this a lot better than I ever could because it was explained by an engineer from one of the IRL teams, but to surmise in a way someone as stupid as myself can actually understand, the rules put such a pressure on the cars, drag wise, that the engineers are forced to run the cars with their noses in the air to try and regain some straight line speed.
This obviously means that in a wheel to wheel accident or any other time when the airflow is disturbed, the air can get underneath the car a lot easier and fly a lot further than any other rules package would allow.
It was a gamble the series knew full well they were taking when they designed these rules to specifically give them the side by side finishes they could promote on their highlights clips and adverts. etc

The only other series that ran similar cars at high speed on ovals was CART and as Robin Miller keeps saying, their rules package meant the cars weren't so prone to wheel to wheel contact, but when that did happen they rode up slightly and settled back onto the ground (see Brack in Fontana? 2000) and they certainly didn't take to the air of their own accord after a smack on the wall or whatnot.

I'm really just hoping all of this is moot because I was already hoping the IRL had decided to move on from the pack racing with their new car and hopefully the new chassis fixes not only the wheel to wheel issue but also the high downforce pack racing artificiality and give the drivers back throttle control and even braking again.

The fact everyone seems to think the rear wheel guards will fix everything is glossing over the issue a tad.
There's a lot more wrong with the current package than just exposed wheels, imo, so let us all hope that with the end of the current chasis also brings an end to the current era of high downforced, low powered racing.


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:12 pm 
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electrodevo wrote:
dicksplash wrote:
How is that? It can be because aerodynamics have been developed further than the speeds of the cars since then, meaning the cars will stay bunched up much more. That, combined with the tracks that has been included in the schedule (IMO a heritage from IRL's early years when there weren't many tracks available so they had to go for tracks more suited to stock cars), has meant that the risks in IndyCar hasn't decreased as much as in the rest of all car racing. That combination proved tragically deadly last Sunday.


True, your point is correct: there are far more fence crashes in the IRL era. Fortunately, that fix is pretty simple.

The IRL uses high downforce on the ovals as a means to slow cars down. High downforce means high drag, meaning cars bunching up because they can't pass each other (due to the drag) but can close up to you in slipstreams (less air drag there). I think high downforce is half of why these cars take off so easily as well... they are using a large rear wing to achieve this high downforce, right? Well, if you get a little bit of air, that wing is all of a sudden going to act in reverse. Hence the flips in this car for merely running over debris.

So if you take away downforce from that rear wing, the cars should spread out more, and the cars should take off less. There are much better ways of slowing cars down.


Wow weird that we basically posted the same thing (though your post is way more succinct!) at the same time!


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:59 pm 
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Whatever caused the cars to be more prone to go airborn was something that came in with the 2003-2011 cars.

The cars they ran prior to that didn't go airborn that often & from memory never because of spins, Running over Debris or after contact from the wall (Like what we saw with Simona at indy this year).

Reading Codename's theory above about rake & looking back at images from Texas, The old style cars do seem to run less rake than the current spec car. The Pre-03 car seems quite flat to the ground, Current car is very high at the front due to a higher nose/front wing & also higher at the rear.

Image
Image


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:04 pm 
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Ian-S wrote:
Xen wrote:
and I am sure it can be made strong enough not to have a car passing through it.


like all of us I'm no expert but I'm guessing that to make this stuff strong enough to withstand the impact of a car (versus a much, much lighter hockey puk), would mean it has to be pretty thick - thus intruding another issue of the Plexiglas itself not absorbing or distributing the energy, taking us back to the age old issue of stuff being too strong.


(I'm going back through the thread as I currently have no internet atm, makes for some interesting if sad reading as I'm wasting some time...so thanks to all of you for that)

Does anyone remember the TV show Battlebots? Their entire sport was contained inside what I think was a plexiglass arena, might even have been lexan, I can't quite remember and had to withstand tremendous forces of not only the bits of debris from the robots with blades and such chopping into each other but also the flipper/lifter type robots that could throw an entire 100 kilo robot with tremendous force into the arena sidewall.
The fans themselves were sitting just the other side of that wall banging on it so you know it had to be amazingly strong to keep all the debris and the robots themselves from getting into them.
The entire time that show was on the air (And competitions still happen, just without the TV, sadly) I've never heard of any fan being hurt or anything like that at a battlebots event.

Scale that up to a racetrack size to deal with the higher forces and you might have a workable solution, but what do I know really, I'm just a dumbass fan sitting on my laptop who remembers a TV show from 10 years ago and thinks he has a winning idea...yeah, right ;)


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:06 pm 
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StefMeister wrote:
Whatever caused the cars to be more prone to go airborn was something that came in with the 2003-2011 cars.

The cars they ran prior to that didn't go airborn that often & from memory never because of spins, Running over Debris or after contact from the wall (Like what we saw with Simona at indy this year).

Reading Codename's theory above about rake & looking back at images from Texas, The old style cars do seem to run less rake than the current spec car. The Pre-03 car seems quite flat to the ground, Current car is very high at the front due to a higher nose/front wing & also higher at the rear.

Image
Image


Yep, and I wasn't a fan of the IRL at all and didn't even know of its existence before 2002 but weren't the side by side finishes a lot less common back then too? :?


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:22 pm 
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Seeing those pics, I can't help but say... bring back the Reynards!


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:31 pm 
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Wrong catagory.

As for the side by side finishes, I'm sure most of the closest finishes were pre-2004 spec cars.


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 7:33 pm 
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My local garden centres trucks don't flip and they've got lots of rakes!

Even if plexi-glass is the solution, I'd still think it would be a many more years before they even start putting it around tracks. You've got to be extremely certain it will work. A fence that kills the driver is a better solution than a screen you're not 100% is a better solution for the fans safety.


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:12 pm 
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Many very close finishes occurred in 2001 and 2002, including the 2002 Delphi Indy 300 in Chicago where Sam Hornish jr. beat out Little Al by 0.0024.

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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:16 pm 
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StefMeister wrote:
Whatever caused the cars to be more prone to go airborn was something that came in with the 2003-2011 cars.

The cars they ran prior to that didn't go airborn that often & from memory never because of spins, Running over Debris or after contact from the wall (Like what we saw with Simona at indy this year).

Reading Codename's theory above about rake & looking back at images from Texas, The old style cars do seem to run less rake than the current spec car. The Pre-03 car seems quite flat to the ground, Current car is very high at the front due to a higher nose/front wing & also higher at the rear.

Image
Image


I'm pretty sure they did flip before 03 too. Maybe not as much but they did.

At 0:24 in this video, a car, I'm not sure who or when (I think it was per-2003), flipped just by spinning.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:22 pm 
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F1Peter wrote:
StefMeister wrote:
Whatever caused the cars to be more prone to go airborn was something that came in with the 2003-2011 cars.

The cars they ran prior to that didn't go airborn that often & from memory never because of spins, Running over Debris or after contact from the wall (Like what we saw with Simona at indy this year).

Reading Codename's theory above about rake & looking back at images from Texas, The old style cars do seem to run less rake than the current spec car. The Pre-03 car seems quite flat to the ground, Current car is very high at the front due to a higher nose/front wing & also higher at the rear.

Image
Image


I'm pretty sure they did flip before 03 too. Maybe not as much but they did.

At 0:24 in this video, a car, I'm not sure who or when (I think it was per-2003), flipped just by spinning.

[spoiler][/spoiler]


Not sure, but the crash at :24 is pre-1990..


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:25 pm 
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codename_47 wrote:
Yep, and I wasn't a fan of the IRL at all and didn't even know of its existence before 2002 but weren't the side by side finishes a lot less common back then too? :?
There was actually a lot more side-by-side racing with the older spec cars.

The closest ever finish in the series was at Chicargoland in 2002 (Which was also Dan Wheldon's 1st IRL race):


Both races at Texas that year also featured photo finishes. The older spec car seemed to generate a lot more closer Pack-Racing than what the 2003-11 car did.

2000 Race at Texas for instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lFIpFyNWfE


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:44 pm 
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shame how Hornish Jr just faded away...


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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:11 pm 
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http://secure.brickyard.com/Retail/Prod ... 1ec10f9e0a quite a cool t-shirt in memory of Dan

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 Post subject: Re: Indycar @ Vegas
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:30 pm 
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Quite a few drivers donating items
http://twitter.com/#!/DWheldonAuction

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