NASCAR safety lauded after McDowell crash at Texas
Quote selected text Published April 8th, 2008 in NASCAR News
As rookie Michael McDowell barrel-rolled across Texas Motor Speedway, one thing became clear: NASCAR’s latest safety measures are clearly working.
The soft walls and NASCAR’s new car likely saved McDowell’s life following a horrific accident that caught the attention of an industry desensitized to wrecks.
Not this time, though. Not even close.
Drivers and crews standing on pit road during Friday’s qualifying session seemed frozen in place as they watched McDowell’s car lose control entering the first turn and slam nearly straight-on into the outside wall. The vicious impact sent his car flipping eight times around the track, and the most hardened veterans stood silent as they waited for the Toyota to finally come to a stop.
“That was the hardest hit I’ve ever seen anybody take,” said two-time champion Tony Stewart, who stood silent on pit road, arms folded across his chest as he watched the car tumble. “That was a pretty impressive crash.”
It was a horrific accident and a tremendous hit, so violent that many insiders compared it to the impact that killed Dale Earnhardt in 2001. But this time, the driver hopped quickly out of the car and offered a slight wave to the anxious crowd before he was ushered into the care center for a quick checkup.
Not 20 minutes later, McDowell bounded away from his doctor visit for the first of what’s turned into a whirlwind media tour for the kid who flipped and lived to tell about it. As McDowell has made the rounds of national television shows — from the “Today” show to “Inside Edition” on Monday before boarding a plane for California to shoot “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” — he’s used every opportunity to tout NASCAR’s safety measures.
“That was obviously a very serious wreck. That first initial impact straight into the wall was pretty severe,” the 23-year-old said. “To be able to walk away from that, let alone, but also rolling down the track 10 more times after that, I think that the new car is awesome and I really appreciate what NASCAR has done.”
More at cbs11tv.com/AP
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- McDowell to take over MWR’s No 00 when Reutimann moves to No 44
- NASCAR: Waltrip took his time escaping burning car
- McDowell might be let go from MWR
The COT was introduced for two reasons, to make races more competitive and to increase driver safety. Well, HMS is no longer winning every week, and McDowell walks away from one othe worst crashes in recent memory. So maybe to COT is doing exactly what it was supposed to do. The fact that some fans are finding the races less than thrilling may have more to do with the cookie-cutter 1 1/2 mile trakcs than the new car
How do you go from 165+ MPH to 0 =MPH in 12″ and roll the car 10 times then bound out of the car as if nothing ever happened ???
New safer car or not he was MORE than lucky, this time…
it wasn’t zero. the energy was transferred a few ways:
1) The energy from the speed toward the wall was transferred into energy in the speed he was rolling at after the hit. He rolled 8 times after, so he was still going fast. He also went in the air, which took even more energy.
2) As we all know, the safer barrier absorbed a lot of the energy.
3) His HANS device likely saved him more than a lot of people are crediting right now.
4) The front of the car crushed quite a bit, which also absorbs energy.
I don’t think luck had much to do with it. The angle and speed he hit the wall couldn’t have been much more extreme… It likely would have taken a failure of two or three of the points I listed for an injury to have occurred.
malcolm wrote:
I believe he was talking about going from 165 - 0 when he
came to a complete stop on the backstretch. Not on impact.
I think what he was saying is what they explained on TV. He went from 165+MPH forwards to 0mph Forwards in less then a foot, and then rebounded off of the wall backwards/sideways and flipped.
After looking at the crash again, a lot of the energy was absorbed in making the car spin as well as the other things I mentioned.
Andy, he was talking about the impact… unless he thinks the backstretch is 12″ long.
He went in at roughly 30 degrees to the wall (from what I could see on the video). Use some trigonometry: to find the velocity he was going at the wall, you use the “Sine” of 30 degrees, which works out to half of the total speed. If he was going 170 mph when he hit, the speed he was going at the wall was 85 mph (still a hefty hit.).
He went from 80-85 mph to zero, at a right-angle to the wall, and a velocity of 140-145 mph parallel to the wall. The overall speed he was going went from 160-170 mph to about 100 mph in the space of 15 feet.
No doubt about it, it was a hard hit. However, he has no luck to thank for it… as McDowell is rightly doing, he is thanking those who contributed directly to walking away. NASCAR, the Safer-Barrier people and the HANS device people are who he should be thanking more than anyone or anything.
I’m also thankful that the IRL hasn’t had this type of crash yet. I can’t imagine one of those cars surviving as well as the stock car did, considering they’d hit at 200 or so, rather than 165.
yall can say what you want, 165 mph to 0 mph in a foot, who cares. i was there in the stands watching this wreck. When the car came to a stop all the air was sucked out of TMS because everyone who was there thought there was no way the anyone could walk away from that crash. Hell the sound the car made when it hit the wall was horrific. Anyway the fact of the matter is, with the COT, safeier barriers, and the hans device all adds up to one thing. A SAFER PRODUCT. without these three things the race weekend would have had a different fell to it as we would have mourned the death of a great young driver.