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These pictures right here tell me a story. A story of outdated rules. I am not posting this to pick on people directly, but merely to help our entire community as a whole think more about safety and the way these cars are built.
This is not really a problem in the higher divisions with full tube chassis as those cars are purpose built and designed specifically for racing. This is however an issue I am seeing more and more in lower tier divisions, specifically stock chassis/frame/sub-frame type divisions. Imagine if this was a hit on the driver’s side. Imagine the severe injuries that would be sustained or possibly worse, death. No full containment seat, HANS etc is going to protect you from being crushed by an impact like this.
I have noticed in reading some rule books recently that wording such as “No Xing of underside of Chassis” or “No plating or x bracing” is present. To all of the tech men reading this, I know most of you did not write these rules originally, however this in my eyes is extremely irresponsible to continue to keep in the rules. If anything, it should be made mandatory that all stock chassis or sub-frame type cars have an X brace and proper plating of all frames to strengthen them and tie the individual legs of the cage together at their base or as close to their base as possible. Otherwise, the individual legs can move and crush. While it is true that most of these stock frame/chassis type cars were designed to crush from the factory in an impact, we are not talking about the 35-55mph impacts they were designed for in many cases on our local ovals. We are also in many cases, not hitting other items that were designed to move as well. We are talking about other cars with strengthened front and rear bumpers, concrete walls and more.
If this impact shown in these pictures had been a driver’s side hit, we would be mourning the loss of another local driver and at what cost? A little bit of time and $100 or so in tubing and plate?
I get it, racing is dangerous. But we should not be taking unnecessary risks. Think about it… It’s time to update the rules to help keep everyone just a little bit safer.
This is not really a problem in the higher divisions with full tube chassis as those cars are purpose built and designed specifically for racing. This is however an issue I am seeing more and more in lower tier divisions, specifically stock chassis/frame/sub-frame type divisions. Imagine if this was a hit on the driver’s side. Imagine the severe injuries that would be sustained or possibly worse, death. No full containment seat, HANS etc is going to protect you from being crushed by an impact like this.
I have noticed in reading some rule books recently that wording such as “No Xing of underside of Chassis” or “No plating or x bracing” is present. To all of the tech men reading this, I know most of you did not write these rules originally, however this in my eyes is extremely irresponsible to continue to keep in the rules. If anything, it should be made mandatory that all stock chassis or sub-frame type cars have an X brace and proper plating of all frames to strengthen them and tie the individual legs of the cage together at their base or as close to their base as possible. Otherwise, the individual legs can move and crush. While it is true that most of these stock frame/chassis type cars were designed to crush from the factory in an impact, we are not talking about the 35-55mph impacts they were designed for in many cases on our local ovals. We are also in many cases, not hitting other items that were designed to move as well. We are talking about other cars with strengthened front and rear bumpers, concrete walls and more.
If this impact shown in these pictures had been a driver’s side hit, we would be mourning the loss of another local driver and at what cost? A little bit of time and $100 or so in tubing and plate?
I get it, racing is dangerous. But we should not be taking unnecessary risks. Think about it… It’s time to update the rules to help keep everyone just a little bit safer.
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