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When a car flips in that way, you have a fundamental design flaw somewhere in there.

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[youtubeidiot]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Filv50aB6do[/youtubeidiot]
Anyone else remember Tony George talking about developing a catchfence alternative after this crash?

Unfortunately that design flaw is apparent in almost all modern race cars that travel at these speeds. IndyCars are no worse than anything else, but they do travel 20-30mph faster than anything else, and do it at almost every oval, thus making it appear more of an issue for them.

You only have to look at Mark Webbers Valencia accident, and the countless LMP take offs (especially during 2008) to see that this isn't an IndyCar specific problem, but rather a problem with most modern race cars. It's actually quite a difficult problem to solve, as even big massive fins on the LMPs hasn't kept them on the ground.

Of course there is, it's fundamentally known that whenever a car hits a piece of debris or hits a tire, it's bound to launch the thing in the air due to the air getting underneath the car...

Dan Wheldon is the fifth driver to die in the same year after winning Indianapolis 500.

Gaston Chevrolet (1920), Joe Boyer (1924), Ray Keech (1929) and George Robson (1946) suffered the same fate. Keech lived the shortest time of those, as he died on June 15th. In those years, the race was held on May 30 regardless of weekday.

Floyd Roberts (1938) and Bill Vukovich (1954) died during Indianapolis 500 while both being reigning winners. Vukovich was of course a two-time winner, having also won in 1953.

I was implying "for Dan Wheldon" at the end of my statement. Schekter also claims that drivers had voiced their concerns prior to the start but had been told by officials to "shut up and drive". Every driver did.

I hope Tomas continues to race. He's underrated imo.

He's said he still will, and I also think he's underrated, he should have a full time drive, just like Dan should have as well (same goes for Wade Cunningham imo)

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

I posted this in another thread, it's a more technical description as to why they fly, running the cars with more negative rake than a regular car also adds to the problem, as Dave says, it's not a design flaw, it's simple physics.

Today is the funeral:

INDYCAR will hold a public memorial service to celebrate the life of IZOD IndyCar Series driver Dan Wheldon at 4 p.m. (ET) Oct. 23 at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Doors open at 1:30 p.m. and seating begins at 2:30.
The memorial also will be broadcast on www.indycar.com, VERSUS, ESPNEWS, ESPN3 and locally on WRTV-6 and WTTV-4.

Funeral services for Dan Wheldon will be held at 10 a.m. (ET) Oct. 22 at First Presbyterian Church of St. Petersburg, 701 Beach Drive N.E. in St. Petersburg, Fla.

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And a pretty video... http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/22825103/ ... 7#44992317

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@Pereira_FC - Hit the pace car!!!

And I have posted and will keep posting until people understand that the IRL rules package make this a lot worse than any other series causing the cars to fly further and longer than anyone else.
As is posted above, getting a car to do a complete backflip after braking for a considerable margin then running over some debris at about 100mph is just ridiculous.

The IRL seriously need to look at their rules package, its just a question of if they want to give up their photo-finishes in the name of safety.

You're talking about the Horish crash at Indy right? Watch the rear angle and listen, he's still hard on the throttle when he hits the attenuator, the engine bounces off the rev limiter as it takes off.

As an engineer, I can see the problem with negative rake to be taken seriously. It is definitely something that would set the car unstable aerodynamically in situations where the front wheels would take off from the ground. The balanced aerodynamic angle is very narrow with negative rake, when the wings at front and back are close to almost zero degree angle. In this kind of conditions, when front would lift off in speeds of well over 200mph, the car would suddenly start to work like a aeroplane, the downforce would fade away fast and the lift would take a place.

If it's all about negative rake, there's an easy solution for it. New car should feature a suspension that has minimum ground clearance for the rear suspension that would always be higher than the front suspension. It's a one solution, but the other things is the speed itself. When going over 220mph, there's also a lot of forces that affect on the car and aerodynamics are more sensitive. The reason LMP prototypes had so many flips suddenly was because of very fine tuned aerodynamics. They only work when the car is moving in ideal conditions to straight forward. A spin or a rear wheel puncture lifting the nose caused similar effects that negative rake does, the car goes unbalanced and loses all of its downforce and takes off. The reason why CART Reynards didn't flip was because of the shape of the car, it's having normal rake and aerodynamically inefficient profile, meaning that it is not that stressed by aerodynamical forces.

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

And I imagine having a heavier car and ground effect didn't hurt really (See Brack, Michigan 2000, wheel to wheel contact, car settles back down on the ground after a brief nose-up hop)

Thanks NVirkkula, nice to have an engineers perspective on all this.

Weight helps a lot also, heavier car doesn't take off as easily as lighter if they have similar shape and speed.


But I'm not convinced that a car with high ground effect would be safer. Prototype C sports cars and 80's open wheelers flipped even in low speeds during the ground effect era. The similar aerodynamical instability was there for these cars as it is for high downforce racecars of today. The aerodynamics are refined to work in one direction only, take a 90 degree or 180 degree spin and it's all changed for both types. Like said before by other forum members, it is not an easy thing to solve, when traveling in speeds well over 200mph.

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

Well it's more to do with the floor than anything else. LMP aerodynamics haven't drastically changed in over 10 years, but the floors have been raised and are chamfered. It makes it easier for the floor to gain large amounts of air underneath.

The Mercedes CLR at Le Mans that one yeartook flightt once, twice, three times.. "okay boys, we've got a problem" and it was done for good.

IndyCars take flight one, two, three, four, five, six..... and "it's okay, only 1 driver died (renna), Mario got a scratch on his nose, Hornish walked away unscathed, and the rest, well, they lived. We'll get a new car one day but until then at least we'll make the highlight reels".

It is no laughing matter though. Some people have been warning that the luck will run out for years.
Last Sunday proved that the current cars are only as safe as luck allows.

Not really the same thing is it. The Merc took flight 3 times in 3 days of running. IndyCars have done it over years, and more importantly, more than 1 manufacture, with 2 completely unrelated designs have done it. That tells you there is something wrong with the rules package, rather than the individual cars.

The Mercedes also took off completely unattended, under normal circumstances. No IndyCar has ever taken off in those conditions. They have always been involved with another car, a piece of debris, or traveling at a bad angle (such as backwards or wideways). And under those circumstances, countless cars have taken off through aerodynamics. Red Bull never retired Vettel when Webber took off at Valencia. Not one LMP was parked in 2008, despite multiple take offs. And when was the last time NASCAR parked the other 42 cars because 1 of them blew over?

Also, Wheldons accident had nothing to do with taking off like you're talking about. Wheldon and Power used other cars as launch ramps, and as the Fuji accident in 1998 showed, that can happen at low speed, nevermind 220 mph.

^ No, but everything comes back to the "we'll live with it for now, take our chances and keep our fingers crossed" attitude in general in IndyCar. That needs to change.