Wacky Racers

Scott88 · Aug 6, 2014

This guy is working on the motor for my buggy.

I'll be looking for Tom soon! ;-)

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/NCndL1Pv1qE" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Terry O'Keefe · Aug 6, 2014

That's one hot Beetle! LOL>

Tennessee Tom · Aug 6, 2014

I have seen some very quick AH cars in my time. They are super light and don't require the power that a 3900 lb car does to perform.

Terry O'Keefe · Aug 11, 2014

A little thread drift here. I don't know anything about the type of racing that Tony Stewart was doing when he hit and killed that kid the other night. Maybe Tom has some comments. But here is some supposedly informed opinion from a NDNation Poster.

I would like to provide some perspective from experienced eyes here. I am a sprint car mechanic and have been for nearly 15 years. I grew up in the sport. My grandfather, father and uncle owned cars and I attended my first sprint car race at 6 weeks old. I have seen incidents like this play out many, many times with much less tragic results.

I am the furthest thing from a Tony Stewart fan you could ever find. I've had dealings with him in the past and find him to be generally unbearable as a person. That said, I can promise you that he did not intentionally hit Kevin Ward Jr., and that he likely did not even know how close Mr. Ward was to his car at the moment of impact. Sitting in a winged sprint car, your peripheral vision ends once you clear around 45°-50° in either direction from straight ahead. With the full head containment seats they run now and the angle of the wing coming down on the right side there is no way he saw him at the moment of impact.

To answer an earlier question about the fishtail behavior of a sprint car, yes, it is possible to use the throttle to break the car loose like that. These cars weigh around 1400 lbs. and in a full 410ci configuration have around 900-920 hp. So, you can break the car loose whenever you want. What tells me Stewart did not intentionally break the car loose to hit Ward is the fact that in the video the rear of the car moves to the left. This is exactly opposite of how a sprint car reacts when throttled up due to the stagger in the rear tires (right tire larger diameter than left).

This same scene plays out at dirt tracks from coast to coast weekly. Especially with young drivers who tend to react with less control when they feel somebody has intentionally fed them a wheel and put them out. This is a tragic situation that will have major implications to our sport. What is not needed now is the knee jerk reaction of the legions of twitter/internet/social media "experts" who know nothing what so ever of our sport trying to place instant blame and malice in a situation that they are not capable of intelligently analyzing what they are actually seeing. The biggest thing needed now are prayers for Kevin Ward Jr's family and all involved, and prayers that this will be an example to drivers of what not to do so it will never happen again.
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Sid · Aug 11, 2014

Thanks, Terry. That is the most sensible and intelligent analysis I've seen so far. I have trouble believing that there was any malice in the mind of Tony Stewart over the incident preceding the tragedy. With the support of this analysis, it continues to appear to me to be a very tragic, sad accident.

JO'Co · Aug 11, 2014

:idea:

That analysis looks good to me too. I don't see how a young hothead wearing a black driver's suit, on a dirt track, walking out into traffic in the middle of a race, can be seen as anything other than suicidal madness...

Tennessee Tom · Aug 12, 2014

Total agreement here.

I hate to see anyone get hurt/killed but this kid was in the wrong.

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Wacky Racers

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