Rule Change

Darren Smith · Jul 18, 2010

Dave Tuttle said: ↑

I'm pretty tipped over about loosing my friend Mark Niver and have been thinking long and hard about what could have been done to prevent his accident or maybe yours. From what I've red on this site and others, everyone has been talking about all sorts of solutions but nobody has even mentioned the obvious root of the problem.

The Parachutes !

When you run these car as hard as you have to today, you're gonna tare up some parts. Weather you toss the Rods out, Smoke some Pistons or just squeeze out a gasket now & then, most of that oil you had to wipe off the car got swallowed up by the Parachutes shortly before they fell to the ground and got drug through all kinds of Crap getting off the track. Most people I've found occasionaly look to see that the Chutes aren't all torn up and just stuff them back in the bag.

How many of you out ther actually wash your Chutes during the season?

The Parachutes as far as I'm concerned, are a living breathing part of these cars. The Canopy is made from a High Pourosity Nylon for a reason! Clogg up all those pours and the Chutes become this Snarling Beast that tares itself or anything to tie it to apart!

I've noticed the offenders of this are easy to spot if they're running the Yellow Kevlar Chutes. The dirtiest ones are always blowing panels out. Trust me, that's not because they've got alot of runs on them. It's more that they have seen alot of Oil Soaked Runs!

Like Bob Meyer, I've also been building these cars for 30+ years and take their safety aspects every bit as seriously as their performance. Loosing an old friend of 25 years, that you've marveled over his craftsmanship, cheered for when he ran well and had pleanty of laugh's over a cold one, hits close to home!

Think about it. You can add more brackets and bigger bolts to fix the problem, but its not a cure if you don't fix what's ripping all the stuff off in the first place.

~Dave Tuttle~
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Great Post Dave! Everyone of these fatalities the past 3 years would have been avoided with working Chutes! But Blaming tracks is so much easier I guess.

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