Some of you guys think totally different than I do and that is NOT meant as bad.
I have a VERY strong aversion to checking out before my time.
If I decide to go LSR racing, I would want to be in a car that was built WAY over
enginered to be as safe as possible. That would include the strongest alloy steels
and engineering practices available. If I did not have the money to have the work
done by qualified people, I would go to school and learn how to do it myself, which I did.
Previous crashes at the salt can be analyzed and studied but you can never foresee the future.
Previous crashes at Indy, formula 1, World of Outlaws NASCAR and others can be studied
but eventually there will be one that is different. The same applies to Bonneville.
It boils down to each crash is different. You can't build a car too strong.
The rule book is a guide. It doesn't hurt a thing to go WAY past that...
If you can't afford it, either wait till you can or gamble with an early racing carreer at that
GOLDEN SALT FLATS in the sky.
I think you'd be surprised at the even spread of opinions.
I don't think there would be many
experienced racers who would disagree with the intent of your post, but I think you might be surprised at the reaction to regarding all who come here as an homologous group.
Your contention that people regarding mild steel as acceptable as being tantamount to "gambling" makes me think you may have not considered the nature of injuries sustained in an accident and the
possible and
practical ways to avert those injuries.
As Carroll Smith put it some decades ago (paraphrased, memory isn't what it was):
"The advantage of moly vs. mild steel creates a narrow safety envelope in which, to have value, the anticipated crash must be serious enough to overwhelm the lesser metal, but not sufficient to overcome the greater. It's pretty small."
If you give me an explanation in your own words of the meaning of the above statement I will put more weight in your opinion.........
So , what you contend is, at the very least, we should use CrMo of the minimum dimensions , or bigger or we are foolish?
Roll cage
material is but a small part of the safety package....fire-suits, extinguishers, proper design of the cab and intrusion protection...the HANS, the helmet...the chassis..........
Mostly we can't defend our brains against sudden deceleration.
The car I drive is so over engineered in the drivers area it is ridiculous. The chance of me being crushed or mortally injured by a physical object in an upset is , I hope, small. If I somehow get it into the air at 200mph and then stop abruptly It's not going to be the cage material that determines my outcome.
I can choose between super-strength and protection or ultra-lightweight in an effort to minimise inertia............. it's not a simple argument.....