Quote:
Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile
Beats having them burn up with a driver in them. The IRL cars are not exactly known for their safety, especially when compared to the Panoz DP07 chassis which were "retired" in favor of the inferior IRL design.
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I usually don't reply to these posts but, he we go.
No offense O-Phile, the '03 to present Dallara is a much safer racecar than the pre '03 IRL car, probably on par with the '90s Reynard and much better than the '02 Lola. There have been over 20 saftey update that I can think of, and can take one whale of a hit. We have had three over 95 g hits on both ovals and road courses and our drivers have been fine, general bruising. Two of my teammates have been on their roll hoops on the backstraight of IMS at over 217 and have walked away. Dario had a 60 g impact straight on to the roll hoop of his car and walked away. I don't think you truly understand the impact a car has on an oval.
Now before you get upset with me, I have alot of friends who stayed in CART after my team left, and have always been truthful with me. The Panoz is regarded as one of the worst cars produced in the last few years. A small list of their problems. Front suspesion points pulling out of bulkheads and hardpoints. The tub seam ( where the two halves of the tubs are bonded ) were delaminating, rendering two tubs unrepairable. Tub floors ( especially under the driver ) were cracking and delaminating. This was not from running the car too low and having hard contact, this was light contact and some curbing. The fuel cell leak was really never fully repaired, they just decided to not use the full capacity, only fill 25 gals out of the 30 gallon cell. The buckeye vent and the top of the cell never could be sealed correctly, causing gallons of fuel to leak out. Thats not very safe to me. And remember, it only raced 14 or so times, and never took a big oval hit, who to say the bulkheads or the bell housing would have held up.
Belive me, the Dallara is not that much of an inferior design, its not perfect, its no Reynard, but its not inferior to the Panoz. Which was somewhat of a flawed design, Anyway....
Penske will be fine. They had there test team equipment out there from an open test from last week. Castro Neves had one chassis and all of the pit equipment they need. The truckers said no halon system would have saved that trailer.