I have a Question thats haunting me on this weekends racing

Johnny Mallonee
@johnny-mallonee
14 years ago
3,259 posts
Last year almost this time Scott Kalletta lost his life in NJ. where he lost his chute on a track way to short to allow a back up plan on stopping. Then again this week the same thing happened,a car lost its chute which cost the death of another driver.

Question being why are they allowing this speed directly into a wall if no chute deploys. Short and simple if Nascar has a car climb a wall they build a catch net to not allow it again, if walls were to hard the safer barriers were installed. if a car gets airborn flaps are installed to prevent this but we just dont drive into a wall head on. I might be crude in my description but that doesnt seem to be a win situation at all, but then again I may be wrong. Whats your opinion on this, or am I wrong on what I think Im seeing here.
updated by @johnny-mallonee: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
Tim Leeming
@tim-leeming
14 years ago
3,119 posts
Frankly, Johnny, I can't understand it either. Makes you wonder what it is with the drag racing that is not addressing this. But, I must say, NASCAR did the same thing more or less. We lost three or four drivers from the same type accident but when it was Dale Earnhardt, the HANS device and safer barriers couldn't get put up fast enough.Tim


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What a change! It's been awhile since I've checked in and I'm quite surprised. It may take me awhile to figure it our but first look it's really great.

Pete Banchoff
@pete-banchoff
14 years ago
279 posts
Great question Johnny. If there isn't enough runoff if a chute doesn't pop then that's just wrong. It's fine as long as everything goes okay, but when it doesn't, it's really bad. Englishtown has had 2 deaths in 3 years and I guess they (NHRA) didn't learn even though they went to 1000 ft. in the fuel classes. Parker was in a alcohol car and ran the Quarter mile at 250...maybe 1000 foot for anyone over 200 mph, but top fuel and funny cars are well over 300 at 1000 ft. Can they even stop?? Probably not at Englishtown.Drag cars are just too fast for the tracks they run on. Roundy-round racing the speeds can be controlled through restrictor plates or reduced engine size and horsepower, etc. and safety walls and safer cars have helped a lot. They also have to slow for turns...dragsters are straight line beasts with horsepower, clutches and tires that HOOK! and the only means of stopping is a chute and a catch fence head on.Maybe an 1/8th mile would be better, but the fans would never go for it. As much as I complain about Nascar, they have made racing safer than it was 10 years ago.