Everett Ogilvie

- still the strongest, safest car in racing. Newman airborne, lands on roof multiple times, apparently uninjured as he jumps out after they finally cut the roof off.

The safety crews did a great job gently flipping the car over, and what a testament to the safety design and strength of this car!

dvandentop

sounds pretty brutal. hans probanly helped alot

sperkins

So much for the roof flaps I guess...

Crappy video:

Everett Ogilvie

The 2:16 mark on the vid shows the first flip - to me it looks like that 2nd car that gets close to Newman as his car is starting to go up helps push him up past the point of no return (the 2nd car does not physically contact him but it kind of looks like the air from that car in close proximity probably affected Newman's car, just a guess). For sure, the roof flaps can't prevent everything.

Han Solo

Just goes to show the best cages can collapse with the right amount of force. Glad he was not injured. They had to turn the car over and cut the top of the cage and roof off to get him out.

The rescue team did a phenomenal job of righting the car without further impact to the driver. Especially the tow truck operator.

RedLS1GTO

In his interview, he said that he was "... worried when the top of the cage hit his helmet" I'm not sure whether the cage came down or he went up (down, whatever). Supposedly there is a pretty big gap between top of head and roof in those cars so I wonder how much it gave through all of that. They did cut it off so I assume that it came down enough that he couldn't get out through the window opening. To add to it, Ryan is a pretty decent size guy so I'm sure that didn't help. Glad my fellow Purdue grad is ok

xilr8n

I think the roof flaps are more than offset by the rear deck spoiler.

JRD77VET

At the 2:13 mark, the 47 car driven by Marcos Ambrose gets close, but the rear of the 39 car of Ryan Newman is already starting to lift.

At the 2:18/2:19 mark, The 39 car's trunk lid lands on the hood of the 29 car of Kevin Harvick. Stop it right there and take a look. It helps keep the passenger compartment of Newman's car from crushing down on him ( more than it did )

Yes, the cars are built well but somebody is going to get killed in one of these d*mn restrictor plate races. They cars are simply bunched up way too close.

RedLS1GTO

I watched it in hd slo-mo. One of the most impressive parts was watching Harvick's windshield when Newman's car came down on it. I assume it is Lexan? That windshield took a SERIOUS shot and stayed in tact.

EDIT: Here is a higher quality video from nascar.com, At the end of the video is his interview. He said about all that could be said.

http://www.nascar.com/video/cup/2009...ml?MostPopular

ssdeuce

It looks to me that wing acted like a wing and lifted the car up.

JDIllon

They had better come up with something to keep those cars on the ground when they are going backwards!!!!!!!! What a POS race. Follow the leader till the last 10 laps. Nascar is playing a dangerous game with these restrictor plate races. This is not racing IMHO. And its only a matter of time before someone gets killed. Just my .02 JD

68sixspeed

He's just really lucky there wasn't a fire. Glad he's ok, but with the wing it's not a big surprise. Now if they put a pivot on the mounts maybe the wing could flip up like the roof flaps or even beyond 90 to add some downforce when backwards it might have kept him on the ground.

Or just loose the wings, they look dorky on an oval car. -Dan

drivinhard

he got lucky. it would have pancaked a bunch more without harvick's nose there

Everett Ogilvie

On several occasions I have seen a NASCAR car start to lift when going backwards and then as soon as the roof flap opened it came back down. The prior race at 'Dega when Carl hit the fence does not fall into the category of a inadequate roof flap - Carl's car WAS on its way back down just when he got hit which then catapulted it up and over.

This time with Rayn the roof flap was clearly not enough, and NASCAR will study it to determine why the car kept going up.

sperkins

I don't understand why they don't just require a really big gear on those tracks and be done with it. If somebody wants to try and run all out at 12,000rpm so be it.

ghoffman

Even the NASCAR guys think they're going nowhere.

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/10/lets...-your-opinions

brkntrxn

After watching the wreck multiple times in HD slow-mo via DVR, Harvick's nose definitely softened the blow of the initial flip. The second roof landing at the end of the wreck appears to be more significant (to me).

Redls1gto -- My wife made the exact same comment about Harvick's windshield. Pretty impressive.

imp zog

He's also lucky he doesn't have a neck, in his interview after the incident he said that the roll bars got squashed right down to his helmet. Someone taller (like Mike Waltrip) or with a neck would have likely fared much worse than he did. Very lucky indeed.

Terribly boring race, NASCAR has really humped the puppy on this latest round of changes. More restriction means it's going to be even harder to pass, so people need to get more aggressive. Or just stay in line like they did for 90% of the race, although that's also due to the last minute no-bump-drafting-in-the-corners rule that had people too scared of being penalized to bother to run hard until the end.

BWF07

All major forms of auto racing have strict rules on car construction for safety, not just NASCAR. If you want to see a safe car, you need to see the wreck with Scot Sharp at Road Atlanta this year. He hit the wall and catch fence at about 150-170 mph and the car simply disintegrated and he unbuckled himself and walked away, almost as soon as the tub came to a rest. Granted the open wheel cars (Indy, F1etc) have the problem with the nose of the car and leg injuries, but they are vastly improved over what they had a few years back.


Look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXfVXKCkeYo

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