Safety in Auto Racing
Thesis: Auto racing is becoming a safer sport with all of the new innovations introduced in the past couple of years including the caught fence, safety barrier, and Han’s device.
When someone goes to a race track what they really want to see is the wrecks. They want to see a car flipping over or even catch on fire. Even though it might look awesome from the outside of the car, inside the car it's extremely dangerous. The community of auto racing is working altogether to create new innovations to make racing as safe as it can possibly be. Auto racing is becoming a safer sport with all of the new innovations introduced in the past couple of years including the caught fence, safety barrier, and Han's device.
Everyone that has been watching auto racing can't deny that all of the cars have been getting faster and faster. With every ten miles per hour the car gets it makes the driver 10% more at rick of getting injured. There are many reasons why the cars have gained speed. The three biggest equipment that makes the car fast is bump stops, better tire compound from Goodyear tire company, and lastly direct injection of fuel into the combustion Chamber.
As stated in the last paragraph as the speed of the car goes up it affects the safety of the driver inversely. One of the new innovations that many auto racing series run is the safety barrier. The safety barrier became more important and looked at after a horrific wreck at Daytona International Speedway on February 22, 2013. The front end of a drivers car sheared off when the car hit the fence and sent parts and pieces of the car into the stands. (Greenberg). After the officials saw the wreck and the horrible aftermath they designed a fence that would keep the c...
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...k an is held down by the seat belt onto the shoulders. It is then hooked on the helmet.
The Han’s device makes racing safer in many ways. The first way is that it keeps the drivers neck from breaking it does this by only letting it travel so far in a wreck. Next, it keeps the driver from hitting his/her head on the steering wheel. This is good because it won’t let the drivers head travel that far and helps avoid brain injury.
To conclude, the new safety innovations are still in use and are saving drivers lives day after day. Before these innovations were in use many drivers died each month. Now we have less drivers dieing because of these innovations. Although, these safety items are not mentioned frequently, they are aways in use on the race track. If it weren’t for the years of advancement in the safety of auto racing we might not have any drivers left to race.
The sport of NASCAR is extremely fast paced. The average speed of a NASCAR is 210.364 MPH.This can make it exciting for many people. Anything can happen in a split second too. One race Kyle Busch started 39/43 and finished in 3/43. That is a change of 36 places. This can also make it exciting because you will never know what’s going to happen.
Racing has always been about going faster than the next driver. It was about trying to beat course records and lap speeds. But if Tony George has his way, all course speeds will be reduced due to switching from turbo Indy V6 engines to normally aspirated V8's. The result is less horsepower, thus slower speeds. Records would never be broken, and the sport would lose some of its appeal. Racing has always been a strive to go faster; there is no real reason to change it now. One of Tony George's justification is that the sport would become safer. That is not true. The difference would not be much . The fatality rate for a 230 mph crash, and a 210 mph crash, is not that much different.
For a Racing car, the design fetures are pretty much different from normal, civilian cars. Civilian cars and family saloons dont have much to prove on the speed factor. But racing cars have a lot to show themselves upto in the speed front. There are a lotta different chunks of the total package that are to be designed with precision engineering and innovation.
Prior to his death, Earnhardt refused to wear it because he said it was restrictive and uncomfortable. The HANS device was U shaped and was designed to strap on your helmet and sits on your shoulders that way your neck is protected from snapping forward on an impact. When the green flag dropped to start the race in Daytona in 2001, only seven of the 43 drivers were wearing HANS restraints (Hill). Also in addition to Earnhardt not liking the HANS Device he wouldn’t wear a full face helmet. After his death NASCAR made it mandatory for them to wear a full face helmet. NASCAR has also added a safer barrier to the walls of the track. It is made of steel and foam energy reduction. It is sometimes referred to as a safe wall. These walls are found on automobile race tracks intended to absorb and reduce kinetic energy during the impact of the accident, and also help reduce the injuries sustained to drivers. It was developed from 1998-2002, and first installed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 2002. The final major safety improvement was to the NASCAR vehicle itself. Introduced for 16 races in 2007, the NASCAR “Car of Tomorrow” was implemented for the entire 2008 schedule for the Sprint Cup Series. The Car of Tomorrow is wider and taller than the previous race car (formerly NEXTEL Cup). The driver’s roll cage has been moved back and the driver’s seat has moved in toward the
It takes a special type of person to drive one of the power hungry stock cars at over 200 mph. One of these brave souls is Jimmy Johnson, one of the greatest drivers in the world. Johnson comments about nascar, “ Driving in a NASCAR races is really exciting, but it can also be very physically tiring, there was this one time in particular, I was 179 laps into the race when all of the sudden I got light headed and dizzy, lost in confusion i panicked trying to pick out which car I was driving because they all looked the same. A split second later i lost control of the car and skidded into the ‘hit here’ sign, i asked the medic what had happened he said it was chronic dizziness from driving the same way for a prolonged period of time. He recommended months in therapy ”
Speeding is the third most common factor in vehicle accidents in the US, costing 13,000 lives a year. Some of the reasons behind speeding include: driver's being in a rush, the need for adrenaline, and their belief that they won't get caught, or that laws don't apply to them. Speeding not only shortens your reaction time, but also your control of the vehicle as the faster the vehicle goes the more any sudden movements can affect it causing to flip or slide into another car, which may cause a fatality, maybe not to yourself but to
drivers travelling at high speeds on roads (Hartman). To conserve fuel and save lives, the
...t is not surprising that there are more fatal accidents. When speed limits are raised police can access more time stopping reckless drivers, not just people exceeding the speed limit. Charles Lave, an economics professor at the University of California- Irvine, examined this phenomenon in a study in 1989. He found that raising highway speed limits allowed police to spend less time writing speeding tickets and more time apprehending drunk drivers and patrolling dangerous roads. The studies done by the IIHS also omitted several states in which traffic fatalities fell considerably. If those states were to be factored into the data, there would be almost no change at all in the rise of fatalities. Finally all speeding laws do some harm by providing the means for citizens to be fined, arrested, or otherwise restricted in their daily activities and commutes.
...bit faster than normal. What should drivers do? Well, there is something we can do that would allow for us to be able to raise the speed limits. We can write to our local representatives and let them know the need for raising the speed limits. Provide good research and valuable information that will help them to make the best possible decision. Of course, we must obey the law until the speed limits are changed. God has commanded us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. (Bible) This was used not only in the aspect of money but also in the aspect of all of Caesar’s laws. The urge is very real to want to break the law, but think about others before yourself. According to Terry Turner we need to think of the why before the how. Basically ask yourself, why do I need to speed? Then after careful consideration of all factors, decide how fast to drive your automobile.
This paper is a look at the physics behind car racing. We look look at how we can use physics to select tires, how physics can help predict how much traction we will have, how physics helps modern cars get there extreme speed, how physics lets us predict the power of an engine, and how physics can even help the driver find the quickest way around the track.
...ture a risk-taking species. In ancient times we took risks just to eat. Later we took huge risks by setting out in little wooden ships to explore the earth's surface. We continued as we sought to fly, travel faster than the speed of sound and to head off into space. We rely on increasingly more complex equipment and constantly strive to design and manufacture faster and even more elaborate devices. It goes without saying that every effort is made to ensure our "safety"; to keep us from harm or danger. Every time you slide behind the wheel of your vehicle you are taking a risk. Driving is the riskiest activity in our lives. It is an inherently "unsafe" environment. The most perfect vehicles on the best designed highways on beautiful sunny days driven by fallible human beings crash into each other. The only way to drive "safely" (as we are all admonished to do!) is to learn more about the process. Learn more about your vehicle and how to maintain it; learn how to use your eyes to look far down the road; learn to spot problems before they happen; and also learn to deal with emergency situations. In most cases it's the human element that fails. After all, safe is only as safe does.
We will begin with examples and tips on how to choose the safest automobile on the road, then we will look at precautions automobile companies are taking to keep you safe, and finally we will see some issues that are still to be taken care of as the automobile industry soars.
The average driver doesn’t think about what keeps their car moving or what keeps them on the road, but that’s because they don’t have to. The average driver doesn’t have to worry about having enough downforce to keep them on the road or if they will reach the adhesive limit of their car’s tires around a turn. These are the things are the car designers, professional drivers, racing pit crews, serious sports car owners, and physicist think about. Physics are an important part of every sports and racing car design. The stylish curves and ground effects on sports cars are usually there not just for form but function as well allowing you to go speeds over 140 mph in most serious sports cars and remain on the road and in reasonable control.
A world-class team such as Ferrari can refuel a car, change four wheels and tires, and wipe off the driver’s helmet in as little as 6.8 seconds. The technology used in the sport is another drawing point of its popularity. State- of-the-art computers are used to track the car’s every movement and to mechanically keep
First of all it is obvious that a motorist driving over the speed limit has more chances of getting into an accident that a motorist who is traveling at the average speed. One who drives fast does not have proper and that well of a control on the vehicle as one that is moving at a safe speed or at the speed limit mark. It is true that traveling above the speed limit will save time and time is money but is it really worth it. Speed over the limit is a major factor in about two to five percent of fatalities. When driving over the limit it is hard to determine the other drivers speed, this is called the speed variance and this can cause an accident while overtaking the other vehicle or simply changing lanes because the other driver could be speeding up as well, at the same time as you are changing lanes that would result in an accident.