How not to build a race car.

I wonder if those were Grade 5 or Grade 8 bolts? You know, Stretch vs Shear and all that good stuff.

 

Well...I don't know too much about '55 Chevy's, but I'll ***ume from your comment that the didn't offer factory buckets...
How about the belts?
How about the rest of the car?, I wasn't only refering to the seat, I was refering to the entire car coming apart...?
How about the fasteners?
How about????

 

In address to many comments. The seat anchors are secondary to the BELT anchors. It's not the driver being torn from the seat in an accident as much as the driver being torn from the belt's anchors. IE-you can glue a seat to the floor of a race car as long as the belts are tight, and properly anchored. Think about it

 

That door opening when it did, and when the car landed ON the open door, just happened to be where the driver was at that moment, The open door leaves enough room for the car to go over him, rather than landing directly on top of him. He was one lucky SOB in what should have been, in 99.98% of different possibilities, his casket.

Watching that car fly apart like it did, especially the seat, and the rear axle and springs, makes me wonder what he used for fasteners! Another thing - as ****py as that car appears to have been built, maybe he couldn't let off the gas - maybe even the throttle return spring was so ****py, it broke or came loose! So much for then turning off the engine!

 

I think you guys just like picking on people...
C'mon, admit it...

We could blame it on being a Rat Rod, but I'm pretty sure from the footage it was before the term was coined...

Anyway...theres no defending the drivers actions as reasonable, but if you have ever been out there, don't tell me you have never made mistakes, or judged something wrong...

As far as the car goes...NO ONE that has posted yet, in fact, knows what really failed, though you're correct, the restraints hold in the driver ( if properly fastened, again, not the cars fault... ) above and beyond the seat, at least they should, but....if the seat were to slip out from under someones weight, and the belts not be able to hold their weight against anything ( like they just might, in perhaps...a barrel roll, with broken fasteners...?) , then....um...who knows?

I'm just sayin'...

 

The rest of the parts flying off the car after he was ejected are irrevelant to the fact that he was tossed. The point is the seat should be securely fastened to the vehicle and the belt should retain you in the seat.... 'nuff said.

JMO
CC

 

You're right...they SHOULD.

 

In the aiforce we called this sequence "departure from controlled flight."

With enough al***ude, you can recover and save the ship, but in this case you're just along for the ride.

The obvious problem here, is the vehicle m*** vector is in one plane (down the track) and the driver is attempting to change the vector using the front wheels. No good can come of this.

The interesting thing isn't that he was ejected and lived, it is the logic of trying to control m*** using the steering wheel. M*** is best controlled by cutting off acceleration, and quickly braking to lower the vector magnitude. Once the right rear wheel left the ground, m*** was in control.

 

That was a heck of a ride. Lucky guy.

 

The best part is the car waited until it was clear of the track to break apart.....................they didnt even have to stop the racing.
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ahhh, WRONG!

 

thats some funny **** right there.

 

The story if I remember correctly that footage was taken at a track that was closing, and they weren't doing much of a tech check, the seat was tacked (you know,, the little one spot shots with a mig?) to the floor. I'm not sure of the story on the belts, but they obviously were as well thought out as the seat mount.


As for putting a seat in and not fastening it in,and the belts will hold it in, I/We have done it a couple times, but it was in a funny car, (sometimes "plenty of time to turn it around" isnt plenty) not sure I would do it in a street car though.

 

Yeah but in a funny car there is no rear p***enger area for the seat to slide away into. Once your strapped in nothings gonna move.

 

He didnt specify what type of vehicle,, and me being the nice guy I am, well, just wanted to prove his theory correct!

 

I've posted this video on here before, but it always gives me a laugh.

Play it loud at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjmHKCUAWTo

 

Yeah maybe the same guy that welded that seat in also welded the ladder bar brackets onto that rear end!

 

Here's one more, with a much happier ending.

Deuce three-window wheelie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63A9w8gZcLs&feature=related

 

The glue comment was sarcasm. My point was, that in an accident, your body's tugging against the belts/harness, NOT the seat. You're sort of levitating off the seat as you compress into the belts leaving not too much load, if at all on that seat. Sure, if the seat goes away, you're left with all the slack in the belts and they won't do their job. I believe, if the harness was on him, and properly anchored, he, and the seat would've remained in the car.

 

"No mullets were harmed in the making of these videos". The duece is baaad.

 

Yeah that one p***ed tech inspection alright. Think about this, you need a license to put in a toilet but not to build a race car. Your life depends on some yahoo inspecting your car to make sure it's not a pile of **** like that thing.

 

The way I see it, It just wasn't his day to go. How many times have you heard of freak accldents?

 

Look at the exterior condition of the car when the driver launches it.
"If it looks safe,it probably is?"

 

You guys are killing me...

Now apparently the sheet-metal needs are a direct indicator of how the rest of the car is built, too...
Ya' know, people who aren't made out of money sometimes have to get to the body last, and, if its an unproven car, it ain't a bad idea to see if it don't hit a wall first, too, before you wrap it in $20,000 worth of paint...

A guy rolls his car, on two minutes of blurry video, and instead of finding it ashame, everyone sits behind their monitors, INSTEAD of in a race car, and judge how the car was built.

Your all forensics spe******ts, too, as well as in-fallible master-builders, huh?...do you even know if the guy driving it even built it? maybe he bought it, and maybe the seat WAS glued in!? THAT would **** for him, huh? You NEVER KNOW....
Hope it never happens to any of you, but, then again, it probably won't, because 95% of the people posting have probably never even been to a racetrack...


Damn...to think, sometimes I think I'M a cynical *****...

 

Seat not properly bolted in, he's not properly buckled in, and his rear axle went flying so that probably needed some bolts too, oh and his door swung open instantly so yeah. he was only like what a 1/3 of the way down the track so he probably wasn't going very fast either.

 

I'll give ya' "not properly buckled"...that seems obvious...
The rest is conjecture, unless you were involved, and know EXACTLY what happened. No one yet has been.

 

Yep... but thats allright.

I'd need a lot more info too.

Forces are high during a Crash.
**** comes apart...

Some pics another crash.





And this one.





And I know that was a well built car...

 

Yep,sheet metal needs are directly responsible for the overall of the car.
Nothing like a fender coming loose at 100 MPH on a track?
If you don't care about the outside you don't care about the underside...
Proof in the video.

 

I'm guessing your a body guy...

 

there is no reason for items from the drivers compartment to be coming out of the car,least of all the driver. if that car was built right,the area around him would have stayed in one piece and he would have stayed securely belted in. who cares about anything outside of the drivers seat area? even a basic well constructed cage would have kept that area together. thats the point of race car safety, keep the driver protected and the hell with anything else. other stuff is just absorbing energy. how difficult would it have been to put simple tethers on that rear end? even some simple chains would have kept the back end in the general proximity of the car. what if it flew up and hit someone else? maby it's a short clip, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out the car literally fell apart like a chinese crash test video. the knowledge to build a sturdy roll cage has been around for many many years, there is no excuse for that car flying apart. maby the outside shell,but not everything inside.