Topic: Scott Kalitta gets killed qualifying

[Cobra951]

He hit a hard wall head on at something like 300 mph.  I guess no safety equipment is going to make that survivable.  Anyone who has followed the NHRA at all knows who he is, and who his father is.  RIP, Scott.

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[Quemaqua]

Why the hell is there a concrete wall at the end of the strip?  Shouldn't there be sand?  I didn't even see any.

EDIT - Looking at comments there, it seems there's a small sand trap, but they put a concrete wall up to prevent people from going into the forest.  What the fuck?  It's not like you have to cut down the whole forest, just extend the thing enough to make the trap usable.  I couldn't even tell it was there in the video, even looking at it a second time.

[Cobra951]

There is always a sand pit at the end, but at the kind of speeds all-out dragsters reach, they're useless if braking fails completely.  It looks like it did here.  A comment I read said there is a public road on the other side of that wall.  I guess that's as far as the cars can be allowed to go for safety reasons.  I would bet money, though, that there will be hell to pay anyway.  Your question is going to be asked repeatedly by people with a lot of clout.  It wouldn't surprise me to see changes to the track as a result.

[Quemaqua]

I know next to nothing about drag racing, so my question probably isn't that logical... but when you watch a fuckup like that, it makes you wonder.  I mean, you know exactly what's going to be happening with a drag strip, and you know exactly what can go wrong and at what potential speeds a car may be traveling when something does.  You'd think they'd take that into account before building a strip that has no option but to terminate at a concrete wall.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, it seems to me this guy would be alive right now if they had something like an aircraft-carrier net across that sandpit.  I don't know.  I've followed the sport off and on for a long time (mostly off lately), and this is the first time I see someone not only hit the back wall, but even reach it.  These monsters are reaching a quarter mile in under 5 seconds--0 to over 300 mph in that time.  A lot of these tracks have been around since top speeds were well below 200 mph.  My guess is that their safety limits are being reached.  I emphasize the word "guess".  I don't know enough.

[Quemaqua]

Actually, isn't the use of nets a semi-regular practice?  I would swear I've seen them used for this a few times before.

[Cobra951]

I don't know.  I don't remember seeing them, not that they focus on the retaining wall at the end most of the time.

There's some speculation now that Scott may have been unconscious after the initial explosion.  That would explain the apparent lack of effort to slow the car down.

[Quemaqua]

I actually just assumed that, though not for any real reason.  I mean, it didn't seem like there'd be any reason for a complete instant break failure (though as I've said before, I don't know cars all that well... I really like cars and racing, but I don't have the time to devote to getting into it, like most sports, or the time/money to enjoy it as a hobby on any level).

[idolminds]

So I have to wonder why drag racing even needs drivers. The point is making the machine as fast as possible, there is little steering or other input required, and nothing that a CPU couldn't handle. Reduce the risk of injury to near zero, but functionally the race is the same: who can build the faster car.

[Quemaqua]

We were talking about this in IRC, and this is my take:

<@Quemaqua> I think it's probably just viewership.  Who wants to watch two robots race?  That isn't very exciting.
<@Quemaqua> Probably half the fun for most people is the potential for danger.  Not that they necessarily want anyone to die, but because there's the looming possibility of injury.
<@Quemaqua> People *are* morbid.  Danger excites them, and even if nothing bad happens, the fact that it *could* have makes the inherent act exciting where it might not be otherwise.
<@Quemaqua>It becomes exciting because things can go horribly wrong, and anybody can understand that.  So what's really boring to watch suddenly becomes a human feat, because these guys are not only making manuevers, they're eluding death and doing something that puts them at risk.
<@Quemaqua> And that makes people look up to them.
<@Quemaqua> And the risk makes what they do interesting.

[Cobra951]

One important human factor in drag racing is reaction time.  That often makes the difference between winning and losing.  It may look easy to keep that car going straight down the line, but it really isn't.  Finesse with the throttle & clutch is another art too.  These cars can burn rubber into white smoke all the way down the track, screwing up the run.