Noble Div. 4 to be 1000'

Good job will
(fuelslut, if you feel the need to post again, please use some tact and respect, if not, go to another site.)

 

I for one cannot believe Jim Collins would allow an unsafe car to run at any event in division two. His credentials and respect by the racers are well known,

 

Will Hannah

Will:
Please contact J.Lee Didier or Lonnie Grimm @ Thunder Valley in OK this weekend ASAP. They are pitted in the Top Sportsman area. They want to meet with you in person.
Bighead

 

How can you slam fuelslut without taking issue with what Mark said? I personally don't have a problem with what either of them said. I've been around the sport for some time now and have seen cars and drivers that probably should not have been competing. I would be in favor of more strict standards for obtaining a lisence and don't mind more scrutiny of the cars in tech.
I'm still not in favor of 1000' racing. Was weird to look at the first qualifying round results and see the times and no mph from Noble.

 

I have a completely different idea. What if a driver had a heart attack or stroke on a run and ran off the end of the track? Is that the track's fault? Or the doctor who signed the license app? Weren't Mr Martindale and Mr Shoemaker older guys? Just a thought. Comes from my 29 years as a firefighter/paramedic. Heart attacks and strokes are a dime a dozen in older folks. I call them Mr. because I respect anybody tough enough to be around this earth for 65 years or so. Dave Germain

 

Dave, that's an interesting point. When a driver is incapacitated and the car is under power, the location of the finish line doesn't matter. But there's still a possibility that something can be done to help if the containment system at the end of the track catches the car and stops it safely. On the other hand, if the car hits something hard and gets smashed to pieces, the driver doesn't have a chance. So in that respect, I think the track does bear some responsibility.

 

thoughts about the future

In my way of thinking we as drivers have responsibilities and the track has responsibilities. Neither can be negligent or the potential is there for the unthinkable to happen. I hope the Drag strip does their part and I also hope that I do mine. We have all seen what happens when a car gets lose and there is contact down track between the cars, its not all about the net and sand trap. It is a 50 50 proposition for there to be a successful competition. I am ready to do my part so we can keep the 1/4 mile contest in the NHRA, I enjoy the tradition of it and the race as well. Thanks for letting me ramble on, and take care everyone.
Ken

 

I was at this event. The track conditions were awesome, as always. I would like to note a few things.

1) NHRA should mandate Carbon/Carbon brakes on all alcohol cars like all the fuel cars have.
2) 1000' was the right call, but most of the drivers drove right through it anyway.
3) While I'd rather they have to tow somebody off the track than peel them off the end of it, they should've been better prepared and had both pull offs opened instead of the end, just to keep things moving along.
4) Rules to slow cars down are not the answer. We're racers, it is our goal in life to take a set of rules and guidelines and stretch them as far as humanly possible. None of us would be in this sport if we weren't. Look at the fuel cars. 1000' was supposed to help them keep from popping motors. It did for a while.

Bottom line, NHRA needed to be doing safety and track mandates YEARS ago. While I'm glad they are starting to be more pro-active, they are still very reactive.

 

Mandate carbon/carbon brakes???????? And just who is going to pay for them? I am not sure who Justinatace is but I am betting he isn't writing the checks for those brakes. Before folks pop off without thinking things through they need to keep the costs of racing in mind. Most alcohol racers don't have multimillion dollar sponsorships. If the NHRA required carbon/carbon brakes it would immediately sideline probably better than half of the top alcohol racers. Carbon/carbon brakes cost thousands of dollars. I don't know of anybody who has actually had a brake failure. Lots of guys have parachute failures. If the car is going fast enough the brakes only make it bounce. When I had steel brakes I could easily lock up all four tires- you can't ask anymore from the brakes. By the way- I have carbon/carbon brakes on the rear of my car. To change the front over is somewhere between 2-3 thousand dollars. Also many racers who have carbon/carbon brakes didn't do it for the braking efficiency- they did it for the weight savings. Dave Germain

 

I have been staying out of this for a variety of reasons, but now I'm going to speak up.

First off, the 1000 ft idea was unneccessary at Noble. The track is 3800 ft long, everyone here can do the math. That's longer than several national event locations. Let's just say that if a Fuel car can go well over 300 mph at this same location in a quarter of a mile, why all of a sudden is it not okay for an alky car to go 250 mph. In addition, I'd be interested in seeing some of the data for how long several drivers drove it out the back door, and never had an issue. (of course that's not going to happen, I'm just stating an observation)

The next issue that was even more dangerous than anything I've seen besides the crane at the end of the track. The 200 barrels filled with Sand at the end of the track that Thunder Valley Management was mandated in order to hold the event. We might as well have had a concrete wall down there, what would be the difference if you hit 15 of them the way they were stacked?

One of the so called reasons stated for recommending the change at this race was because of an incident last year, well did anyone investigate WHY That incident Happened? I did. It was a Crew oversight that Caused the Brake Failure on That particular Car. Not the track. For those of you who have never been there, Noble is AWESOME!!!!!

My question is, Why all of a sudden was a particular executive involved from Glendora to dictate these changes to this one track within Division 4 (and only Division 4) when the Sportsman Class and the Lucas Oil Series isn't a true Priority unless we're participating at a National Event? I would really be interested in what the overall opinion is here. Hmm, was a squeaky wheel getting some oil to shut it up????

In addition, what happened to Chris Foster with one of our new rule changes could have been completely avoided. The Wire that is supposed to Contain our Burst Panel created a worse situation for him & his team than helped. He is not the first driver to experience a problem with this "Wire" but I would say his was the most extreme by creating a wind tunnel that ultimately blew the body off of his car. By all rights, he wasn't happy about this uncalled for modification.

Dave, I did hear that one mandate being recommended for next years rules are the carbon fiber brakes. I've only ran a funny car that way, so I don't know any different on that. But at this point, it's only a recommendation. If they are going to do this, hopefully it won't wait until mid December to announce it.

I'm sorry to everyone for going on a tangent, but there needs to be someone to say some of this and I guess I've been holding back long enough. Please Note: We Sign Waivers, so we take full responsiblity of knowing what the unknown may present to us Every Single Time We Go Down The Track. It's a part of the sport, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Now mind you, I'm all for safety, in fact it's one of the things I'm probably more aware of than most. But at what point does the safety start becoming an overkill when it's actually endangering more people than helping? And I'm not just speaking about the Alky Class. You take a Top Dragster or S/C Car going 180 mph and they have a mechanical failure, they have the same risk we do.

I hope if nothing else, people will think about the facts I've posted here rather than just lashing out of emotion. I'm not here to insult anyone, just stating my observations and knowledge of these particular situations.

Nancy

 

Will, i think you owe me a apology.
for one, to think i was throwing Bobby under the bus is a insult. i understand Bobby's situtation, and in his, i might do the same.
and for two, you know me, and know i'm not like that.
i have the most respect for his wife and his dear daughter.
what i was trying to do was open up a conversation that no one else here has. to say that i am not still recovering from the event is a understatement.
i am not going to bother to quoting you on the statments that you made where you agree with me.
no one wants to see 1000ft racing, and i agree with nancy too.
i'm all about safty, i build the the safest cars around, and i pride myself in that. lets just take this case by case though. for every one car that runs off the track 100 don't.
scott darrow

 

uhm Will,
Bobby was not dead before the finish line......
i heard many people yell "shut off the fuel" and "kill the mag".....
i'll just tell you what i saw, and heard....
his car was gaining speed....
i heard the engine....he was getting on the brakes.....it was stuck wide open...
no one would have lived through that.....

i'm not even gonna get into the guys that helped him, cause they were my neighbores.....
we invited them over for breakfeast, and to hang out for the day...
i was there when keter ray's crew help load him up....
Will....

 

Carbon brakes are expensive, but paying for the damage done in one moderate trip into the sand is more expensive. If tracks are required to spend some money stopping the cars why shouldn't racer's share equal burden. If you don't have the money for the brakes, skip an event and take the money you saved by not racing and call Strange Engineering or Lamb and get them.

My first TA/FC almost 20 years ago had all steel SPE brakes. I could hardly get the car stopped before the finish line on a burnout (slight exageration, but you get my point). My current car has carbon on all four corners. Marc White went 254 miles per hour 5 years ago at Pomona in my car and the chutes wrapped around the wheelie bar. He safely made the turn off. If I had steel brakes on the car he would have ended up at the 9th hole on Mountain Meadows Golf Course. Pomona has just over 2,000 feet of stopping distance and is shorter than just about every national event track.

I saw Shelly Anderson run 298 miles per hour at Pomona many years ago in her TF dragster with carbon brakes. Keep in mind TF dragsters have no front brakes. Again, the chutes ended up around the wheelie bar but she safely made the turn. Why would you risk not having them.

Marc told me his routine at the finish line is to hit the chutes as he enters the traps then grab the brakes as if the chutes aren't going to work. When he feels the chutes hit he relaxes the brakes. When I drove I had a bad habit of hitting the chutes, coasting and waiting. If the chutes didn't open it left me very little real estate to get it stopped. Thankfully the chutes always worked so I never tested that one.

 

the barrells at the track weren't like that, they were plastic, 55gal drums packed solid with sand, topped with plastic bags, and had no gap between them, and there would've been no glancing blow, just straight on. Those videos are interesting, though, but they don't look like they're full of sand, so there's less mass in those, and they've obviously been specifically designed. I'm no engineer, but the barrels at the end of the track looked scary to me, and after what happened at shreveport, I was surprised at the choice

 

where were these sand barrels? before or after a sand trap?
Are you sure they were all filled solid?

This is the recommended DOT installation array of the crash barriers. Note the distribution of the partially filled barrels

http://www.crashgard.com/pdfs/installation_manual_1-29-08.pdf

 

Those barrels were designed for Cars /Trucks going 70-80 MPH with metal body's not cars with thin fiberglass /or no body's, if you hit something going 200. 300 MPH, I don't care if it's a frog you are going to do some damage, notice a baseball player getting hit with a fast ball, what 97 MPH, you got something that weighs 200 300 pounds, hitting it with something going 2 3 hundred MPH, come on think about what your saying.

 

Gene, what about motorcycles? You don't think the DOT considers them when designing standards for energy absorbing crash barriers? You are not suggesting that todays race cars are engineered to be less safe than common passenger cars? And of course you cant hit them at 300 MPH. why do you think I asked if they were placed before or after the sand trap?