It has been well acknowledged that while restrictor plates are intended to cap speeds and increase safety, their practical effect has been to staple race cars to each other, necessitating tight drafting and risky, last second passes. In reviewing Edward's attempted crowd surfing in the 'Dega grandstand, I was mighty impressed at how the catch fencing held up. One of the engineers at my office, however, pointed out that the Safer Barrier may have actually made the impact worse than it needed to be. Have another look at the way the car deflects off the barrier and into the fencing at an awkard angle. If the fence had been aligned with the wall (i.e. no supplemental barrier) do you think the penetration into the grandstands would have been as severe?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I think it's really not possible to definitively say. I think on net, the SAFER barrier is better than not having it there. For instance, that was a hard lick that Ryan Newman took into the same barrier. Perhaps he gets hurt a lot more if it's not there.
And for Carl's part of the wreck, it's really not possible to tell whether the barrier keeps him up there, or does more to induce rotation of his car, which would help to keep it from going farther through the fence. And who knows how much energy it absorbed, maybe keeping that energy from going into the fence, and again contributing to more penetration.
It's up for speculation, but I sure wouldn't remove the extra barrier on the evidence of this one wreck.
Post a Comment