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Crazy day of racing @ firebird. Sad to hear about the death, thought and prayers to the family members. They do nee some tall fences though. I know its a pain to watch through a fance, but that beats debri hitting ya.
Kasey 
how tall would you make the fence? that tire was 20' up in the air. as sad as it is being around racing is dangerous and not a lot you can do to prevent an accident like that.
It didnt get 20 ft up untill it got outside the guard rail, and gained momentum. The fence at 18FT might have helpped if it was 10ft on either side of the track.
Just a thought??
KAsey
Unless it was deflating thru an orifice, falling and/or flying in a vacum, it was NOT gaining momentum.
After pondering my above comment, let me clarify my main point, once the tire left the car, it would unlikely ever gain energy, it could store energy in compressing the inflated tire when it struck a solid object, but most of that would be released on the rebound, it might change direction, and it would change velocity as gravity effected it, but eventually thru friction, air drag, energy absorbed even by thought to be "solid" objects, it would eventually come to rest. However if the wheel was accelerated to very high speeds/rpms thru slippage with the track or the fact that tire was in the air before seperation, it could easily increase is ground speed after seperation as the rotational energy is converted to velocity as the loose tire gets traction, hence the appearance of gaining "momentum", which really is just a conversion of rotational inertia to ground speed. Which is also why so much harm can from a low speed wheel seperation.
Reducing chances of wheel seperation likely should be the focus of prevention IMO.
Last edited by jcc; 02/22/10 09:31 PM.
