Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

Thanks for posting that photo, we are the ones who put those flowers there after the race was over. There were wild daisy's everywhere around our pit area at the top end there and I got my scissors out and clipped a bunch to put in the sand(gravel) trap and the 6 of us had our moment of silence. We did not know him personally but he was part of our drag racing family no matter what class we all run in.
Our condolences to his family and many friends.
R.I.P. Mark

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

Now I could be completely wrong on this but I would think that alot of the problem stems from the practice of "driving into the chutes". I've always been told to wait until you feel the chutes pull on the car before applying the brakes. At speed you cover alot of ground in a short time by the tiome you realize the chutes are not out, or attached it is nearly impossible to stop on brakes alone,IMO. My brother years ago put our B/A in the sand @ Grand Bend for just such a reason, by the time he realized the chute hadn't come out he was way long and unable to stop. Had he been on the brakes at the stripe I'm sure he could have stopped, was just common practice to wait for the chute tug. Your opnion may vary. Joe

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

This was truly a sad sad day for the Niver family and all of us also. However I don't believe NHRA is at fault here. Let's remember how our tech inspection goes. All classes not just the pros. Has anyone ever had to remove interior panels, raise your car up on jack stands, or had to disassemble something on your car so a tech inspector could look at it for safety? We have all had some of these thing happen but could you imagine the uproar from the racers if you had to do this before every race or if you had to through tech again after you pulled your trans and converter changed a fuel pump or carb. Does NHRA need to check that you know how to put your car back together. Everyone would be screaming at NHRA for looking over their shoulder too much. The mounting bracket broke on Nivers car. Period. Do you take your car apart after every race and check all the welds. I know I don't. We should check more but we all assume that if it was OK at the last race it is OK now. We all know people that only take their cars out of the trailers when they are at the track, how safe is that? Do we need NHRA to verify that our cars have been inspected prior to tech? Are we now going to have to have SFI parachute mounting brackets. I can the hear the protesting now. I wonder how many people have actually pulled their chute and then know how to repack it. I used to pull my chute at least once at every event I went to. I have even stopped that. I will start doing it again. We can go on and on and on about this..... This was a tragic accident and I'm sure there will be some trickle-down changes that we will see from this. All of our safety equipment can be traced back to someone's bad day at the track. Let's just all resolve to check our equipment more and get back to racing instead of engineering things we don't have a clue about.
Sorry for the long post.
Dan Foley

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

How hard would it be to have a secondary safety cable that would go thru the chute attachment points in case the main mount fails? It would add a couple of pounds but I think it would be very well worth it. sort of like the wheel retention on Indy cars.

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

There will always be equipment failure emergencies and/or health-related emergencies while in the process of making a pass down the 1/4 mile....we surely will never be able to prevent that. Whan we CAN do, is INSIST that the governing body and the track owner/operators provide us with the SAFEST POSSIBLE emergency high speed scrubbing/car and driver containment area at the very end of these race tracks.... In my opinion, this is not being provided at some of the National Event hosting tracks, as well as many other sanctioned tracks across the country. With all the heartache and tears that have recently been shed, isn't it finally time for the governing body to address this killer problem? WJ

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

I agree. Why these cars, at these speeds, don't use proper 4 wheel brakes is beyond me.

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

Now there's an idea that merits looking at! Maybe someone will design one for their car and show it off to the rest of the racing world.

BTW, if your car is required a parachute, when was the last time you actually looked at the mounting point on your own car? I'm talking about a close inspection looking for cracks in welds or metal. There is a lot of strain put on that important section each time the parachute is used.

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

It seems to me based on the recent events this year NHRA management seems more clueless then ever before.
Must more lives be lost before they get it. How does an official like Graham Light make a statement like he did to the Pro Stock guys and get away with it?
Does NASCAR blatantly compromise the safety of their racers or spectators?
NHRA apparently does not care about anything but lining their pockets.

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

An act of sportmanship most people didnt know about.

http://www.competitionplus.com/index...ke-a-full-pass

Re: Alcohol dragster?
 

Very difficult. Read my earlier post.