Safety concerns in our racing.

[javajoe79]

 
 Spin was caused by rain on track.

You don't suppose the 3 million horsepower had anything to do with it do you?  


Not sure the rule book calls for a hinge so that the spoiler will flip up. I think most cars have the hinge to allow adjustment of the angle of the spoiler. However, I built the spoiler on the firebird to flip up and it has limiting cables to work like a roof flap would.

As for the dry sump tanks, in road racing we are generally required to box them in to separate them from the driver. I would not care to drive a car with the tank open in the cockpit. It's easy to cover with a sheet metal box with some screws or dzus fasteners to enable removing the box for service.

As for tires, we learned that regular front runners don't like being on a spinning car. When we spun the truck, immediately after the 222 camaro spun, it ripped one of the rear tires off and destroyed the wheel. We were happy to stay on the ground but I think it would take more speed to blow that truck over.

  Yeah...less hp would have helped but we never have trouble spinning, or spinning the tires in high gear at Bville

  I pulled the chute before it went around and after stopping it was sopping wet.

 I spun in the 3rd mile were did you guys spin? There was a slight sprinkle when I left, must have been more at the 3.

 I would like to hinge our spoiler but the deck lit is rounded across and up. A major redo, a good idea but not possible on all cars if you want a 10in. spoiler. A 12in spoiler would give more down force and less spins.

             JL222

I believe he spun in the 3rd mile too. Somewhere near 200mph I think. I believe someone else spun right after us. It was sprinkling and blowing pretty good. They should have stopped up from running but they were rushing us to run instead.

[javajoe79]

Here is the spoiler on the bird flipped up.

[Avanti Kid]

Thanks, the design you show in your photo on your car is exactly what I'm suggesting for more safety, take care, Dave

[hotrod]

You would not need to hinge the whole spoiler, you could also have a flap that normally rests flat on top of the spoiler plate that is hinged to "pick up" if airflow is reversed (perhaps with a small gurney lip on the back of the flap to help it stay down when going forward and help it come up when going backward).

[krusty]

The Gurney lip(s) would probably be declared illegal as they would provide more downforce   

More seriously, a pair of flaps, flush mounted, would work well, I believe. Flaps are required in the cowl area of NASCAR Cup cars; you can see them bopping around when drafting is close on superspeedways. We used to hold them down a bit tighter with soft springs, but that was banned.

A few years ago we took a record-holding (over 200 mph) classic coupe to the A2 wind tunnel for evaluation and recommendation of aero improvements. The car had an Implementation Approach 1 spoiler. As part of our quest for knowledge, we made our last run with the car BACKWARDS (180*). The result was approximately 750# of lift on the rear of the car. (If we had been at Lockheed, we could have yawed the car  in a controlled 360* spin, measuring aero change every 5 or ten degrees of rotation. THAT would be interesting). Needless to say, we recommended flaps or hinging as part of the aero improvements.  My thinking, it can't hurt and is pretty simple to do.  Also, a hinge need,  follow the body contour, just place the hinge at the most readward point of the contour. And tethers are simple to make or source.

John, think of the flaps as burst panels for your car. 

vic

[Stan Back]

"A pair of flaps, flush mounted, would work well, I believe."

I'm absolutely no expert here --- but don't Nascar cars have open side window(s) that change the whole formula?

[wheelrdealer]

I bought some used NASCAR roof flaps  with the thought of installing them. When they arrived I realized I do not have enough room between the cage and the roof panel to install them.

One thought was to install them on the trunk (decklid for some of  you) . The unanswered question is, would they spoil enough air on the trunk to reduce the lift going backwards? Seems logical that they would, but NASCAR requires flaps on the roof so there must be a good  reason.

Chris: You are a master fabricator and this question is in no way challenging your design. When I built my option 1 spoiler I thought about hinging it. It seemed to me at the time that once the car turned anywhere near 180 degrees that the spoiler would probably rip itself off the car. I have never seen a car up close with a spoiler that has spun. Do the spoilers stay attached in most cases? After seeing your design I see where I can easily convert my spoiler to a hinged design. What is the gauge of the aluminum on the spoiler deck?

Thanks,

BR

[javajoe79]

 Ideally the car stays straight  The shape of this car in back really allows the maximum dimensions of the spoiler to be achieved both in height and length of the end fences.  I suppose it might rip itself off but I doubt it. All of the spoiler is made from .090". The middle of the cross bar that the chord lays on is anchored on the ends and at two points in the middle, down to the chute mount structure. Not sure how hard of a hit it would see from 2-300mph wind but I slammed it against the tethers pretty hard and it seems really solid. If it suffers damage from a spin we will learn something and make improvements to prevent further damage.

 I haven't seen a spoiler ripped off a car, maybe others have?  I did see the hood ripped off the 222 car in the incident we were discussing above so that worries me a bit about the firebird but I used 20 camlocs to hold the hood on. Daryl still has to glass the cowl into the hood and contour it with the windshield so maybe some camlocs around the cowl into the windshield are in order to prevent hood removal at speed?

[Dynoroom]

The spoiler may stay attached.........    To the trunk lid.......  

That's why so many of the 300 mph cars weigh over 5,000 lbs.    

[Dynoroom]

Bob Drury ask me to post this for him. Something about picture size, shape, orientation......... I think he just wants pictures of his race car on line.....   


 I asked Mike LeFever to post these for Me so lets See how this works.  Thanx Mike.
 
   Here are a couple of things I have done:  The second picture shows My "high-tech automatic closure system... a screen door spring I found on My workbench...  The hood shot is to show where I mounted the fire extinguisher access doors which is right above the center of My headers on each side.  Bob

[GH]

Mike, George Voss told me his Monza weighs 7000 lbs. I believe it, we barrowed some lead from him in 09 when it was slick and mushy between the 4 and 5 mile markers.

[Dynoroom]

A couple more....  

OH WAIT!! I'm not sure I was suppose to post that last one......................  

Oh well... 

[Bob Drury]

  What that last picture doesn't show is Stan Back running for cover!  I had a compass malfunction ...
                                                                                              Old One Run, out....................................................

[gkabbt]

Mike, I was talking to Bob as you were posting these!

A couple more.... 

OH WAIT!! I'm not sure I was suppose to post that last one......................  

Oh well... 

    

Gregg

[Stan Back]

ORB heard something about a chase truck -- he took it as an instruction.