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Originally Posted by KP40
I brought this topic up a few days ago on here and someone told me "it won't work". Not referring to you Billy! Well, it seems there are some others that think it will, even some nascar officials and some professional drivers. Also saw a story on espn.com about it. Like I said before, it may not be the typical safer barrier, but there IS something better out there than hitting a 2 feet wide concrete wall. People have to think outside the box when inventing new things. To simply say it won't work doesn't do our sport justice. I remember hearing forever that it won't work in nascar. It isn't feasible......well well we know how that turned out don't we?
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Hmmm. Well, regardless of what NASCAR guys might say, I'll only counter with the fact that, if it was feasible and vaulable in terms of saving lives and insurance premiums, the NHRA would've been all over it already...especially at the tracks they
OWN.
It's also interesting that, when the SAFER wall (an acronym, by the way, for Steel And Foam Energy Reduction) was originally developed, the creators stressed that it was not a viable safety improvement on straightaways and should only be installed in tuns...and banked ones, at that. Much of that was based on problems encountered at Oswego Speedway in New York which first installed foam walls on their Super Modified track back in 1979 but still managed to incur several fatalities afterward, (including the legendary Jim Champine).
I find it unusual that the linked feature includes the quote, "
We don’t use the SAFER on most straights because on the straights a car typically hits in the wall in a glancing parallel blow, not head on.” Yeah. That
IS the problem.
KP, your original post was entitled "
Safer Barriers in NHRA/IHRA". I may have incorrectly assumed you meant "
safer" as in the acronym "
SAFER".
This post, started by Mel Eaves...who knows more about drag racing insurance than almost anybody on the planet...is titled, "
Time For Safe Walls??". I'm all for
safe walls but I've been lead to believe that SAFER walls aren't the answer.
