BrianCunningham

http://www.motorsport.com/indycar/ne...practice-flips

Makes sense to me, qualify the car in race trim.

FASTFATBOY

The car is not meant to have aero going backwards, even 3000lb NASCAR Sprint Cup cars get off the ground going backwards or sideways, the flaps to break the air over the car did help a lot though.

BrianCunningham

I've always wondered why the other racing sanctions, not just IRL, haven't adapted those flaps. They really seem to work.

BrianCunningham

Report: Hinchcliffe Had Suspension Piece Go Through Leg, Nearly Bled Out

http://blackflag.jalopnik.com/report...leg-1705505193

Zoxxo

Where would those flaps go on an open-wheel car?

http://www.racer.com/more/viewpoints...=1&limitstart=

All of the hand-wringing and BS posturing of the media over this really is amazing (and disgusting, self-serving, and grotesquely insincere.) Indy has always had bad crashes like this due to the very nature of the high speeds and the inescapable walls. More than a few drivers have paid a/the price and more than a few major European drivers have turned down opportunities to race there over the years due to the danger. But the men and women who do race there are fully aware of the issues and dangers.

The way the "news" media have been carrying on this year - especially over non-injury blow-over incidents - is pretty telling re: where their "news instincts" lie. No real news but spectacular visuals for the YouTube generation.

Here's Tom Sneva in 1975 (40 years ago this year):


Or Danny Ongais in 1981:


Ongais qualified ninth the following year, btw.

If you are going to race at Indy then this type of thing is a real possibility. Why this year's race is generating so many crocodile tears is a (partial) mystery.

Z//

BrianCunningham

need to be towards the front

front wing off the top off my head

Zoxxo

But the issue is air getting UNDER the REAR of the car. That's the same issue whether it's NASCAR or Indy or F1. If you read the article I linked to, a problem with such flaps on open wheel cars (aside from where you can put flaps that have both enough size to be of use and enough room to operate) is that the cars are very light (compared to Cup cars) so the open-wheel cars have turned 180 degrees and already started flying before any such flaps can begin to have an effect. Cup cars, having both much greater weight and a relatively larger side profile, take longer to turn around and to take flight once they are turned around, so the flaps have a chance to work. Also, the flaps are right out there in clean air which is not the case with open-wheelers.

Z//

BrianCunningham

Need to do something active

Even with an active rear wing, most of the downforce is made by the underbody

Perhaps something with the new bodywork covering the rear wheels?

BrianCunningham

FYI component failure

http://www.racer.com/indycar/item/11...rash-confirmed

rfn026

People are missing the point. The rules changes are about spectator safety - not driver safety.

They have some choices here. They can vacate the first 25 rows of seats or they can keep the cars on the ground. They would prefer to keep the cars on the ground.

Then we have the Black Helicopter theory. Chevy is too far in front and the rule changes will make the Hondas competitive.

Richard Newton

BrianCunningham

Ouch!

http://www.motorsport.com/indycar/ne...liffe-accident

rmackintosh

This is an embarrassment to Indy Car racing....at just the wrong time. Don't care what the reason you use...the cars being that poor under adverse conditions is avoidable and should have been anticipated with the brain cells in the know....

Bill32

Kanan's right any car can flip and only one of those 3 actually flipped.

Doesn't even take high speeds.

Bill32

Hinchcliffe's wreck was caused by a component failure, a part that shouldn't have been on the car. Dallara redesigned the rocker for a reason.

Their first design wasn't very robust for a part that takes those kind of loads. Compare Dallara's to the double plate design on our Atlantic.

BTW, Zorro's right about the media.

BrianCunningham

Media has always been like that
I think they should be using blood for ink

Can't stand fans who to go watch crashes
The ones that throw trash on track to cause a wreck should be charged with manslaughter.

I post these so people see what changes are being made

I've had to find someone's wife after they're been in a wreck

I've also been on crash reconstruction to figure out what happen.
Not fun

Like the rest of the drivers stated, racing is dangerous.
That said they are ways to make them safer and still exiting for both the fans & the spectators.

chuntington101

So what is the actual issue you would like the ruling bodies to deal with? I see two issues 1) aero and cars getting air born and 2) driver safety with component failure leading to a driver being injured.

Item 2 is easy to mandate for. Make the cockpit area strong and ensure that Kevlar is used. Or force a redesign that stops this happening again.

Item 1 is much harder. Aero only works in one direction and often only with VERY little slip angles. As soon as the start to loose aero it's pretty much gone and why things get out of hand in high down force cars so quickly. Little flaps with make NO difference. You see the same in F1 only they tend to have much greater run off areas.

If you want to stop cars getting airborne you have to remove the downforce they currently rely upon.

Zoxxo

An on-point article on Autoweek:

http://autoweek.com/article/formula-...ly-formula-one

Z//

rfn026

I seriously doubt that Indy is really concerned about driver safety. It's about spectator safety. Every track lives in fear of a spectator getting hurt.

IndyCar already has an ongoing lawsuit from St. Pete. They were looking at vacating the first 20 rows of seats all around the track. Or, they they could keep the cars on the track. We know what they did.

The problem was that Chevy got a little screwed in the process but they can live with that. Honda of course is claiming they got screwed even worse

"The biggest unfortunate thing is we spent a lot of time working on those aero kits, especially the speedway aero kits," he said. "We feel that we were affected more than we expected to be affected by the rules change that happened. We put a lot of effort into making sure that our cars were as safe as possible.

If you look at the designs of our car, a lot of our designs were brewed from our vast experience in sports car racing where they have a lot of stability requirements. So things like the big fin on our engine cover, the endplates on our rear wings, the design of the side pods. All of those were designed with stability in mind."

Richard Newton
Historic Racing Images

Painrace

Flaps could be added over the side pods and the rear wings to keep the cars down. It is all about air flow. Air to hold the car down lifts the car in reverse.

Jim

BrianCunningham

But the previous generation of cars were not flipping over as easy

So what happened?

And YES they are DEEPLY concerned about fan injury since they are being SUED by some
http://www.racer.com/indycar/item/11...st-petersburgQ