Robin Miller Article - Are Fans Safe?

[Chitowncartfreak]

Thank you Robin!

http://msn.espn.go.com/rpm/irl/2003/1023/1645010.html

I'm glad to see that someone finally wrote about what a lot of us have been feeling recently.

[Cam]

You had to know this was coming. :thumbup:

[Warlock!]

But he's saying the cars are too fast and need to be slowed down 40 mph. I don't buy that. It's the Earl-car's blowover tendancy coupled with their pack-racing that needs to be fixed. A re-design is necessary, not 180 mph superspeedway races. Those cars will float off the track just as easily at 180 if they get a little bit of help from debris or wheel-to-wheel contact.

Warlock!

[Lizzerd]

When Indy Lights ran at MIS, it was Talledega type pack racing at qual speeds, which were right at 180. In fact, race laps were a couple MPH higher. I know, because I had my stopwatch. Reducing speed isn't the answer unless, like RM says, the wings are removed.

[Classic Apex]

Originally posted by Lizzerd
When Indy Lights ran at MIS, it was Talledega type pack racing at qual speeds, which were right at 180. In fact, race laps were a couple MPH higher. I know, because I had my stopwatch. Reducing speed isn't the answer unless, like RM says, the wings are removed.

The cruel irony of that...

I was at MIS in either '98 or '99. Indy Lights raced there. Renna was in the race. Pack of cars on the back-stretch, pack racing, contact...Renna's nose of the car went straight into the air. How it did not flip end-over-end that day is still beyond me. A photo of his car at 175 mph only on its back wheels, nose in the air, completely vertical, made the front page of the local paper.



:(

[cart7]

Damn fine article and I like the part of not needing the speed records anymore. I want to see guys racing cars not astronauts guiding low flying cruise missles.

:thumbup:

[Don Quixote]

Originally posted by Warlock!
But he's saying the cars are too fast and need to be slowed down 40 mph. I don't buy that. It's the Earl-car's blowover tendancy coupled with their pack-racing that needs to be fixed. A re-design is necessary, not 180 mph superspeedway races. Those cars will float off the track just as easily at 180 if they get a little bit of help from debris or wheel-to-wheel contact.

Warlock!

I agree that slowing the cars down may not be the answer. Isn't that the part of the vision 1.0 that got us here in the first place? "Those champcars are too fast to race at IMS, so we have to create a formula car with more downforce and drag to slow them dowm and make the racing safer." Then you end up with these cars that are like tightly wound springs waiting to fly off the track due to the delicate balance between drag, downforce and horsepower. And its only going to get worse as Honda, Toyota and Cosworth increase power output next year. Seems to me that efforts to artificially slow the cars down almost certainly end up with pack racing.

[sundaydriver]

Originally posted by Warlock!
But he's saying the cars are too fast and need to be slowed down 40 mph. I don't buy that. It's the Earl-car's blowover tendancy coupled with their pack-racing that needs to be fixed. A re-design is necessary, not 180 mph superspeedway races. Those cars will float off the track just as easily at 180 if they get a little bit of help from debris or wheel-to-wheel contact.

Warlock!


I agree 110%.

It's the crapwagon cars that need to be redesigned not Champcars. This is an IRL F-up. They should have addressed this problem after Mario got airborn. Sticking your head in the sand is a crime.