Any more info or pics of the wrecked HA/GR? Anyone know what broke or caused the accident? I haven't heard any more about it. I think I saw somewhere the driver was OK.
No pics or info, but I talked to the driver Sunday morning at breakfast and he said he was sore and had some bruises, othet than that he was okay. I too would like to know if they found anything that was broken or if he just overpowered the track and it got away from him.
Cowboy Bob is my racing partner, so I do have an update. The complete front end ***embly was bent up bad, frame from front of engine also bent along with front cross member. It does appear that the left axle twisted off. He has the rest of the car repaired, but didn't get the axle looked at yet. That axle does spin free. Will update when this is determined. 2b-banjo
If a rear axle broke, that would make some sense if the rear was locked by a spool or some other traction device. It can sure make a car take an unexpected turn under power.
You know we go the wrecking yard and buy this stuff thinking that it is pretty tough. First it is probably 30 years old and some teen was popping the clutch at every stop light. So I'm going with new axles after this. Roy
I see this as a major issue. Safety is many times more important than looks or performance. I'd like for my son to be able to drive my car. I'd like to keep him out of the wall if can. Please give us all the details. What rear-end was it? What components inside? Describe the launch etc. Photos of the twisted parts. Anything. We can put this forum to good use on this one.
I can tell you from experience that a locked rear will turn a car quick if an axle breaks. My experience was on a dirt oval but same result, although mine involved a wall and several end over end flips. Glad that wasn't the case at MOKAN. Racing has its dangers but it's still safer than the trip to the track.
A posi unit will do the same thing if one wheel does break traction. I can tell you that from experience with my T bucket. At the present time I am running an open rear on my HA/GR with a stock motor. I may do that when I build a motor unless it becomes necessary to make it hook up. Then I will probably go to a mini spool and run that. I will say one thing about the crash, all the safety equipment that we are required to wear, paid off in this instance.
I believe most of the A/fuel front engine dragsters ran open rearends. I would think that with the frame solid to the axle that you wouldn't get torque lift on the right side so both tires should bite. The question is how many are running spools and how many are running open rearends? I agree that we need to go into depth on this. Les Richey got killed in his Mustang at Fontana with a broken axle. If we can prevent something from happening again then the accident was a good thing because no one got hurt and we learned from it. Roy
348 chevy, that is the reason I am running an open rear end. First of all, that is all I had when I started building the car. After I installed it and ran it on the road in front of my house, I realized that both tires were pulling with the solid mounted rear end. One wheel will quit pulling after I shift into third, but if it is still spinning then, I need to change tires or fool with air pressure in the tires. All of this may change after I put in more motor, but I will wait and see.
I will answer as best I can at this point. The rear end is a 9" Ford with 28 spline axles with a mini spool. The left lane at MO-Kan was extremely greasy, Cowboy Bob was really having traction problems. I was at the end of the strip as I had just made a p***, so did not see the crash. He said that he was all over the strip with the car, and which seemed like getting the rear wheel on the inside off the ground. This could of caused the wheel to get a joult when it came back down. Or did it break when it hit the wall after the rear came around, causing a sudden stop of that wheel? We won't know for awhile as Cowboy Bob is putting the car away until some pending business is finished. I don't believe it will be before mid Oct. He is definitely going to 31 spline axles.
I have some pix of the car after the wreck on the trailer that I can post this weekend........I took a handful for "study" shots........ Chris Nelson Kansas
Guys, from my seat it appeared that the car when launched "rocked or bounced" from side to side. Left to right etc. A solid rear will do this, he had said after the crash he felt this and stayed on the throtlle thru the shift. When he shifted, the car jerked to the right hitting the guard rail. Glad to see no more happened than it did and he wasnt hurt.
mudflap261, We won't be pulling it apart until mid Oct. Cowboy Bob will out of town until then. He didn't want it in his shop apart for a month. I am very curious myself. 2b-banjo
The track was NOT greasy. You guys keep saying that, but you don't know what the hell you are talking about. It is an insult to me and a slam on the track. We see one or two cars a year crash. Mostly the drivers climbed out and say they screwed up, or they are not sure what happened. Every now and again you get the driver who wants to blame the track. Your guy was blaming the track as my son pulled him back to the pits with the golf cart. I LIVE on that surface, and know it inch by inch. We watched it all day, just as we always do. It was sprayed and maintained just like a normal race. We had fuel altereds on the track this weekend and several of them ran 3 second 1/8th mile times. We also had 10.5 cars, probably the hardest cars to hook, and they were getting personal best 60 ft times. The prep for this weekend was no different than the HAMB drags. You guys need to come to grips with the fact that you were running a race engine on 7 inch wide bias ply treaded tires. You had a spool on stock 28 spline axels. You might get away with stock axels, but not when you add a spool. The track was clean, the track was dry and the track was sticky. Overpowering the tires and ch***is is not the fault of the track.
2b... lemme know if you 'n bob need a hand with anything... mama fiddy an i should be all moved in and settled down by mid oct, and will be livin less than an hour away as for the track being greazy, loose, slick... etc. i'll say this. it wasnt only the 7 inch tire behind a "racemotor" HA/GR guys talking about how much of a pain in the *** it was in that left lane to hook up. a couple of guys with more tire than mill were sayin the VERY same thing, so it wasnt a figment of the imagination. i dont think it was a jab at the track itself, your guys, or you Karl... just the observation of several people driving VERY different cars down the track
It was the bouncing side-to-side that stressed the axle. That right tire was spinning freely until it hit came down and hit that sticky track. We had the same problem at Tulsa before we let some air out of the tires. We went back to the same lane and launched fine.
Right on !!! After all the races thats what we all here from the weekend racers. They always blame the track when we all know it was the driver. I am with you on this Mr. MoKanMan. Yall did a great job..
I swear I've never been to a drag race where someone didn't think the track, the track prep, or something just wasn't right. I've seen people in 13 second cars complain about the track and then seen Pro Mods turn six second 200mph runs the same night. I myself have driven a low ten second dragster that I couldn't get to stick for anything, but all around me were eight and nine second dragsters that were sticking like glue. I can't explain it except that tires and suspension setups do make a difference.
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