Australian Streamliner Bike Build

[grumm441]

I'll say it, I know many of you have wanted to Instead of worrying about the size of the tubing I think tech should be more concerned with the quality of the welds. You have all seen them on the salt, posted here and other types of racing. Crest looking welds, undercut, too cold birsheetesque, you name it. Whether drags, circle track or on the salt, I am always seeing welds that make me go WTF? How did that pass tech!?

I spend most of my time on the salt at Bonneville in tech, Motorcycle tech. all the new cars come thru the the cover next to us. Iv'e seen the car guys checking tubing thickness and weld thickness with the ultra sonic tester. then I look at some of the places guys building these things think that gussets should go. and they still pass tech.

Then we stuff like the Killacycle electric motorcycle streamliner sidecar. It spent a stupid amount of time in tech, and in the end she packed it up and went home because it was just made too hard for her. I had a very good look at it at BUB and I could see nothing that should have stopped it running at Speedweek.

I've been told that the gusset rule is partially in place as a sort of fix-it for less than great (and some times incomplete) tube juncture welds.  In fact, I'm absolutely no expert, but I've seen this work in a crashed vehicle.

The we looked at the crashed car from Japan that the roll cage broke when it rolled over, fortunately, the only thing hurt was pride

G

[dw230]

The electric sidecar went home because she couldn't ride it. Got lost on course and headed for the timing tower.

The gusset rule was put into place because a lakester driver flipped at El Mirage and while upside down the cage was ripped from the car, driver decapitated.

Thanks for your input,
DW

[1212FBGS]

I have pulled out of involvement from the rules committee decisions over the last few years but not on this one and the overbore rules..... i was there to express my opinion as well as a few others including an expert in roll over structures and even Sam Wheeler (who's "liner in now illegal to run with the SCTA).... Mr Warner made an accurate statement " I think this one has been voted on" even before the rule change was presented and opposition opinions were voiced and heard.... this was jammed through by car boys and voted on by car boys even before the meeting..... The whole rules change procedure process in all stinks of back door dealings which ultimately gives the credibility to the SCTA-BNI a black eye.... 2 months ago the president of the SCTA (not BNI) asked the clubs for ideas on how to stop the dwindling attendance and how to increase the turnout.... I have witnessed the screwing up of the A to M class rules over the last 8 years and how it affects the motorcycle riders and their decision if they should run SCTA or BUB events.... the growth of the BUB event and stealing competitors from the SCTA is proof.... the narrow mindedness of those creating these kind of changes don’t realize the effects..... Van lied in his proposal that this change would not effect any currently running SCTA vehicle and the clubs and board members blindly believed him.... He blindly saw that only 1 bike lined raced with the SCTA last year but overlooked the fact that there are a dozen ‘liners with log books that have raced or could race with the SCTA in the future.... the voters dismissed the presented statements of 10 KNOWN 'liners currently being built with intentions of racing with the SCTA..... the voting car boys didn’t care.... they just jammed the pre decided decision through....  the "effect" is, the 20 something bike 'liners would probably never race a SCTA event ever again.... Never see a 300mph bike liner at a SCTA event again..... "no big deal" the car boys would probably think, "its only 20 bikes, we don’t want them anyhow, makes room for 10 more roadsters we just voted in a new class for".... the "effective" reality is the 20 something racers will mother F the SCTA to all their buddies even the ones who are thinking of building a conventional bike, you know the ones who are unsure because of the ever changing "A" to "M" class rules... I can just hear the disgruntled bike 'Liner guy (including me) say " "F" them your bike probably won’t be legal by the time you build it, go race BUB"..... Continued diminished entries and disappointed spectators is the real "Effect" of this rule change..... These guys writing and voting on this and other rules have little to know regard of the long term effect ot the organization…. So yeah i have 4 bike 'liners and 1 car 'liner, none of the bikes will see a SCTA event again with 1 going to the Vegas auction in January...... Fiat them
kent
.

[JustaRacer]

The electric sidecar went home because she couldn't ride it. Got lost on course and headed for the timing tower.

The gusset rule was put into place because a lakester driver flipped at El Mirage and while upside down the cage was ripped from the car, driver decapitated.

Thanks for your input,
DW

General thought, not MC streamliner specific:

One thing that always puzzled me.  How do racers get the inside scoop on failure analysis?  People who are building a car/bike need to know this kind of information before, during, and after construction.  Since some of the req's aren't always relevant to a given model, you need to know where to spend the money/time where it will do the most good.  If rule X has never caused a death, but rule Y has, then move money/time from X to Y.  We build to what we experience as risks based the crashes we know of.  So some stuff is not SCTA req'd but is absolutely critical for the application to be safe.  This will get some people angry, but there are some SCTA "safety" items that decrease the survivability on certain projects.  

This is probably why some rules seem odd to outsiders like myself.  We can't tell what is critical.  When we get squawked in tech, we have no idea how important that rule is, if our vehicle doesn't need that feature that was squawked.  ie - Traction Bar Straps that do nothing, since both ends are already 100% captive and cannot come off or drop down even if the bar breaks in two.  They must be there, but we know they could not do anything, other than the "safety" strap fall off on the track.  Yes, I've picked up nuts and u-bolts that were probably off the traction/suspension straps during course walks.

Did the lakester in question have a cage or a halo?  They are not the same thing.  A coupe cage has an outside skin, often steel on production projects, often with a cage structure integrated from the factory, and a lot more triangle in it.  There isn't just a few bars like a halo, nor can they touch the ground in many cases without a complete failure of the entire body and frame.  

Why did the car flip is also important; blown tire, too low, spin, driver error, chassis failure, etc?  Better to fix what causes things to crash, than to attempt to make a car crash-resistant.  You can never make a car crash survivable.  You can only reduce the risk.  The #1 thing to reduce risk is to keep the car under driver control.

Nobody wants to crash, get injured or die.  So if there is information out there about failures, we stand a better chance.  Again, it will get people mad, but keeping the info private increases risk and is very, very dangerous.

[Tman]

Justaracer, the car that flipped has been discussed here. You can find the details in a search.

[JustaRacer]

...

[Glen]

Tman the car mentioned happened in 1984 or 85. It was a old drag race rear engine dragster with .o49 rails and cage. It was the reason for the rule change to add gussets and not long after that to dis allow early RE dragster type chassis. That vehicle was the only one that I know of that lost the cage and it was a single loop type.

[Tman]

Tman the car mentioned happened in 1984 or 85. It was a old drag race rear engine dragster with .o49 rails and cage. It was the reason for the rule change to add gussets and not long after that to dis allow early RE dragster type chassis. That vehicle was the only one that I know of that lost the cage and it was a single loop type.

Yes, I am sure you were the one that posted that info before. You also stated that it looked like the rails were thin from grinding and putting a new hoop on.

[Glen]

Trent, I never posted that.

[Tman]

OK, I am thinking of something else then.

[superleggera]

Fortunately my 2-wheel streamliner is only in CAD and the university has only done minimal work so far on aerodynamics.  I had spec'd 1.5in OD tubing as a safety margin over 1.25in OD chromoly initially.

Given "NEW" rule is now 1-5/8ths -- should I just go to the car OD tubing size of 1.75in to be "safe" for the future if further rule changes? 

I can understand the new rules applying to new streamliner builds and yes it will cause us a headaches -- but I'm in disbelief they will outlaw streamliners (Sam's, etc) that have current logbooks and are running.  I see no problem with grandfathering these in and giving them a 5/10yr window before they then are classified as illegal (or can be somehow widened??? to insert larger OD tubing to meet new compliance rules).

[1212FBGS]

I feel for this guys "liner build..... Mr Warner even warned those attending and voting that there were several people at the DRLA whom would be effected by this rule change as they respectfully mirror our rules.... those voting didn't care... my respect level for a few of them fell dramatically (im sure they don't care about respect from me anyhow).... But not my first rules meeting rodeo, ive seen it before.... In my eyes their 2 for 2 in back door rules jamming....

Justaracer, you ask how can you find out about failure analysis? Not from the SCTA or BNI.... every incident is closely held as per the cause, sometimes accurate rumors get leaked out but in most cases the unprofessional analysis of a incident shows up as a knee jerk rule change.... in this case no such incident of a 1.25 chassis failure has "EVER" been presented.... when i directly confronted Lee Kennedy about this and several comments about dozens of bike 'liner crashes without incident he commented " we just want to be ahead of the curve on this one" WTF!!!!

Knowing how the process works and witnessing it first hand, their is one last long shot in stopping this rule and that needs to happen this Friday night at the board meeting.... It is gonna take 2 (yes 2) very brave voting board members that feel as strongly as we do.... One will need to make a motion to withdraw the rule change for a year pending future analysis and information gathering and the other voting board member to 2nd the motion.... The motion could pass but knowing the board members its highly unlikely..... so expect this to get jammed through Friday and see it in print next rule book....

there will be no grandfathering in of old chassis.... to do so would be admission of a substandard spec as acceptable.... one of the most uncomfortable situations i ever saw was when Van Butler said he went over to Sam Wheelers shop and told him what he had to do too make his 'liner "safe" at 400mph..... OMG here is a wanna be engineer that probably cant even spell welder going over to tell a guy who has "built", "Raced", "Crashed" and Survived 3 beautiful streamliners how to build his liner!!!! OMFG!!!! that was embarrassing it see.... The second embarrassing statement was when Van said you could submit a design variance to the contest board 45days prior to the event.... My immediate thought was "OMFG did he just imply that the SCTA tech inspectors would now become design engineers to evaluate and approve chassis designs other than what they mandate is safe?" The SCTA would be very stupid to allow design deviation from published rule standards. To do so would open assumed incident responsibility and ultimately possible liability... But I saw them do this with the tire speed rating problem, it hasn't bit them yet, Russian roulette is not pretty... As someone stated earlier your chances are slim for a variance unless you are closely tied in and they like you (im out)....

This whole think stinks and is sad... all because someone who is tied in thinks their smarter than everyone else and needs a pat on the back for changing something that's not broke

Kent

[Vinsky]

T G F B ----- BUB.

[Dr Goggles]

very well said Kent. For me the Ezy Hook and the Akattack pretty much set the bar, their experiences are worth a Dodge sight more than supposition.


I would like to point out that this seems really bad for the US guys however in Australia we have one meet and it's run under SCTA rules, dead loss for the bike liner guys here.

[1212FBGS]

Crap Doc....
I know you guys kinda mirror our rules but man i hope you guys can head off this change.... maybe you can petition the DRLA to hold off a year to evaluate the effects of this rule... good luck

Just got off the phone with Craig Anderson, we've spent the last 2 years rebuilding his sidecar streamliner (flying Kiwi) to fit within SCTA specs. He has been racing AMA and FIM with Bub and wanted to add El Mirage and SCTA Bonneville to his race schedule next year.... He definitely doesn't want to build a new frame and definitely wont frankinstitch tubing over his existing frame.... He's not gonna race with them and i don't blame him....
kent