McDowell hit at dam near 90 deg at 180+ mph and did not go through. 7 truck hit at about 45 or 50 deg angle going about 100 mph slower. It would have been big that's for sure but I would say he would not have "Gone through" a proper safer barrier and the risk of injury would be greatly reduced. All that said the point is that the he's allright and the Jerseys need to go. Yes it's a shit load of money, but the track itself is more then ready for a refurbish. So if your going to spend the money spend it smart. Have a good one.
sigh......
No, McDowell did NOT hit the wall at Texas at 90 deg or near it and nor did he hit the wall "head on"... in fact, he hit at approximately 35 Deg past left nose off angle relative to the wall in a sliding motion. Had he hit the wall head on, he would have died (let alone worrying about going through it) . But he didn't and impossible to do given how (angled) and where (early into the corner) he hit the wall. The car whipped around past 90 deg to 135 deg of rotation in clockwise motion, hit the wall (LF first) and continued down the race track, tumbling - which helped in his survival. Look at the video on youtube in slow motion and you can witness it yourself. It also explains why McDowell didn't go through the safer barrier. A direct and square hit, it's likely the car would have gone through it. McDowell's forward velocity was in excess of 160 mph going into the corner, but not the impact with the wall.
Quote from Dr. Dean Sicking (designer of the SAFER barrier) analysis of the SAFER Barrier crash at Texas Motor Speedway;
Sicking and his team designed the SAFER barriers, using state-of-the-art computer simulations and real-life tests. So in the case of McDowell's crash, Sicking said the first order of business is to determine the severity of the crash, particularly the amount of de-acceleration of the car when it hits the wall.
"When I get the data from NASCAR, I immediately analyze their data and determine the magnitude of the impact," Sicking said. "And we normally measure that in terms of delta-v during primary impact, meaning the change in velocity. So even though this vehicle was going about 160 mph at the time it struck the barrier, the velocity vector was not perpendicular to the barrier. In other words, his velocity toward the barrier was much less than that. In fact, it was about 70 mph toward the barrier."
That's because the system developed by the engineers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln designed it to accomplish three primary tasks;
Once a car makes contact with it, it's job is to absorb and not bounce back with immediate reaction, assisting in the car not heading back out onto the track (some drivers have complained that it's not doing that as advertised), sustain multiple hits, thus avoiding lengthy repair time, and work with a variety of race car designs (Indy car, NASCAR cars and trucks, GTP, Motorcycles)
One of the challenges is trying to make the 'perfect' safety barrier, something nobody has yet to achieve;
The SAFER barrier's primary function is to limit excessive G-forces, the amount of acceleration caused by gravity -- in this case, centrifugal force playing a role. The lower the G-force, the more survivable the accident.
"Our goal is to keep that number down in the 40 G range or below, if possible," Sicking said. "During a real severe hit like this one, we would accept G-loading in the mid-to-upper 40s. That would not be surprising. In fact, in this case, the G-loading was kept below 40 and it was actually better than our test results for this level of impact severity. So we're very pleased at the barrier on the track appeared to be performing a little better that we predicted. We're always happy about that."
Sicking said the SAFER barriers are not flawless because there's no way to account for every possible outcome.
"Worse-case scenario can be beyond the current design limits," Sicking said. "We have to design for what we call the worst practical case. And the way you determine what the worst practical case is, you go back 10 years and you look at all the previous crashes during that time. This is what we did in 1998 when we first started this project. We looked at all of the crashes we could get our hands on between 1988 and 1998 -- and we identified the worst practical conditions that occurred during that period.
So - I'd bet the 07 truck in fact hit Delaware's wall at higher impact speed than McDowell did at Texas Motor Speedway in a race truck that wasn't designed to fly apart and didn't have a $20,000 carbon fibre race seat either... (QED, he's lucky he walked away too)...
Hey, Im not arguing in favor of the Jersey Barrier. The inner fronstretch wall is straight up and In all my time I dont think I've ever seen anyone ride the top of it. Which is a good thing considering the possibilities of someone going over that wall at speed.
What I am saying though is that there was nothing happened on Fri to prompt the argument. The 7 truck would look the same no matter what the wall was shaped like, and ditto for Ott and Bloemendal. I suppose an argument could be made for the 51 LM, but I'm not convinced the damage would have been less if he hadn't rode the wall. I tend to think his damage came from the initial impact, then the second one when he hit the inner wall.
s'all Im saying.
Shadow,
My reply was not aimed at you, but JAMR.
Cheers!
guys have laughed at us for using poly motor mount...but yahoo the engine didn't get hurt even though the muont was pushed backwards. The clip folded nicely (if that can be said about wrecking) and Jake is good shape today. I'm happy he is ok and the car after a trip to the chassis shop we should be ok. What remains to be seen is if we can make it happen by Saturday.
Wow did you ever google the shit out of me. Lighten up dude. Copy, paste.