Future Advancements Occuring and To Come In Safety
Now many of you who know me well know that I absolutely love dragracing, but it is a very dangerous sport. (In case your wondering I’m talking about NHRA not NASCAR.) Of course why wouldn’t it be dangerous, your only going 330 mph. in 4 seconds! Psh, I do that on the highway! Okay but seriously when you are going speeds like that, many safety precautions are necessary to help protect that mentally insane drivers.
Lately team Castrol, managed by John Force former funny car driver, has begun working on advancements for these deadly machines to make them better and safer. They began this process when a little over a year ago teammate Eric Medlen crashed into a guard rail while testing and passed away. Due to this, they began advancing safety precautions. Some of the things they added were extra support for they head. Before, the drivers’ heads where able to bobble around causing vision to be blurry and more susceptible to head injuries. Now ever since, Castrol has added more support in the cockpit of the car the head is stabled and held into place a little bit better.
Even more recently, Saturday June 22, 2008 to be exact, funny car driver Scott Kalitta passed away in the fourth round of qualifying. Safety procedures are never perfect- accidents can ALWAYS occur. Some say the reason for Kalitta’s death was because the track was not long enough so when he came in contact with the fence at the end of the track the car exploded.
So in the future what safety precautions will be added to make driving NHRA cars safer. Will track regulations be put in place? What other advances will there be to protect the drivers? Let me know your thoughts and ideas below in the comment box.
NHRA just recently shortened the track length from a quarter mile to 1,000 feet so that way we can stop the cars faster. This is because if we stop earlier we have a better chance of not reaching the end of the track and having complications like Scott Kalitta. I personally don’t like the idea because it makes it harder to race because you don’t have as much time to try and catch up if your reaction time was slower then your opponent. Also the racers can no longer set speed records because it’s a shorter track, because if you beat a record set by a previous driver it may not be fair because your track is shorter than when the record was set. I also think it’s just a way for track owners to be lazy I mean seriously they go to the same tracks in order every year! Make sure that your track is in condition before they get there.