1000 foot tracks

One of the proposed solutions to the track length/shutdown issue is to alter the now 1320 foot quarter mile of acceleration and remaining asphalt of shut down to 1000 feet of acceleration thus adding 320 feet to the shut down on every track.

This would:

Lessen the top end speeds
Reduce parts attrition
Lengthen the shut down area
Require less track preparation
Require reworking of the timing system
Allow tracks that can not be lengthened to still be national event level facilities.

This would possibly solve many problems the NHRA is facing with the tire issue, parts failures, oil downs, etc.

I would hope the Sportsman Advisory Council members would be asked for their input. Many of them watch this board so this may be a good place to discuss the pros and cons of the 1000 foot track. Consider particularly how it would affect the alcohol class either positively or negatively.

Cody "Flash" Perkins

 

Maybe it’s lame to be the first vote on your own pole but I would support it.

My dad drag raced in the sand when I was real young and I would watch those videos for hours, I loved it. Sand racing was 300 feet and still way entertaining even though the alcohol and fuel cars would only run for less than 3 seconds. (Sand racing is still around today but that was my primary exposure to it so that’s what I'm drawing from.) My point is that I don't think the spectators would disapprove of shortening the track to 1000 feet.

Jim Head is correct in that most of the damage occurs in the last 300 feet when the car does very little accelerating. The blown combination sees 9000-10000 for an extra .85 seconds or more. This is the period where rods and springs take the most punishment I would presume.

The Fuel classes have been trying to limit performance with rev. limiters, weight, percentage, etc. but maybe all those restrictions could be eliminated because the area where catastrophic failure occurs is no longer a part of the race course.

The indexed sportsman classes would be able to run through quicker as well. SC's new index would be 8.00, SG, 9.00, etc, resulting in a couple minutes less per session less. A majority of “Big money bracket races” are held on 1/8th mile tracks so those racers would probably not disapprove. That’s not a big selling feature but it is something to be considered.

Now in terms of the alcohol classes, specifically TAD this may have an affect on the parity issue.

Lucas went 4.502 at a thousand feet when he ran a 5.327 in Chicago. Whiteley went 4.488 at a thousand feet when he ran 5.329 in Chicago.

However, Reichert's 5.103 record was 4.313 at 1000'.
Perry's 5.262 (because I don't have the 5.255 incrementals) was a 4.417 at 1000 foot. Technically this narrows a .15 advantage to a .10.

Maybe this is the next step for our sport to reduce the severity of on-track incidents. I know that a solution must be reached and this one may be one of the best for everyone.

Cody "Flash" Perkins

PS, Will is this worthy of being "stickied" to the top of the board for a while?

 

Cody, if lessening Parts Breakage is the goal, why not just run 1/8 mile? Even in the Alky classes, the racers are going to find a way to shorten the wick on the tune-up even at 1000'! I remember back when John Shoemaker ran Div. 7, I asked why the costs got so out of hand. He said they went from turning the motors around 8,000 RPM in the 80's to 9,500 today(1997?). My point is, no matter how much you shorten the track, racers are going to push the combo as hard as possible to win.

 

Short and Sweet

Greg Sereda and I just finished running a match race at Race City Speedway in Calgary, Alberta and the track had made the decision to run the race 1/8 mile. They did that for safety reasons (Race City is built on soft land and water sometimes comes up through the pores of the track, which is what was happening in the top end). I was against it a little at first, but after the first day of the event, I was used to the idea.

Maintenance was cut in half. The shutdown are was more than long enough (including when Greg's chutes tangled on the last pass). The finish line was right in front of the last grandstand. And the races were very close.

From a driver stand point however, half track is just where it starts getting fun for me. The car starts dancing around and you've just got to 200 miles per hour. But, I guess there will be good and bad with everything. As long as NHRA & IHRA both look at what happened and learn something from it.

 

If they shorten the track to 1000' at 280 to 300 MPH how much more TIME would a driver have to react to a bad situation and slow the car down in the extra 320' before reaching the end of the shut down? Or another way to ask this question is at 300 MPH how many feet per second does a car travel.

 

Feet Per Second

At about 259 MPH you would go through the extra 320 feet of shut down room in 1 second (1000' instead of 1320')

 

there are pros and cons to both. on one hand, parts attrition would certainly go down. but, now you are messing with tradition. mike dunn even pointed that the cars stop better now even though they are going 100 mph faster than they did 20 years ago. as someone else pointed out, they would find a way to turn the wick up somehow. who would have thought that you could make a t/f car go 330 plus on 85%? nhra certainly didnt. but, aj has had tony 338 on 85%. so, anything is possible. any decision nhra makes is not going to make everyone happy.

 

Personally I have always liked 1/8mi racing. Parts attrition is almost ZERO and it make it more of a drivers game. At many of the tracks we go to, the grand stands end at the 1/8th mile giving the fans a great view of the entire race. Its been working for the ADRL??!! Purist (and those not writing the checks) will argue the 1/4 mile and 300mph on the boards "sells". To answer previous questions a car travels 440ft @ 300mph in 1-second and 352ft @ 240mph. Yes, we could "lean" on things harder in the 1/8th but it would still hurt a LOT less parts and make for a LOT less oil downs from the fuelers. After waiting behind the fuelers at Milan for 2-1/2 hours of oil downs, I think most of us and the FANS would like less oil downs!

 

the big picture...

I don't agree with the 1000 foot deal, or the 1/8 mile deal either. An extra 320 feet wouldn't have helped at all in our most recent tragedy, looking a the video that car didn't try to slow down one bit- likely because the driver was unconscious. Who knows, perhaps I'm wrong.

If the track is too short, don't race it, move the event somewhere else, or figure out a better system to slow the cars that go off the end.

Yesterday Will posted a video from Decade of thrills with Mike dunn going into the nets at columbus, agreed there are considerable differences in speeds between then and now, but those double nets seemed to do their job.
I thought someone mentioned on a thread here about water barriers, why not explore those possibilities?

 

I wasn’t sure how if felt about the 1000’ thing but it makes a lot of sense, by shorting the track to 1000’ you could then split the difference and add 160 to 200ft more shutdown and then use the remaining 120 to 160ft. to extend the sand trap and add an extra catch net. Also by going to 1000' the speeds would be less and add to the cumulative effect of the extra shutdown and trap area.

Sure wish a track operator/owner (not NHRA) would add to this discussion. I would like to hear thier view point on all this.

 

A Fan's Opinion

I'm not a racer, but a lifelong fan. I voted yest to a shortened racing surface, for one major reason, the quote from one of the nitro guys (Head or Toliver I think) "I'm tired of burying my friends".

NHRA's open secret is the facade of "safety" while continuing to do things in the interest of TV and/or profits that are unsafe. I've posted before about how I feel about this entire issue (search Mark Albert). In esssence it disgusts me how NHRA ignores common sense safety issues until something fatal happens...

How much common sense is required to know that a short sand trap and what appeared to be concrete barriers less than 100 feet from the end of the pavement is a potential risk. Please!!! (correct me if I am wrong on the shortness of the sand trap and concrete barriers at Englishtown)

How is it that they still run Indy with a non-continuous barrier (inlet opening at 100ft) on the left lane? Maybe if a fuel car gets crossed up and impacts there at 100mph, jumping the barrier and killing a few photographers that will make them jump into action "to do all we can do to make our sport safer".

They somehow think the fans don't perceive their lack of concern for the racers. They are wrong. On the other hand, if PRO can't get any action from their greivances, how can us lowly fans expect any support?

I've written them, specifically after KB's TF disassembly when he backed into and over the turn in Armco several years back. I had drawings and suggestions on how to improve turn in and Safety Safari access, to prevent acute angle impacts. I never heard back from them. We lost Blaine Johnson to that very type of impact later...

It pisses me off.

Kudos to all of you racers, who risk yourselves, often due to conditions outside of your control, for the love of the sport and for the fans. You are appreciated and care for by some of us.

Chris Saulnier
Brunswick, Maine

PS - Congratulations to Al Ackerman on his long deserved Comp win!

 

I would be for the '1000' at the tracks that do not have an adequate shut down area. You can say that it would not have helped in the situation with Kalitta last weekend, but it could have helped him in Pomona when he put the car into the sand.

Pomona is a good example, as every event, or close to it, has cars ending up in the sand. For an instance as last weekend, there should be more than 1 small net, little sand and then a retaining wall. How about real efforts to get a car stopped in the event of a major problem. What they had seemed like a token effort.

At 1000' the MPH will not be down by much with the delta in distance, but just having that extra 320' will help with getting the car stopped.

The 1000' track deal could happen tomorrow, with minimal expense. Nothing like severe rules changes and combination changes would cost.

In addition to looking at the 1000' track, what else can help get the cars stopped? There were 2 TA/FC's that went into the net at Seattle last weekend, and that is a pretty long track. Seems there could be a better system.

Hopefully something good will come out of this. That much is owed.

 

On the surface the 1000' idea seems like a good idea and a quick fix. However I have been around dragracing for more years than I care to say and running 1000' will not save engine damage. Crew chiefs will figure out quickly how to get more rpm and hp to the ground at a speed that even now would exceed 300 mph. Offical drag racing has been run 1/4 of a mile since its inseption and changing that would not be a good thing.
The problen is the cars are too fast for some existing dragstrips. The solution is upgrade the race tracks and mandate the minimum length necessary to hold a national event as well as the type of safety barriers at the end. Maybe
200 /300 ft. of sand, double nets and some type of absorption barrier past the nets. A quick fix could be as one of the other posts suggest to run 1000' or even 1/8 mile on the current nationals that are to short.
NHRA and the PRO racers can figure out how to reduce the speeds with some simple rules changes. Things like limiting boost to 40 lbs. or limiting the size of the magneto amperage to 20 amps or maybe the gpm output of the fuel pumps. My point is that there are people out there with enough knowlege to slow these cars down and do it safely. NHRA has managed to take all the inovating out of the top fuel classes anyway. Top Fuel racing has always been a risky business. When the cars were slower the dragstrips were terrible, the tires were bad, the chasss and safety gear was way less safe than today so everything is relative. I don't mean to deminish the riisks of driving today at all because the speeds are much greater. I guess you have figured out by now that I am not in favor of any permanent changes to the length of the dragstrip.

 

Thanks Gene, any feed back from a track owner would be interesting and welcomed.

 

1000 foot

After seeing all of the discussion about this, I am totally undecided on my feelings about what should happen at these tracks.

We can debate all day long what the fans want to see. We can also debate what us racers want to happen. I personally think that the racers, not the sanctioning bodies or fans should have the final decision on what a track should offer.

"Nitrohawk" is correct in saying that no matter what is decided, we are going to figure out how to run the fastest possible and still "blow up" our stuff at the end of the day!

At that time, the safety decisions have just come back to the racers and if we decide to go, ........... then we are responsible, not the facility!

My 2 cents, seems to be only worth 1 cent!

 

First, everything regarding Scott's incident is speculation right now. However, the explosion did happen after the thousand foot mark.

I won't disagree with the fact that people will, "blow them up anyway," but there are various degrees of blown up. When Tony Pedregon "blew up" in Pomona he'd broken a crank. That video of Mike Dunn's "blow up" was a broken crank. Now I see cars pop the blower, or torch a head all the time and the body doesn't shatter. Incidents do happen and there is no way of predicting everything, but in the case of the fuel cars, the most severe parts failures (tires coming apart, engines exploding not just melting pistons) occur beyond the 1000' mark and are in no way related to the tune up.

Flash

 

Back in the early 70 Don Garlits had the idea to limit the blocks a team could use per day/ or event The idea was that if you blew up your stuff early on that you wouldn't race on race day, or something along them lines, but the big money teams knocked that down, cuz they didn't care if they blew a motor a run, thats why it cost so much money to race today. back then it was the racing manufacturers that Sponsored a lot of racers, when all the big corporate company's came in, Hell they made them pay for the parts big time. And so do you..

 

well what about fontana were the sand trap is about 10 feet long, then there is a chain-link fence, then cherry ave.

also the shut down area goes down hill

so what is a 200+ MPH top dragster, or a PSCA pro street car ends up with no parachutes or brakes, i really dont think that running to 1000' feet would make a difference

and i dont agree with running to 1000' feet, it just wouldnt be the same and you would have to throw out the record book because now top fuel cars would be running sub 4 second E.T's