I believe there needs to be a rule about having enough nose protection on the front of the car. I found this to be helpful in my case when I built my car. Last year we designed my car to have 1/8" aluminum plating on the nose of the car. The same goes for the #51 and #55 cars at David Douglas. Not only did it help with aerodynamics, but if I ever came in contact with a curb at high speed. Two weeks ago, I was trying out some different batteries and doing an hour test on them to see what I could do with them. This is what happened.
About 40 minutes into the practice race, I came to a part of the course where I was at where there is a slight down hill that drops about 6-8 feet. After this drop at the bottom, there is a left turn that immediately goes back up 6-8 feet. I came in doing about 28-30 mph and turned too late to apex it. The wheels started to slide as understeer came in since it was wet out, I then responded with the brake (which didn't help the situation), proceeded towards the curb at about a 45 degree angle and hit the right side of the nose with it. I was truly shook up after hitting the curb, but taught me a lesson about wet tracks which will be helpful at later races when it's raining. The right front a-arm folded up when I hit the curb, the wheel did not break but did leave a dent in the rim and was warped beyond use, and the nose got smacked really hard.
Aside from a couple scrapes and bruises on my knees and the damage to the car, the nose did it's job in protecting my feet. I was able to get out and still walk faster than the crash with the Hood River car last year that halted the race for 25 minutes. If I had a canvas front end with a couple pieces of aluminum tubing like four cars here in the northwest or polyethylene plastic on the nose with some square or round steel tubing underneath it, I would have broken my feet. I have noticed a lot of the cars here in the northwest don't have adequate enough nose protection if they ran into a curb doing 15 mph or faster. There could be a lawsuit at schools if their students get hurt due to how the teacher(s) are having them build their cars. I know most of the cars in the Northwest I would never get into even if they asked me to drive one of their cars due to the lack of nose protection.
This needs to be a rule for 2012. In the Northwest region, 2/3s of the cars here don't have enough nose protection. If looking at the whole USA's electrathon racing, 99% don't have enough protection to survive a crash without breaking almost everyone's feet whose driving the car. Yes, it would add some weight, but better safe than sorry is how I look at it. This is coming from a safety point of view for everyone that could get seriously hurt by over looking one thing on the car when building it. And it does state in the rules that frames have to be built a certain way to not allow a persons body parts to pass through the frame while driving or when a crash happens. Either get a fiberglass nose that's thick enough or add plating to your car to make it safe enough to withstand a direct hit to the nose while protecting the drivers feet at the same time.
-- Edited by Zaine Stapleton on Wednesday 16th of March 2011 02:56:35 AM
Zaine and all, Willamette has built more cars and so raced more cars than anyone-as many at 24 at a single race with around 13 races a year. For this reason we have had more crashes than any other team. Most of our nosecones are fiberglass of various thicknesses but many of our 'nosecones' are thin sheet aluminum, plastic or canvas. If the inside 'crash protection' loop is well built like a rollbar and supported well then I believe from past experience that they are safe. The student from Hood River that hit the tall curb head on at ~25 last year causing the red flag was hurt not by his weak nosecone but by the 5 point seatbelt not being tight and him slamming into it and causing chest pain and brusing. A car from Hawaii at PIR hit a heavy 4 wheeled go cart in a t-bone crash and destroyed his car when the heavy car decided to make a hard right turn into the pits without checking his mirror. Hawaii was doing over 50 when he was stopped in less than 10 feet by his paper thin fiberclass nosecone. He had to be cut out of his car--the nosecone was 'gone' but the metal lag protection of the frame protected him as it was designed. He had a slightly sprained knee from locking it straight just before the crash and so 'jambing' it. Many of our cars have hit curbs, posts, walls, etc. at speeds higher than 20 mph over the years in races and practice, and none of them have ever had more than a light sprain or 'jamb' from the wrecks. None of the many wrecks over the 16 (?) years of racing in the NW has ever resulted in an injury larger than a slight sprain or small bruse other than one adult that went into a prking lot and hit a wall at high speed and broke 2 toes. From a physics standpoint you want the car to have a 'crumple zone' like modern cars. That mean that the nosecone shoud give and the nose cone frame protection should give to slow the car over time. This absorbs the energy and caused the driver to have less of a shock when they do hit something. In the 50's and 60's street cars did not give as they do now and the driver was stopped instantly in a wreck causing more injuries.
When we do inspections inside framing and protection of the leg area is one of the things that definately needs to be checked out and recomendations made. The 'loop' inside the nose/leg area needs to be as strong and well supported as the rollbar. If this is done then I feel that the car will be safe for head on crashes at the speeds we are doing on our parking lot races. At the speeds some of the cars are doing on the mile ovals and even at Portland International Raceway a head on into a wall or post at 60 mph would not be good and would probaly cause and injury but it would in most street legal cars as well.
One thing that many of our cars do is pick up the tip of the nose high enough that if they hit a curb they rise above it so they are not slammed to a stop. Unless the curb is abnormally high like the one at Hood River.
This is Nebraska's PowerDrive rule adderessing this issue.
Impact Protection Each vehicle shall have structural members at the front of the vehicle that act as a barrier, or bumper, to protect the feet of the driver and to help prevent intrusion into another vehicle in the event of contact. The minimum dimension of these structural members shall be eight (8) inches in the horizontal and eight (8) inches in the vertical dimensions. Blunt aerodynamic fairings may be used in front of the structural members to enhance airflow. The barrier must be made of materials that meet the minimum standards for frame components. This rule applies to vehicles with a single front steer wheel as well.
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Racing is real competition and everything else is just a game.
This is Nebraska's PowerDrive rule adderessing this issue.
Impact Protection Each vehicle shall have structural members at the front of the vehicle that act as a barrier, or bumper, to protect the feet of the driver and to help prevent intrusion into another vehicle in the event of contact. The minimum dimension of these structural members shall be eight (8) inches in the horizontal and eight (8) inches in the vertical dimensions. Blunt aerodynamic fairings may be used in front of the structural members to enhance airflow. The barrier must be made of materials that meet the minimum standards for frame components. This rule applies to vehicles with a single front steer wheel as well.
Can you translate this as to how it is enforced at the track? Is an 8" square welded out of tubing, covered in skin allowed? Or do they want an 8" plate in the front of the car? Have you ever had an accident where someones legs were hurt?
We have a lot of cars hitting the curblines, but never a serious injury. Many cars are carried back to the pits with damaged wheels/frames.
The real purpose for this rule was to keep pointed vehicle frames from intruding into another car. I forgot how to post pictures and I do have some with nasty structural points on the front of cars. This occured even after explaining and wind tunnel demos showing the points on the front of cars were indeed less efficient. To my knowledge there have been no injuries to feet and legs after this rule was adopted and before there were some.
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Racing is real competition and everything else is just a game.
