Thread: Indy cars

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What do you guys think what kind of rules changes should be done??.

Less ovals and more road courses.

RIP Dan

.........and of course the doom and gloomers are ranting : In Racing, Can Fast Become Too Fast? | Fox News

If you want a laugh, read some of the comments. Some of those people actually breed and create more idiots.

Originally Posted by 1gary

What do you guys think what kind of rules changes should be done??.

None. Except maybe higher & stronger catch fences and move stands & walkways farther back from the track.

The new Indy cars for 2012 have a lot of changes to add to driver safety. Catch fences are a brutal thing, at those speeds anything other then open track can be brutal. If the sanctioning body were to rule change everything about the cars and tracks so no body could ever again get killed.....well, you'd end up with a 55 mph Indy car on a 600' wide track lined with air bags.... Racing is dangerous, period. Everybody who gets in a car knows that and accepts the risk as part of the job. The builders and sanctioning bodies address safety issues and concerns constantly and do what they can to improve equipment and conditions. There are safety professionals and engineers employed full time to search out safety improvements, let them do their job and don't let a bunch of media hype lead you to believe that the track and race team owners are negligent in the areas of safety. There's always room for improvement, but it takes time and money.

More road courses would help, accept that the crowds go away. American's are used to sitting in a grandstand with a view of the entire track, not perched on a hillside somewhere way back from the track to catch a glimpse of the cars once a lap as they go by... There are a lot of Saturday night ovals that draw bigger crowds then the SCCA Nationals! Ovals are the preferred racing in this country....

There has been 4 deaths in Indy cars since '93. It's a shame that anyone has to die racing but it's also almost unavoidable if you want a level of competition high enough to attract the top notch teams and drivers. If you don't have that you won't have fans and sponsors and without that there's not gonna be an Indy cars. We almost lost Indy car racing when USAC and CART split... A knee jerk reaction to the death of a competitor doing what he loved to do isn't going to improve anything.

As a Post Script, how many people were even aware of Indy Car safety issues BEFORE Dan Wheldon was killed????? I guess it takes something like this to make it newsworthy enough for all the Monday Morning Quarterbacks (AKA media hype "experts") to get involved????? I caught a bit of a news report that had some European FIA dude more or less saying that Indy car racing was almost barbaric and all us stupid Americans should embrace F1 racing. The only thing Dan's death meant to him was a chance to promote F1 racing!!!! Be careful who you listen too, especially all these "experts" who don't even have a dog in the fight!!! Most are only interested in today's headline and will move on and forget about Indy Cars when something more newsworthy and grandiose that's deserving of their "expertise" happens....

Well said Dave and right on the money.

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

More road courses would help, accept that the crowds go away. American's are used to sitting in a grandstand with a view of the entire track, not perched on a hillside somewhere way back from the track to catch a glimpse of the cars once a lap as they go by... There are a lot of Saturday night ovals that draw bigger crowds then the SCCA Nationals! Ovals are the preferred racing in this country....

You are probably right about ovals being preferred now but in the past America loved road courses (Watkins Glen etc...) So what has changed? I always preferred going to road courses (not street courses) rather than the contained ovals (use to be Indy 500 and Milwaukee Mile only). Now I'm too old, I just watch on TV.

Dave-I agree with what you said.Found it interesting that Jimmie Johnson said he felt that race had too big of a field racing on a track not designed for Indy cars going too fast.That he would not drive in a race like that.That NASCAR has restrictor plate racing for a reason.Dave the only thing I disagree with on is the lost of only one life does require a very hard look.How you prevent tire rubs from getting cars airborne at those speeds is a hard thing to solve.

You don't prevent bangin' wheels in open wheel racing!!!! I've banged wheels and went on my head, into walls, over fences, through fences, and once out into a cornfield in everything from karts, Super Mods, Sprints, Mini-Sprints, and late models, so has Howard and a number of others on the forum.....and I'll betcha none of us who have been there would vote to do away with open wheel racing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Real race cars don't have doors!!!!


PS---Jimmie Johnson????? As I recall, his experience is in dirt bikes and bodied cars, hardly what I would consider an authority on Indy cars!!!!!!

Oh hell no.I am not talking about banning open wheel racing.

How about a rule requiring a wider stance making it harder to go up or over.Maybe something like a sensor that when one side goes up there is in the suspension a switch of the wt to push it back down,like a hydro cylinder?.

racing is dangerous. So is just about any professional sport. People get hurt and killed. I don't think banning and more rules are the answer. Maybe designing more safety equipment, but heck that has come a long way since the 50's to today. You see nascar racers hit the wall all the time and walk away. Thiings are musch better now than they ever were. When a guy gets beaned with a fast ball or a football player breaks something, they don't change the rules, but they do try to improve the safety gear. It's sad that the media fixates on any one thing to the point that you have to wonder if they are capable of any intellegence.

Originally Posted by stovens

It's sad that the media fixates on any one thing to the point that you have to wonder if they are capable of any intellegence.

You nailed it there, Steve!!! I get so fed up with the dang reporters who just have to stick a mic and camera in a driver's face 10 minutes after some big altercation on the track!!!! If the driver even hint that somebody took him out then that's all you're going to hear about for the next week!!! Getting the winner's reaction when he gets out of the car in victory lane is one thing, but interviewing a driver when he's so mad he could spit nails and breath fire does nothing but give the unknowing casual race observer the impression that all racers are imbeciles!!!! If you want to have a new rule, make it a dang rule that every driver be granted a one hour cool down period before some lame brain reporter and camera crew get in his face!!!

For the majority of the media, Dan's death was nothing more then the story of the day---most of them won't remember his name by Friday....or earlier if Kyle Busch gets another speeding ticket!!!! Freedom of the press is a wonderful thing, just too bad that it isn't limited by common sense. \

But then, common sense just isn't that common anymore, is it?????

The hell with the media.I was asking you guys what you would suggest to make the cars better based on your background.Just some talking points.

Gary I'm sure people will be looking into this accident and trying to come up with somethings that may prevent it from happening in the future, sometimes these accidents lead to some cool innovations, but I'm guessing that it will be somewhere down the line, due to the fact they already incorperate a lot of safety stuff.