184 replies to this topic

[marc]

nice job ! oh by the way the jet driers tend to slightly oil the track surface with residue, mix that with damp air and trying to run on the transition of the bank and you got yerself a slip and slide .......thats what they mean with a caution flag ,, be careful !!!

anyways that one,s over.. now on the putting your hands on your head during a crash , whats the general rule on doing that ?
lock up the brakes put your hands on your head and careene in to the crash area like a bowling ball ??

maybe those idea's needs some more work ??

[Larry Mattingly]

Smart driver get their hands off the steering wheel when impacting something... saves getting a broken wrist.

LM

[marc]

good tip , i can see doing that in a open wheel car with rack steering , but shouldn't you look to see where you going to land before you stop steering ? or just leave it to the car to find its own impact area . i was alway told on a banked raceway to turn hard left and lock the brakes and spin the car out.

[flem1959]

I like watching short tracks and road courses myself.

[TSR]

Modern driving position in enclosed cars requires the driver to be much closer to the wheel, with the arms bent to allow maximum torque with minimal physical effort. Because the steering wheel is so close to the thorax, there is no room other than against one's chest to place your arms and hands out of harm in case of a crash where the steering wheel will rotate wildly and out of one's control. It is the best thing that drivers can do to protect themselves, and both Danica and Johnson did exactly the right thing.
I still have a broken little finger on my right hand for having failed to do exactly that when my car spun on me once, and I was lucky to not have had my hand twisted in it and a broken arm.

Regarding Patrick, I have no particular sympathy for the woman, but after the crash in which she was a victim and not a perpetrator, she ran the rest of the race in the pack and behaved as well as anyone, and at the end of the day, gained a few spots through attrition. Good job.

[Victor Poulin]

I agree with you Dokk,

I'm guilty of poking fun at Danica myself but gee wiz, you can't help but feel a little sorry for the poor kid!
She was just another victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time on this one.

Vic

[Jacob Shiplet]

According the Nielsen, the race last night drew 14.5 million viewers. I would say thats a pretty good draw considering the powerful lineups on other channels.

[Dr. Gamma]

At our neighborhood coffee clutch this morning, all of the neighbors were talking about was the barbecue that Juan More Time started on the track last night. Thats all they were talking about. But not one of them could name who won the race!!!

Whats Nascar going to do for an encore??? Maybe some Joie Chitwood Thrill Show style ramps on the backstraight at PIR!!! The new breed of Nascar fans would love it. Didn't someone here say Nascar is more in the entertainment business, than the business of racing.

[Ron Hershman]

Whats Nascar going to do for an encore??? Maybe some Joie Chitwood Thrill Show style ramps on the backstraight at PIR!!! The new breed of Nascar fans would love it. Didn't someone here say Nascar is more in the entertainment business, than the business of racing.

That "program" ALWAYS worked well for Humpy Wheeler at Charlotte not Lowe's Speedway

[Champion 507]

The 2012 Daytona 500...the race that seemed like it would never start and the race that seemed like it would never end.

[ShootinSparks]

At our neighborhood coffee clutch this morning, all of the neighbors were talking about was the barbecue that Juan More Time started on the track last night.

That barbeque was not his doing unless you want to assign partial blame for the speed he was running after having felt a vibration in the car. He was trying to catch back up to the pack after a pit stop to have it looked at, I believe. I was not watching the race at that point; I caught commentators talking about it when I turned to the channel a couple of minutes after the impact.

He was very fortunate that he wasn't seriously injured because from the (admittedly limited) views of the crash, because of the direction of the spin; it looked like the impact was very close to the driver area of his car. It would be all too easy for a piece of that jet truck to be at just the right height and shape to punch into the car and go right at his head or neck.

[Ron Hershman]

The luckiest guy IMO was the Dryer Driver.

[TSR]

I don't know... the truck's cabin was totally intact, but look at JPM's car, the engine was torn from it! I'd say JPM is the lucky one here.

[Guy Spaulding]

JPM's car was built to withstand impacts such as that. The dryer's truck was not

[Bill from NH]

They both were fortunate to walk away without any serious injuries.

[Victor Poulin]

Well I think it's safe to say that this 500 will go down in the history books.

[TSR]

JPM's car was built to withstand impacts such as that. The dryer's truck was not

That would be true if the car had hit the FRONT of the truck. But it hit the truck like 15 feet behind the cabin, and you can clearly see on the video that there was ZERO damage to the cabin and in fact, most of the truck, until the fire erupted. So the driver was never in any danger and probably barely felt the bump. He certainly did not need a HANS... he got out and simply walked away.
JPM's car had its engine torn from it and he was very lucky that his legs were not taken at the same time. He looked like a bit shaken, if not stirred.

[Mopar Rob]

So the driver was never in any danger and probably barely felt the bump. He certainly did not need a HANS... he got out and simply walked away.

OK, PDL drivers in production vehicles never experience whiplash as a result of a read end collision especially when hit by something that was traveling at the speed that JPM was traveling? Not saying he has it, but saying he barely felt a bump............

[Rick]

Truck ca was in good shape, the rest of your observance must have been a diiferent 500 than I watched?

[Mopar Rob]

Do the track workers driving vehicles like the drier even wear seatbelts?

[Michael Rigsby]

They are supposed to Rob. All non-emergency personnel are instructed to wear seat belts in vehicles on the track, particularly working the banked areas. Now whether or not he was, is a different story entirely.

MR

[Guy Spaulding]

That would be true if the car had hit the FRONT of the truck. But it hit the truck like 15 feet behind the cabin, and you can clearly see on the video that there was ZERO damage to the cabin and in fact, most of the truck, until the fire erupted. So the driver was never in any danger and probably barely felt the bump. He certainly did not need a HANS... he got out and simply walked away.
JPM's car had its engine torn from it and he was very lucky that his legs were not taken at the same time. He looked like a bit shaken, if not stirred.

That's why the truck driver was lucky. If JPM's car had hit any more towards the cab, we wouldnt be calling the driver lucky. The cab would not have taken the impact.

[TSR]

Rob,
It is likely that he was belted because it has to be a requirement for liability reasons just in case of a mishap. As the truck was moving when the impact took place (even if at low speed), it is likely that the driver did not feel much of a bump because any motion in the same direction greatly decreases the amount of dynamic forces encountered. In testing helmets for impact in our Snell/FIA machine a few years back, I learned a lot about impacts and what can cause damage, with slight changes in angles causing the G numbers to jump many folds from just a few degrees.
Also the angle at which the car hit would not have caused much of a forward motion of the much heavier truck. The simple fact that, as can be seen on video, the guy simply opened the door and walked out and WATCHED before being summoned for a medical check, tells the story.
JPM is likely to have suffered a mild concussion from this, but it is unlikely that the truck driver encountered ANY damage or even a bruise. Time and reports will tell.

[Michael Rigsby]

I think he was held at Halifax for awhile to see if he suffered from any serious inhalation of the burning jet fuel, then was released before the race was over with. I think they said on the local news he was a little sore from the impact but that was about it....and probably had a really dirty pair of underwear on after it happened

[TSR]

Kerosene is good for your lungs!