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Detroit, 10:51 AM
Wed Dec 9
26 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
11/29/09
While LeMons cars might be "cheap race heaps" there is no excuse to be "cheap" on safety. Every bit of safety equipment on all LeMons race cars must be held to the highest possible standard of safety..
Every LeMons race team and driver must ask what are their drivers life worth... Was it worth saving those few bucks to install anything less than the best in safety for your LeMons racer if an airborne moment similar to what happened to this MGB killed the driver and cause injury to your fellow LeMons racers worth pinching pennies?
LeMons racing is serious business, take every aspect of safety very, very seriously...
11/29/09
A) Autopower roll cage. B) Experienced cage welder. C) Nothing cheap about it.
I was cheap on the car, but spent a boatload on the best safety gear and resent your assumptions.
The failures concern me too. It DID however survive THREE flips. I will take what was learned and improve the next cage.
11/29/09
With a few notable (and annoying) exceptions, people at LeMons DO take safety seriously. That's why safety items aren't included in the $500 limit.
11/29/09
Everything can always be stronger, but there are practical limits. I'd say the cage performed very well.
But it points up an issue for folks using clapped out econocars - the underlying structure, and all it's finite element pieces, only have so much gumption, before they get stressed from twenty years of hard use and have largely rusted away.
11/30/09
$$$$$ spent or "experienced cage welder" does not mean a safe cage. IMO, any bolt in cage is questionable.
Bolt in means loading what is basically 0.035" thick sheet metal with several thousands pound of force in a small area. It will fail... the real questions is how bad will the failure be.
You may resent what I say about the roll cage in that MGB, my point is do what ever it takes to make DAM SURE that roll cage is will not fail. You're lucky to have survived that triple flip without serious unjury, but what if the MGB flipped over more than that and the car ended up on track upside down and nailed by more than one other LeMons race car directly on the cage with torn sheet metal anchor plates and broken welds?
Possible yes, and the results could have been less pretty.
Again, what is your life worth?
12/05/09
12/06/09
Your original thought that the cage would outlast the car also makes sense. However, if you have adequate access, you could sawzall the cage off above the welds to the frame when you wanted to remove the new one. You'd have a little cleanup and patching before refitting, but it wouldn't be that much additional effort . The cage could be an inch taller, too, so you have some room for wastage.
The bolts and the mounting plate didn't fail, it was the mounting point that failed. If the load plate was larger, or bolted to sturdier materials, it probably would have held. The crack in the weld of the top bar is more of a concern to me. It suggests that the weld wasn't all it could be, that the pipe thickness and/or diameter could be increased, or that additional members should be considered.
Good luck out there!
11/28/09
Next time you might want to tune your aero package a little more.
11/28/09
11/28/09
[www.flickr.com]
and
[www.flickr.com]
I have a feeling last weekend's rollovers will quiet down the people who have been whining about the roll cage regulations on the LeMons forum.
11/28/09
11/28/09
As for the pictures themselves: Yikes. Damned lucky that the car didn't take just one more tumble after the cage was compromised. I don't reckon that landing on the roof with an already cracked roll cage would have ended as well.
Glad everyone is alright.
11/28/09
11/28/09
11/28/09
10/19/09
It's 410 CUBIC INCHES. 800+ hp, fuel injected, runs on methanol.
The weight "unexpectedly shifts right"? You mean, like the weight transferred to the right rear tire? Like, the way its supposed to? Non wing sprinters drive off the right rear tire.
All they needed is a skip loader to scoop it up, seen it done before. I saw Rich Vogler flip just like this at Ascot Park many years ago, they used a loader to grab his car off the fence.
Hate the fake soundtrack, too.
/lifelong pedantic sprint car racing snob
10/19/09
The front axle only went cause the rear tire folded first, if you watch the footage closely the rear of the car starts to dip long before the front rolls over.
Any one involved with or enjoys watching sprintcar racing could see what happened there.
Sprint cars provide the nastyest wrecks cause they are so powerful on a relatively low grip surface. No surprise here that something went wrong during a race, those guys could easily create a series of worst crashes videos out of WoO or SCRA footage only. #carcrashes
10/19/09
I watched the vid several times and cannot see the axle breaking. It looks to me like he simply hooked the cushion, maybe hit a rut with the right rear, although Perris doesn't rut up much.
Regardless, these cars flip a lot although you don't see them caught in the fence cabling very often.
Regardless, non wing sprint car racing is exciting enough without the melodramatized Hollywood production values. #carcrashes
10/19/09
Now that I think about it, I'll bet the Jacobs ladder broke.
And, yes, I said "regardless" twice in my previous post. That is because I am a no-edit moron. #carcrashes
10/19/09
10/19/09
10/19/09
10/19/09
10/19/09
10/13/09
Seriously though, with those hoses coming out of it, I'm guessing it had a running air compressor or something in it that had some mechanical and/or electrical issue that started the blaze, the fact that no one seems to have noticed yet is the most puzzling aspect to me...
10/08/09
Wow, I get here late today and it's just one damn enigmatic photo after another!
10/08/09
10/08/09