Another incident today in the BTCC, Mike Jordan was airlifted to hospital with serious head injuries and a punctured leg after his crash into the concrete wall going onto the main straight at Silverstone. From what ITV said he was awake and watching the live race in hospital.

My point is that shouldn't more be done to protect drivers of saloon cars? Several high profile incidents recently show that saloon car safety from side impacts is lacking.

The question i want to ask though, is why not have the driver sitting in the center of the car? This surely will balance the wieght, and would enable more room for extra rollcage protection. I know it would cost money to do, but surely driver safety should not have a price tag.

gd idea !!

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

The question i want to ask though, is why not have the driver sitting in the center of the car? This surely will balance the wieght, and would enable more room for extra rollcage protection. I know it would cost money to do, but surely driver safety should not have a price tag.

NASCAR are planning on having closer to central cockpits on the COT. However, it would be impractical to almost totally re-build the car - which would need to do to make it central cockpit. More protection is needed, but central cockpits are unheard of in any sort of closed wheel racing other than a handful of LMP's. Just my £0.02.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

The question i want to ask though, is why not have the driver sitting in the center of the car? This surely will balance the wieght, and would enable more room for extra rollcage protection. I know it would cost money to do, but surely driver safety should not have a price tag.

As obvious solution it might be it has several negative sides: 1) Leg room. You would need to redesign the whole front area of the car to get most of tha gadgets to fit. 2) getting out of the car would be even harder 3) It is expensive.

And some people seem to want people to almost get killed while racing, so...

I was thinking more for future saloon cars, the next gen touring cars could have a more central driving position. It doesn't have to be totally dead center, just enough so that the driver doesn't take the brunt of the impact.

Another solution is more tyre barriers, or banning concrete barriers on the exit of turns. I know theres some very advanced barriers in use at the Paul Ricard circuit which could be used.

Its a really tricky one, i just think it needs improving because currently theres only a matter of inches from the driver and the door...and the doors are the weakest area of a car.

The german DTM does use some kind of carbon monocoque to protect the driver. Together with the HANS system it seems to work quite well.

The problem with BTCC is the drivers drive as if they were bumper cars. I've said for the last year that someone is going to get seriously hurt/killed but the organisers take no notice of this. They are trying to attract the crowd who want to see crashing and smashing of cars.

I haven't seen the accident yet but from what I've read about it this is one of these silly accidents that probably wouldn't happen if they actually clamped down on the appalling driving.

Will this teach them a lesson? Probably not.

.....actually the DTM (which is more of a prototype series, that touring car) uses a combination of a carbon fibre monocoque and a seating position which is moved pretty far into the center of the car.....

The attached picture shows the seating position of Heinz-Harald Frentzen in his Audi.....

Quote from keiran :

The problem with BTCC is the drivers drive as if they were bumper cars. I've said for the last year that someone is going to get seriously hurt/killed but the organisers take no notice of this. They are trying to attract the crowd who want to see crashing and smashing of cars.

I haven't seen the accident yet but from what I've read about it this is one of these silly accidents that probably wouldn't happen if they actually clamped down on the appalling driving.

Will this teach them a lesson? Probably not.

I actually think this was a racing incident, as far as I could see there was no contact made before Mike Jordan's car got lose, after that it went into the car next to him and then into the front of Plato's and into the barrier. IMO it would have still happened even if the drivers weren't treating the cars as dodgems.

i believe it was a side impact that killed, michael park in the Rally GB last year, the side of a car is one of its weakest points, and it tends to be one touring car /wrc teams strip to just a layer of aluminum and a few inches of roll bar just milimtres from the drivers leg, A solution for this (in touring cars not WRC, is a slighly more central driving position,with more roll cage bars

Quote from keiran :

I haven't seen the accident yet but from what I've read about it this is one of these silly accidents that probably wouldn't happen if they actually clamped down on the appalling driving.

Will this teach them a lesson? Probably not.

Nope Keiran, this was a result of Jason Plato having a driveshaft failure and losing speed, Jordan had to react very quickly and tried to move out from behind plato and ended up losing the back end of his car, and then came the ensuing incident.



Reports are now that he's on the mend well though

http://video.google.co.uk/vide ... ocid=-3058788789458239207

Just uploaded it for you all, It looks alot better on the embedded video but don't know how to get it working on the forum.

Anyway, I used fraps to record it from Media Center, Then stuck it in VirtualDub Mod and used xvid to compress it.

I missed the racing so had to record it but only watched the first race so didnt know this.

I hope he feels better soon, good to hear he is ok though.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Another incident today in the BTCC, Mike Jordan was airlifted to hospital with serious head injuries and a punctured leg after his crash into the concrete wall going onto the main straight at Silverstone. From what ITV said he was awake and watching the live race in hospital.

My point is that shouldn't more be done to protect drivers of saloon cars? Several high profile incidents recently show that saloon car safety from side impacts is lacking.

The question i want to ask though, is why not have the driver sitting in the center of the car? This surely will balance the wieght, and would enable more room for extra rollcage protection. I know it would cost money to do, but surely driver safety should not have a price tag.

update:: its not a punctured leg, its a punctured lung.

http://www.crash.net/news_view ... ent-~cid~10~id~139001.htm

Quote from duke_toaster :

but central cockpits are unheard of in any sort of closed wheel racing other than a handful of LMP's.

Out of curiosity, could you name the LMP's with a central position? Unless you meant with a near-to-centre position, as they are all close to the centre relatively (compared to tin tops) but not centred. The only full-bodied race car I can think of with a centred seat is the McLaren F1 GTR/LM/etc. And that is because the street car has a centred seat.

As for the suggestion to move the seat of saloon cars to the centre, it will 99.9% most likely not be done in BTCC or any similar series. The cars are supposed to 'closely' resemble their road-going counterparts. Moving the seat furthers them from the street cars than they are now. I doubt the costs for doing this are preventing any such rule from being made for the future, it's simply not like the street car. I'm not saying that they shouldn't do it because it's different, I'm just saying that's what I think it is.

As for the DTM cars, as said, they are more like protos than touring cars. They bare a slight resemblance to the street car, but that is where similarities end pretty much. (Except maybe certain engine and drivetrain details?)

I'd like to see all racing series move the seat closer to the centre, though; WRC included (as much as possible without interfering with the driver). Safety is important.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

why not have the driver sitting in the center of the car?

I dont know if the car manufacturers would go for that idea, they like their cars to stay as "stock" as possible, i think they would see moving the driver to the middle as a drastic change.
Another thing not to forget is the "tunnel" that houses the exhaust runs down the middle of most touring cars and you cant move that too easily, if at all.
Most touring car seats nowadays have pretty good side support (http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/ ... ges/zoom/REC071080194.jpg) so your generally safe enough.
Mike Jordans accident was just a bit of a freak accident, suppose we can just be glad it wasn't worse.
I dont see a real solution for these kind of side-impact accidents except making better seats.

Quote from MAGGOT :

Out of curiosity, could you name the LMP's with a central position?

Several cars in the Japanese LeMans Series have central cockpits, as this series runs under the ACO reg's these are LMP1 or 2 cars but im not sure which class these ones are...

http://racingsportscars.com/ph ... Motegi-2006-07-02-003.jpg
http://racingsportscars.com/ph ... Motegi-2006-07-02-015.jpg

...i would also like to see more done to protect the drivers from the sides of the cars, but i really don't see them moving into the centre in the touring cars or wrc as they have to use the street car shells and its an awful lot of work to move everything. a more closed-side rollcage might be the answer but then you need to think about trying to get out the car asap if it was on fire or sumthing. its a tricky problem thats for sure.

Glad to here mikes ok though hes a brilliant guy

After seeing that video it looks like for once an accident in the BTCC wasn't caused by careless driving

How much could they do to protect the driver in that situation? It doesn't look to me as if the car has deformed into him but more the impact and energy has hurt him. The drivers body will be pressed very hard into the seat in a side impact so somethings got to give.

Keiran

TBH from what I saw that didn't look like anybody being silly shit happens in motor racing and Woodcote is not the place to get it wrong. That barrier/lack of run off area is alarming and whilst few cars go off there most of them do end up getting destroyed. I guess the argument for not having a tire wall there would be the proximity to the track and the need to prevent cars (and debris) hitting into each other in the pit straight.

As for side impact in touring cars I honestly think they shouldn't need it, those current seats do do an amazing job, I saw a Porsche 944 that hit side on into the metal barrier (inside of Corrum @ Snett) @ around 70 mph 2 weeks ago. It flattened the barrier and marshalls post flew into the air and then came crashing down, the roof was cut off and the guy lifted out but remarkably he got away with bad bruising and shock. It was the sort of crash that could have been so much worse had it not been passenger side and the marshalls not have scattered.

The crash was so particularly damaging because the car hit the wall so squarely.

ajp, you say there is no need for better side impact protection, but then go on to point out that the crash you witnessed would have been worse were it not on the passenger side.

You cannot make a seat solve a basic physics problem. If the car hits an immovable object squarely on the driver's side, the most important safety criteria by far is how much room there is between the driver and the outermost structure. This is even more critical in steel/aluminum vehicles because of the way they deform in an impact.

You can either redesign the cars with a more central driving position and greater use of composites, or you can do what the oval racing Americans have done and install modern energy absorbing barriers.

Had this gentleman hit a safer barrier, he probably would have walked away without brain injury.

It is my opinion that it is not acceptable for high level motorsports to be carried out on circuits that have needlessly shoddy runoffs and walls. Products like the SAFER barrier aren't that expensive in the context of high level motorsports. I'm not arguing that motorsport should be some risk-free activity, just that its silly not to take advantage of technology to protect drivers when it doesn't adversely effect the racing.

Does the safer-barrier get plagued with the same problem that the air barrier in motorcycle racing does? I recall watching a program about a barrier being designed for motorcycle racing in which there basically a large sack of air along the wall. The rider, if dismounted in an accident, would hit the air pocket slowing them down considerably before hitting the wall; if hittin it at all. A problem arose, though; when these barriers were placed on walls closer to the track, the riders were sorta pushed back out onto the racing surface. Do the safer-barriers used on Ovals here in north america have the same problem?

I'd be inclined to think not, because essentially, the barrier gets deformed; it does not necessarily take back its origional shape. That's just how I thought it worked, but I'd like some more insight.

Quote from skiingman :

ajp, you say there is no need for better side impact protection, but then go on to point out that the crash you witnessed would have been worse were it not on the passenger side.

In any production based series (which touring cars should be) the basic layout cannot be changed, the point I was making was the guy got off incredibly lightly with the protection offered by the high sided seat and rollcage, had he been in a lower level single seater/sports racing car without that kind of head protection I dobut he would have got away so (relatively) lightly.

Quote from duke_toaster :

More protection is needed, but central cockpits are unheard of in any sort of closed wheel racing other than a handful of LMP's. Just my £0.02.

FYI, the McLaren F1 GTRs were centally seated by OEM design.

Quote from MAGGOT :

A problem arose, though; when these barriers were placed on walls closer to the track, the riders were sorta pushed back out onto the racing surface. Do the safer-barriers used on Ovals here in north america have the same problem?

No, you are quite correct that the barrier deforms without acting as a spring. The track facing "wall" is four or five steel extrusions welded together vertically and joined at the end of each SAFER section to the next section. In the space behind the steel "wall", there are bundles of foam every so often. The size and shape of the foam bundles can be tuned per application, but more recent SAFER walls claim to have struck a compromise that works well for single-seaters as well as 4000lb stock cars.

The barrier has very little elasticity. It absorbs a tremendous amount of energy as it deforms, but it doesn't "bounce back" per se. It uses the foam in the same sacrificial way a bike helmet does, after it takes a good knock the track crew will quickly replace a section before getting back to racing. Watching NASCAR races it seems that cars are directed back downtrack with less vigor than they were by the original unforgiving concrete walls.

Quote from ajp :

In any production based series (which touring cars should be) the basic layout cannot be changed, the point I was making was the guy got off incredibly lightly with the protection offered by the high sided seat and rollcage, had he been in a lower level single seater/sports racing car without that kind of head protection I dobut he would have got away so (relatively) lightly.

Fair enough. I do think it makes sense to invest in the facility when it benefits all drivers, even if they aren't able to afford the ultimate in driver safety equipment. I agree that the layout shouldn't be dramatically altered, but moving the driver even three or four inches toward the center could have a significant impact (no pun intended) on safety. There are certainly layouts where such a move would not be feasible, and again this seems to support the installation of better barriers/runoff areas.

Quote from skiingman :

Fair enough. I do think it makes sense to invest in the facility when it benefits all drivers, even if they aren't able to afford the ultimate in driver safety equipment. I agree that the layout shouldn't be dramatically altered, but moving the driver even three or four inches toward the center could have a significant impact (no pun intended) on safety.

Most seats are moved into the car as far as is easilly possible to give room for
side impact bars/better weight distribution anyway.