FEELING SICK

Burk, excellent article. You have put into words exactly what a lot of us have been thinking. I love this sport but I do not want to see any of our heroes injured or possibly killed. I have seen too much of that in my lifetime. Two of my biggest heroes (John Mulligan and Lee Shepard) were killed racing and it took me a long time to get over both of those loses.

Twice I walked away from the sport and wouldn't even attend any races for a couple of years after they died. I eventually came back because of love for the sport and it's action. Then a couple of years ago when Darrell Russell was killed it brought back those same kind of feelings. At the time of his accident I almost walked away from it again. I felt Darrell's crash was NHRA's and Goodyear's fault for forcing them to run on those defective tires and I still feel that way about his crash.

We saw race after race with cars constantly chunking, but NHRA said there was nothing wrong with the tires. BS! They knew then there was something terribly wrong and they know now that those tires cannot take the punishment they are receiving. When Eric Medlen was killed earlier this year, again due to tire /chassis failure, I started getting that sick feeling again. And now we appear to be headed for another disaster with the tires and NHRA's ignorant decisions regarding chassis construction.

I was in the stands at Dallas and saw car after car chunking and just felt hopeless thinking we might see another disaster. My worst fears came when John and Kenny disappeared in a cloud of dust. My heart sank. I am getting much older now and maybe a little wiser, but I can no longer sit by and watch one of my heroes get killed because those in charge at NHRA will not make the kind of decisions that need to be made to make the sport safer.

Please do everything in your power to help them make the hard decisions that need to be made to make the sport safer even if it means slowing them down.

Thank you for all you do.

Bill Ralls

LESSON IN METALLURGY

Thanks for bringing up what seems to be a delicate subject.  It would seem we have dodged a bullet and nobody was killed in the latest FC chassis failure.  Medlen stated that the chassis failed and then punctured the tire in the accident that killed Eric. Hight had a chassis failure a few races ago and now the Force accident.

It is well known that chrome moly structures that are to be heat treated must be heat treated after welding.  That it is well known among engineers and metallurgists simply points out the lack of knowledge among those charged with the rules--NHRA and SFI.

The rules for FC state condition N 4130 tubing.  Murph (    McKinney) has been using heat treated and then welded tubing.  NHRA and SFI are aware of this.  They chose not to enforce the rules for the FC chassis yet at the same time mandated heat treated 4130 for the dragsters.  Am I missing something here? 

I suppose the real question is why did the NHRA/SFI let Murph push his heat treated tubing rule through?  The calculations that SFI used to support their position were incorrect and they were shown where they erred but have simply tried to cover it up.

The engineering problems, if they exist, are really not problems.  It is possible to do the calculations and come up with appropriate specifications.  In the case of heat treated tubing welded after heat treating, there are no easy calculations as it is considered a bad practice.  Mathematically modeling the heat-affected area when heat treated tubing is welded, has never been done.  Because it is ridiculous to do it that way, nobody ever did the calculations.
So tell me, kind sir, why are the NHRA/SFI not doing the right thing?

Thanks again for bring up this subject in your editorial.

Rob Daniel 

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