I only hope and pray that NHRA does not "over react" and do something stupid and make future cacklefest into a nice quiet, safe, warm & comfy, static museum display. God help us if they do. The people who made grag racing what it is today were young, intelligent, out going, flashy and very brave men and women. Most had lived through the pure hell of WW2 and danger was a daily companion. They saw drag racing for what it was. Dangerous! But something that could be made safe if careful. They saw it as a magnificient shot of incredible adreniline (sp?), the most powerful drug still today, but a drug that won't kill you in the end. I can attest to the shot in the arm that you drive from screaming through the traps at 190 to 200 with the tires still smoking. Gow it was great....wow! They saw it as a challenge, a dangerous challenge, but a challenge that they had to take for the rush it provided. These men and women were the real people of drag racing. They loved it then and love it now. Safety is important to drag racing and NHRA has done an incredible job at it., but we simply cannot allow this one freak accident to make us into a pack of pansies. The older guys would never forgive us. Long live the cacklefest,,,as it was intended to be..push, fire em up, cackle em...ALL AT ONCE. Lets all let NHRA know how feel on this. See ya at the CHHR at the Grove........
Ditto - we have too damn many 'safety-crats' as it is. Racing is what keeps the adrenaline flowin', and maybe a slight escape from the "safety-for-all-at-the-price-whatever-freedom-you-thought-you-had". Safety is crucial in motor sports, but let's not get ahead of ourselves and start installing god-d#*m air-bags in funny cars. Sorry - just venting.
If somebody could figure out a remedy for sue happy lawyers, then we could tell the big insurance companies (BTW, THEY have ALL the money) to stuff it. THEN things could start to be exciting again. I am very involved in racing, and I don't like the idea of compe***ors or (especially) fans getting hurt or killed. I just don't think it should cost someone millions EVERY TIME an accident occurs.
Whew,,,,,,I guess we lucked out. The only "new rule" issued for the cacklefest is a good one. All cacklefest cars which are intended to start while sitting static, must have a coupler or quick disconnect for the drive line. I now have to make a change with my car, but it's an easy one and one well worth the costs and time. I remember back in 1962 at Green Valley a fuel car running in the pits had the clutch linkage break and it slammed into and up onto the trailer sitting in front of it. The driver got it shut off before more damage was done. Only two pwoplw were hurt thank God.
By the way, the people that are making the the decisions at NHRA are the handpicked successors of those pioneers. Most of them have spent their whole lives developing this sport. While I have no illusions about the infallibilty of their administration, the implication that you 'get it', and they don't might not be supported by the facts. As noted in your later post, they probably figured it out, huh?
If ya can't beat 'em outlaw 'em. If I recall these are the same people that said you can't have a MOPAR that was 426 cubes. Its a saftey issue, hell it won't be long before we all have to have airbags. I personally probably wouldn't want to go heads up with a 50 year old rail not knowing how it had been treated but some of the rules I could certainly live without. I'm not up on whatever accident they had this time but its just ludicrous to ***ume that if one car has a saftey issue that all will. Maybe someone could enlighten me on this one.
Hey AnimalAin.............maybe you misread or misunderstood what I was saying. I think these guys who are running the cacklefest and the HHR deals are fantastic. I know many of them, some especially well. And yes, they are the hand picked "older ones" that know what they are doing. And yes, they grew up with the sport, some from the very begining, but so did I. And thank God for them because if the day-to-day NHRA beauracracy or the insurance crowd takes over, it will become something it was never meant to be.
I think they should change the rules to say that NOBODY should be on the race track while the cars are running. Because even experienced drivers **** up now and then... Sam.
if ya'll are talking about bowling green , hell the problem was, they let the folks on the track BEFORE all the cars quit running, but like the m.c. said more than once, it was new ground , first time they had done it like this ,because of the rain showers. you learn from your mistakes, if you don't mess up once and a while,ya ain't doing nothin. **** happens. thankfully nobody got hurt to bad. this time!
We'll be at the Grove, hope to run into you, Beep. But I'm at a loss as to what incident you all are referring to.
Its a freakin' secrete, I've already asked sort of and it hasn't been answered. I'm guessing that someone's car got loose driver error or something. That being the case it shouldn't be a matter of changeing the rules just policeing things a bit. Whether that shoudl mean keeping up with the drivers or keeping spectators off the track I don't know. I'm not part of the inner circle.
Agree with Sam. make everyone but starters/ drivers stand on the other side of the guardrail/ concrete barriers just like if they were racing.
All I know, is that I ain't going to Bakersfield anymore, until they get rid of the golf carts. 200 golf carts being driven by 200 fat idiots from downtown, makes for a ****ed-up event. I think Gibbs learned his lesson. If you're not going to push start the cackles, then leave them in the pits.
I hope someone involved with NHRA reads this so I can beg them to eliminate the parade that takes place before the cacklefest. After a long day at the track you have to get a good seat for the cacklefest early and then wait and wait and wait. You get all exited to see,hear and smell all those nitro mills fire up and then you have to wait it out another hour or more while they pararade over 50 cars and pushcars up the track at about 1mph with at least a half track gap between them. This part of the cacklefest ****S!Why don't they just get them all lined up at the top end of the return road and as soon as the sun sets... Fire up time! I guess the parade is so we can admire the cars one more time but we've been admiring the cars all day long!!and we're going to be admiring the hell out of them when they're sitting in a nitro cloud with their zoomies glowing red. Am I the only one who thinks the cacklefest would be better without the drawn out parade. Either way I wouldn't miss it for the world.
Yea I know what you mean with the golf carts ....I was at Turlock in 2005 and was hit by a Model A club member driving a cushman cart...it cost me my right knee as in 2 major surguries attempting to save the leg then a total knee replacement 12 weeks ago. Now my 32 only has 2 pedals and life really just ****s as I was met with a manditory retirement and S.S. Disability...LIFE can change in shadow of a second when someone stupid makes a wrong move!!!
So, Since my car has a starter and needs to be primed.....I should stay in the pits? Is top fuel the only cl*** that the people want to see?
The driver was way qualified. That wasn't the problem. There were a number of cir***stances that when combined, turned into an accident looking for a place to happen. Hindsight is always 20/20. Looks like they've fixed it now.
See that's what happens when your info is second hand. The post I found pretty basically stated that he wasn't. Looks like it all worked out, I guess the old guy that got crunched is OK and everyone still gets to see and feel the nitro burners. Ya know this is way off base but thinking about the golf cart guys reminded me of a time when I crashed a gas powered bar stool into a guys duece at a goodguys. he was really mad and I know the next goodguys I went to didn't allow scooters or anything other than cars that could motate under its own power.
Funny,,I never noticed the golf carts at the CHHR, but I sure do at the NHRA races. The sons a *****es try to run over you. Last year at Indy some giant fat ***hole with two fat broads riding in the back kept honking his freaking horn for about two million people to move. Some guy turned around, stood in front of the cart until it stopped, then he reached in, grabbed the keys and threw them about 50 yards into the crowd. Everybody laughed their ***es off.
You can change the rules, and you can try to enforce the rules that are already in place, but you can't force overwhelmed drivers to hit the kill switch when they need to. I've seen some very experienced drag racers get in big trouble (like heading for the wall with the throttle stuck wide open after taking out the tree), and act like they forgot there was a kill swith within their reach. The officials at some monster truck events have electronic remote kill switches. One good application is when there's a fire that the driver doesn't know about. When a driver gets in a situation he can't get out of (or knocked out) and things are about to get much worse, the kill switch is pretty important. But it only works when the driver pushes it. Dave http://www.roadsters.com/
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