jlcvt

Thank god he is ok after this. He's going to be hurting a little tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKcasmBxfLc

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/...e-texas-crash/

Wicked Weasel

wow amazing to see him get out....

wurk_truk

Jesus!

ericstanley

Wow... just wow

linutux

That's it... I'm buying a HANS!

Everett Ogilvie

As much as I dislike the COT, it is one of the strongest platforms there is. Thank goodness he is OK.

John Shiels

and I am sure cars at so called HPDE will hit 175 plus this year Glad he was OK great car development from NASCAR!

racerjon1

I think a lot of "great development" congratulations are in order here..

SAFER Barrier
HANS/Seat technology
Car Of Tomorrow (Today, whatever)

Along with the usual seat belts, roll cages, etc. A bad event is usually a seris of things going wrong, and this was a series of things going right.

I usually roll my eyes when people get out of a crash and say, "I would have died if it had not been for, hans/cot/seat/safer.. etc" it gets thrown around too often when you can't say for sure what would happen. However, if McDowell wants to say it about that first impact, I won't argue with him. I am not sure I have seen a more vicious head-on impact than that. (other than Jeff Andretti and Nelson Piquet at Indy where they both had massive leg injuries)

In Earnhardt's fatal crash, the speed that his car hit the wal was about 42mph. (That's speed up the banking, not speed down track.. remember the car was moving in two directions, and only one is dangerous) It will be interesting to see if data gets released about McDowell's "into the wall" speed.. because it looked to be double Earnhardt's at least. (Judging from the time the car goes from the bottom to the top of the track)


Jon K

73-84 IMSA Widebody

Wow, I hate to think what I or my rig would look like after that. Congrats NASCAR

Wayne O

Exactly...thank God he walked away from that one. That was a real 'Ricky Bobby' crash.

fatbillybob

That's why I have always preached full containment seats connected to rollcages. Most here are at risk with non-retentive seats bolted to the stock locations. Have any of you ever looked at the flimsy metal that holds the seat bolts under the car? I wrecked last month and bent my full containment seat!

Mikelly

It's funny, because my mechanic sent me an email this morning warning me about my safety after driving my car and having it overcome a 650#ft. pressure plate and Sintered race clutch. His comments to me were that with this car generating over 200mph capable speeds, he'd hate to see what would happen in a crash without the proper cage/full containment seats...

That accident was a true testiment to the COT and all the other safety measures NASCAR has taken. I've been a fan of watching them run the COT this year, and have watched more of their races this year than the last 4 seasons combined.

Mike

conecrusher

Unbelievable!!!!

ajg1915

One heck of a hit. Glad he walked away.

Hardcorvette

That was definitely a horrific crash, I'm amazed he was able to walk after getting out of the car. Say what you want about NASCAR and the COT, they got their priorities straight!

Bink

I wonder if the car would have hooked like that, after his correction, if it not been a COT. Thoughts????

COTs generate a lot more downforce.

Kinda reminded me of Gordon Smiley's crash at Indy in the early 80s.

VetteDrmr

Pretty good guess, I read today that MM's car lost about 70 mph on the initial hit, and was at the upper end of impact energy SAFER was designed to absorb. I didn't hear the exact number, but it took crews several hours to fix the wall.

Absolutely HUGE amount of energy to manage. Close to four times the amount of energy as Earnhardt's impact, but I bet the energy spike was much longer duration on MM's hit.

Did you see any replay where they ran it at speed with audio?? Sounded similar to one of those firework "cannon" shells.

Have a good one,
Mike

racerjon1

I was thinking about the SAFER design as well and its limits, I know that none of the video tests of it that I have seen showed any impact of that angle, In one of the video sclips I coul dalso see the foam stayed compressed.. something I hadn't seen from the many IndyCar hits I have seen into them. (The indycars will puncture the steel though)

I also want to see how long the spike is, and I would bet that initial impact was probably 115g (or more..) and if he was able to walk away that means it probably was only 30-40 at the driver.. one hell of a absorbtion of SAFER/car.

I also hope they take a good long look at the data they have and see what went right, what might have gone better (or worse) if things were different, and use it to make smart decisions about the next steps. (I worry that this kind of crash will make people think "no more worries" and we know where that gets us.)

On an interesting note, CNN has been running footage of the crash today, but pretty much only showing the rollovers. The rollovers (though spectacular) are so not the biggest deal about that crash.


Jon K

The Spark

Even at somewhat slower HPDE speeds you can still get hurt when you add a helmet and harnesses.

I know there are a few places on the tracks I go to that are not very forgiving if you run into them.

VetteDrmr

I should clarify (you understood what I was meaning) that I think the spike was of much longer duration, and therefore the amplitude was considerably lower.

On lessons learned, I hope NASCAR will look at both this impact, and Jeff Gordon's recent inside wall impact, and require SAFER to be installed as soon as practical on all walls the cars can contact. There's surely enough NASCAR money floating around to help the tracks get it installed.

For sure, rollovers get the air time. In fact, I've seen Tony Stewart's barrel roll/end-o from earlier in the Daytona race that ended so tragically probably as many times as Earnhardt's accident itself.

Have a good one,
Mike