Emergency drag chutes for Indy cars

To see a photo of what I mean, take a look at page 72 of the May issue of CAR CRAFT. Imagine the tow line of the chute attached to an Indy car.

franklin, are you following the race at the moment? or are you just in it for the tech bits?

They should also mandate safety helmets for people using computers for when they fall off their seats in fits of laughter...

Seriously, when an open wheel racer finds itself in trouble, what sort of time do they have to react, and how much real estate they have before they hit something? They would be better off having a big pillow at the end of the escape road...



[This message has been edited by Crash Test (edited 17 April 2000).]

You might have something franklin. In the late 60s they talked of such a system for the turbine cars .It would prevent a car from tumbling and stop it pretty quick.

Crash Test,
I think Franklin has fallen off his chair quite a few times and had no chute to slow his fall. I hope he didn't cause you to bust some stitches.
Franklin has been booted off a forum or two in his lifetime, 7th gear was the latest. He also posted the same parachute thread over there about two months ago and if memory serves me right,he did the airplane vs. racecar post also.
Just thought a little backround on this fellow was in order so everyone can know what to expect in the future.

And maybe, Jamie928, if closed-minded weren't too lazy to get off their butts and take a look at what I'm talking about they would also know enough to not advertise that fact to the world.

There are Top Fuel dragster and Funny Car drivers who RIGHT NOW all they to do to deploy their drag chutes is move a thumb an inch or two to push a button on their steering.

Franklin.....It's just to dangerous. What if the driver hits the chute button to late and hits the wall anyway? That leaves a parachute in a possible position to be caught by a passing car who might otherwise clear the incident. I for one wouldn't want to have my face covered in silk at 225 mph.

[This message has been edited by jamie928 (edited 18 April 2000).]

Yes, but have a look at the situation. You're tearing down the straight, oops no breaks. 1.5 seconds until the brick wall or the tyre wall on the escape road. You would be better off having a jet engine running in reverse, a parachute would be rather ineffective. Look at a drag strip, you have 500 meters of track, and hopefully not too much solid stuff at the end of it. You fully anticipate pulling the chute at the finish line.

A parachute would be completely out of place on an oval (go on, prove me wrong there) and it would be effective if you had a ploughed sand trap to stop errant cars on a road track. I know you American's might not be big fans of sand traps, but give it a go, you might be surprised. They may roll a car easier than just about anything else, but if your car wpnt take a roll in a sand trap, you probably shouldn't be driving it..

"Yes, but look at the situation..."

Your car has made a hard left turn off the back straight at Fontana and a gravel trap is useless because none of your tires are even touching the ground.

Makes sense Jamie

What i was meaning with sand traps, put them on the street/road courses. You really beleive that a parachute is going to do something when a can makes a hard left at the end of the Fontana straight?

1. What is it going to do?
2. How much time is there for a driver to hit the button? They are probably going to be in a little shock. Have a look at the incars from some even relatively small stacks...the driver isn't thinking of a whole heap...

In my hypothetical example, did I imply the car even made it to the end of the straight?

Well can we agree that we dont need parachutes now, at the speeds the cars are going today? Now how much quicker do want the cars to go? The faster they, the more dangerous they are going to be. Is there not a correlation between high speed and the number of head injuries. If speeds continue to rise, any accident will result in a long hospital stay or a trip to the morgue (unless from somewhere there are major gains in safety/helmet design/stregth of head).

If a car is spinning, what will a parachute do? (Provided the pilote presses the button) It would get tangled up and cause a bigger mess than one without a chute.

Well, Crash Test, if you had bothered to take a look at the photo on page 72 of the May issue of CAR CRAFT like I suggested in the first place this whole thread might have been a lot shorter.

Well since i don't have that magazine, and have never seen that magazine on sale in any shops here, why not scan it up and post it?
If you need any web space, i can provide that.

This one is just TOO FUNNEY !!!!!

The picture shows some poor schmuck that has been thrown from a flipping hydroplane boat. The chute is attached to the driver ! As the guy is just a foo or so away from hitting the water & the chute is still wadded into a small ball, it ain't gonne do him much good !

Another bit of useless Frankie drivel. There are almost no siuations in an Indy car where a chute has either the space or time to deploy - reaction times, wall proximities, drivers efforts in saving the car by traditional means, etc - all mean that a chute would be useless.

You've all been suckered again.

Frankie : PLEASE give that lid a twist to the right this time....

"There are almost no siuations in an Indy car where a chute has either the space or time to deploy - reaction times, wall proximities, drivers efforts in saving the car by traditional means, etc - all mean that a chute would be useless."
-Shhhhhhhhhh!! Don't tell anyone! I'm now starting to think they should put them on the cars without thinking or testing....woo hoo ;)

Well at least he isn't one of those F1 whackos we've had in the past week....let him stay, i like kicking puppies :)

"The picture shows some poor schmuck that has been thrown from a flipping
hydroplane boat. The chute is attached to the driver ! As the guy is
just a foo or so away from hitting the water & the chute is still wadded
into a small ball, it ain't gonne do him much good !"

Well, Enzo if you knew your butt from a hole in the ground when it comes to drag chutes, you would have noticed the canopy was not "wadded into a ball." You have noticed that the tow line had been pulled out to its full length, the shroud lines were straightening out, and the canopy was beginning to inflate. Just how the hell did you think that guy survived the situation?

Ok, so it really is a picture of a power boat...well im sure Paul Tracy would love to pull the ejecter seat and sail off into the grandstand...

"Well, Enzo if you knew your butt from a hole in the ground when it comes"
-Grow up a little hey? Go and answer the question in the plane Vs car thread, no one will ever take you seriously if you keep dodging the bullets...

Wish I had a scanner here at home, I'd publish the picture & show everyone just what a totally blind idiot you really are !

As far as that guy surviving, it most certainly wasn't because of that chute !!!!!

Your lid has slipped off......

Have you ever wondered just why you have been met with derision at every forum you've posted this **** on ? And just why they all wish to ban your IP ?
You may read a lot of stuff, but the intellegence requird to process it correctly just isn't there.

:) smiley, im sure your a nice person, but i guess it must be hard making friends in Florida. :)

1. Seems as though only 1 person on this BB thinks that it is a good idea that Champ cars have a parachute out of over 1000 registered members. Ok, 1000 people haven't posted here, but if only they would...

2. The same person from 1. refuses to ask some simple questions in another thread, which we keep begging the individual to do, but they contuinue to dogde it and insult everyone else for not being as smart as him. (sorry, im jealous)

3. It has beocome apparent that this individual has been kicked off other BBs and quite unpopular here after only a few posts.

Go figure, and :) smiley

Enzo, up until seeing the Car Craft photo you had seen not one single photo of a drag chute inflating in your entire life had you? You have absolutely no familiarity with the history of drag boat racing do you? You don't have the least conception of how many drag boat racers have had their lives saved by personnel drag chutes do you?

"As far as that guy surviving, it most certainly wasn't because of that
chute !!!!!" If it weren't for your COMPLETELY OFFBASE BONEHEAD estimate of the money spent on Nemesis, Enzo, that would have to be your STUPIDEST statement to date.

[This message has been edited by Franklin (edited 22 April 2000).]

Another quiet observation:
IN drag racing, boats or cars, the vehicle stay (well most of the time) in their allocated lane. Now i dont know what they do in your part of the world, but down here there is only 1 car per lane. Could you seen a possible problem when you get 2 cars in the one lane? More often than not you would get two cars tangled together, several post codes away. I could ask a brick that, and it would have the interlect to acknowledge that.

"Your car has made a hard left turn off the back straight at Fontana and a gravel trap is useless because none of your tires are even touching the ground." Well, Crash Test since you seem to have a tough time grasping the simple implications of this post I made several days ago (see above), one might surmise that you have a great deal in common with bricks.

It's INTELLECT not interlect, but maybe that explains how you picked "Crash Test". (And Enzo, it's FUNNY not funney, INTELLIGENCE not intellegence, and REQUIRED not requird.)

I hope you have a chute attached to that Dictionary.

Just checking.

Crash Test,

You're asking a lot of questions looking for answers about things that just aren't there.

The basics of this concept are not that complicated. The car goes off the track. The driver realizes the car is not going to recover (professional drivers usually figure that out before the tires touch the grass). The driver pushes a button on the steering yoke to release the chute.

I know you dont like to answer questions which make your ideas look silly, but please answer these, you will get a bit of credibility around here if you do:

1. What happens when the car is in a spin?

2.What happens to close following cars?

3. What if it goes of by accident? Remember accidents happen, and so do component failures. That's what kills off airbags in racing cars.

4. If the driver does have time to hit the button, if the car has one second until impact, how long will it take to open and be effective? Would the effectiveness of it be of major use?

5. Do the drivers have enough time to know what is wrong and hit the button? I keep thinking of Fontana accident at Long Beach. He had no time to do anything, it was that quick. Have a look at it yourself.

6. Name some accidents where it would have a significant hand in helping out. I would pay brake failures where the driver goes straight down the escape road, it probably would have helped Clay Raggazoni, but there wouldn't be too many of them in the greater scheme of things.

Drag chutes aren't airbags. THEY DON'T "go off." They're released not fired because THEY DON'T USE PYROTECHNICS.

Drag racers going 50 to 100 mph faster than Champ cars can figure out they're in trouble quick enough for releasing their drag chute to be helpful, so presumably the "world class" drivers in CART would have similary quick responses.

I DONT THINK YOU UNDERSTAND. ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS, YOU ARE NOT PROVING ANYTHING!!! GO ON, JUST DO IT, I'M SURE YOU'RE A SMART BOY, SO GO ON USE IT!!! I THINK I AM GOING TO PUNCH A BRICK WALL IF YOU CONTINUE ON LIKE THIS, EEEEKKKKKKKKKK!!! REMEMBER THAT WORD CREDIBILITY, RIGHT NOW YOU HAVE NONE, ZIPPO, NOTHING, GO ON, HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE SOME!! I RETYPED ON OF THE QUESTIONS SO YOU COULD UNDERSTAND IT BETTER!!! CLEAR??

1. What happens when the car is in a spin?

2.What happens to close following cars?

3. If the driver does have time to hit the button, if the car has one second until impact, how long will it take to open and be effective? Would the effectiveness of it be of major use?

4. Do the drivers have enough time to know what is wrong and hit the button? I keep thinking of Fontana accident at Long Beach. He had no time to do anything, it was that quick. Have a look at it yourself.

5. Name some accidents where it would have a significant hand in helping out. I would pay brake failures where the driver goes straight down the escape road, it probably would have helped Clay Raggazoni, but there wouldn't be too many of them in the greater scheme of things.

6. Now lets jsut presume it is a button on the steering wheel. What if it gets hit by accident in a pit stop? You are out of the race. That probably wouldn't be a major problem, but could be a problem. THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK FRANKLIN. IN a 5 second drag pass, there are only a limited opportunity for things to go wrong, but a 3.5 hour cart race is very different.

PLEASE ANSWER ALL 6. WE WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER IF YOU DO. I WAIT IN HOPE FOR YOUR REPLY.

Give it up, Crash ! He has no intention of answering anything in a concise, lucid manner !

Crash Test,

You've heard of switch guards haven't you? You know those little fences they put around switches to prevent people from accidentally hitting them?

And since I've been consistently NOT talking about using drag chutes on the track itself, an astute person might get by implication that I think OFF THE TRACK is where a drag chute would be of most benefit.

But when a person with no firsthand experience or no apparent familiarity of any sort with drag chutes unilaterally declares a drag chute would not have been of benefit in the Greg Moore crash, one wonders whether that person is really interested in answers.

Thats super :) Smiley

So Franklins chute would corrected Greg Moores spin and he would have hit head on.

Eh I've had enough of this ****, good night.

I may not inventer of the drag chute, but i am not stark raving ****ing stupid, and neither are the other people on this BB. Why get someone else to fight for you. You seem to be very much alone in the dessert without any friends on this one. And all this i know everything and i am always right on everything i post doesn't always make you friends, but that's sweet, go to Club Arse (hey where did the club arse link go to??) they'd love you there.

Please just ignore Franklin. On a scale of 1 to 10, his integrity is about a -2 at best.

Weasels who hide behind goofy fake names like "Lizzerd" are in no position to comment on anybody's integrity.

LOL :)

Don't make us luagh now Franklin....what sort of alias is that??