Pikes Peak Crashes - Evo IX

[Speedfreak]

Nasty looking crashes this year:

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/records-set-pikes-peak-climb-amid-heart-stopping-130045334.html

[scheides]

IX you mean?

That car was built just down the street from Hughes in Dallas, he sent me the vid this morning....freaking scary.

[Speedfreak]

IX you mean?

That car was built just down the street from Hughes in Dallas, he sent me the vid this morning....freaking scary.

lol, yes, I was just trying to see if I can change that. :redface:

[Kracka]

Yup...I know the shop/car owner and the driver. Scary indeed...their cage welder deserves a pat on the back though!

[Tachyon]

That crash made my stomach churn. But also warms my heart to see how far safety equipment has gone.

FIA Appendex J cages were adopted for a reason: to keep you from being the meat in a car burrito, when your car decides to roll down a mountain.

[Tachyon]

Jesus Harold Christ!

Just read the build thread for the car over at evomn: What the fuck is the tech at PPIHC thinking!

I am not flaming the cage designer, he build a good cage (albeit to the baaaare minimum of a very shitty and obsolete rule book) to a clients specifications.

But who green lights a cage design like this for a rally, let alone high-speed hill-climb event?

I don't even know where to start... Convex NASCAR style ladder bars? No vertical A-pillar support? Let alone the missing diagonals for roof collapse, rear X bar biased towards the driver side, and lack gussets for side impact tube puncture. This was *at best* a single occupancy cage, meant for light door-to-door club racing.

After looking at the deformation photos the only reason the co-driver even survived was because he seal came unbolted (you heard it right, bolted in, not welded) and his helmet survived the battering that multiple rock intrusions applied to his his head.

PPIHC really needs to get their act together, and hopefully this will wake them up before their criminal negligence sets the sport back 10 years.

[Murlo26]

Yikes, crazy they let shit like that fly!

[asshanson]

CBS had a segment on this tonight with a short interview with the two guys.

[Halon]

Crazy crash. I don't know much about roll cages, but looks like theirs sure did save their life all debating aside.

[Tachyon]

Crazy crash. I don't know much about roll cages, but looks like theirs sure did save their life all debating aside.

The construction differs between road racing rally. In road racing you have to be concerned about intrusion from another car, and absorbing that energy. The forces are typically applied at obtuse angles with room to dissipate such as sliding along the wall. Additionally there is 1 occupant so the cages can be strength biased towards a single focal point - above the driver's head.

In rally, you don't have the danger of another car plowing into you, but there are other extreme dangers, such as hitting immovable objects a right angles -and as you've now seen, sailing off cliffs. In addition equal protection needs to be provided to 2 occupants.

For FIA construction, the cage has evolved into similar to a geodesic dome or eggshell design:

http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/3/4/8/4/1/6/webimg/259263665_tp.jpg

This is designed to maintain shape while rolling down a mountain, and works quite well as illustrated in the last few years of the WRC.

Here's 2 photos of Latvala's off in Portugal 2009 - closest modern example that comes to mind. In this crash he flew off a cliff, rolled 17 times over a total distance of 450 feet.

Passenger's side:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3563/3456839695_7c6df2f634_z.jpg?zz=1

Driver's side:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UDHwdSJZmAs/0.jpg

Notice how the cage still has the same unified shape and has not deformed. Furthermore, they protective sheet metal remained in tact and they were not bouncing their heads off rocks all the way down the hill.

Let contrast this to this a cage in question.

http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv198/aaa-111/PikesPeak/Pikes_Peak_2012/foley/EVOFRONT.jpg

Flattened. Due to lack of multi-diagnoals. Think what happens to a square cardboard box if you apply side load while pressing down -it folds.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/homerdoh56/evolution%20engineering/race%20car/EF88A094-1A6A-4252-822D-963E72F4FF61-2863-0000018DA1527406.jpg

Dat intrusion.


But here's what really made my blood run cold this afternoon:

http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv198/aaa-111/PikesPeak/Pikes_Peak_2012/foley/IMG_20120813_143310.jpg

http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv198/aaa-111/PikesPeak/Pikes_Peak_2012/foley/IMG_20120813_143323.jpg

This was the co-driver's helmet. These guys were a few degrees from going home in body bags. The fact they survived was sheer luck.

What I really want to drive home here is that the governing body that is running the PPIHC need to unfuck their program and adopt today's safety protocols.

1. Don't let amateurs out in a 500HP unrestricted turbo car - the run is nearly 100% tarmac now and is very dangerous.

2. Require the correct safety gear for the application, before you get your ass litigated back to the 1970's.