Cancelled TMS CART race in 2001.

[Nem14]

In Brian Carroccio's article (part 2) that looks back at past Indy Car CEOs, it says:

In July of 2000, Rahal along with Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage announced there would be a 2001 CART race at the 1.5 mile oval.
Of course, that race would ultimately be cancelled as drivers found the speeds too dangerous.

The race was cancelled because CART discovered, just prior to the race, there were physical laws of nature that made it impractical to race CART Indy cars there at speed.
The slower IRL cars could race there, and had, with no problems related to physical laws of nature.

The story of how the race came to be cancelled is covered in chapter 33 - CART Screws Up Big Time - of Dr. Stephen Olvey's book - Rapid Response.

The medical staff determined the issues that led to the cancellation of the race.
However, Olvey says some drivers did express reservations to him about the track before they actually went there.

Testing at the track was done by Rahal's team on a "very cold" winter day, which limited the test car's top speed to 206 mph. Kenny Brack was the test driver.
Wally Dallenbach and Kirk Russel went on record against having an event at that track after just driving around the track in a rental car. They didn't like the sharp increase in angle going from the straights up onto the banking. Dallenbach and Russel also suspected that the cars would be going so fast at that track that safety would be compromised.
Some speculate that Rahal had his own agenda, but those voices in and out of CART that expressed concerns about the track were overruled/ignored.

After incidents both on and off the track during practice, CART's medical staff discovered that the banking angle and car speed (232 mph average practice speed) was causing drivers to suffer vertigo and/or G-LOC (G-force induced Loss Of Consciousness).

Olvey was given permission to look at proprietary G sensor information from Paul Tracy's car.
That information showed that drivers were being subjected to concurrent vertical (about 3.5G) and lateral G's (about 5.5G), something not previously experienced to that degree by open wheel race car drivers. Jet fighter pilots of the day didn't experience concurrent vertical and lateral G-loads either, and wore a G-suit when they expected to encounter more than 4G. In other words, there was no scientific literature about what happens to people subjected to concurrent vertical and lateral G-loads.

An emergency driver's meeting was called and it emerged that 18 of the 20 drivers had experienced symptoms related to excessive G-loading. The 2 drivers that had no symptoms had done less than 4 consecutive laps.
All 20 drivers would have likely had debilitating G-LOC symptoms after 6 or more laps during the race.

A meeting of CART management, team owners, track management, and tire/engine reps lasted 9.5 hours exploring ways to slow the cars down enough to avoid the driver G-loading problems.
No solutions were found, so the race was cancelled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-LOC

[FIAT1]

In Brian Carroccio's article (part 2) that looks back at past Indy Car CEOs, it says:

The race was cancelled because CART discovered, just prior to the race, there were physical laws of nature that made it impractical to race CART Indy cars there at speed.
The slower IRL cars could race there, and had, with no problems related to physical laws of nature.

The story of how the race came to be cancelled is covered in chapter 33 - CART Screws Up Big Time - of Dr. Stephen Olvey's book - Rapid Response.

The medical staff determined the issues that led to the cancellation of the race.
However, Olvey says some drivers did express reservations to him about the track before they actually went there.

Testing at the track was done by Rahal's team on a "very cold" winter day, which limited the test car's top speed to 206 mph. Kenny Brack was the test driver.
Wally Dallenbach and Kirk Russel went on record against having an event at that track after just driving around the track in a rental car. They didn't like the sharp increase in angle going from the straights up onto the banking. Dallenbach and Russel also suspected that the cars would be going so fast at that track that safety would be compromised.
Some speculate that Rahal had his own agenda, but those voices in and out of CART that expressed concerns about the track were overruled/ignored.

After incidents both on and off the track during practice, CART's medical staff discovered that the banking angle and car speed (232 mph average practice speed) was causing drivers to suffer vertigo and/or G-LOC (G-force induced Loss Of Consciousness).

Olvey was given permission to look at proprietary G sensor information from Paul Tracy's car.
That information showed that drivers were being subjected to concurrent vertical (about 3.5G) and lateral G's (about 5.5G), something not previously experienced to that degree by open wheel race car drivers. Jet fighter pilots of the day didn't experience concurrent vertical and lateral G-loads either, and wore a G-suit when they expected to encounter more than 4G. In other words, there was no scientific literature about what happens to people subjected to concurrent vertical and lateral G-loads.

An emergency driver's meeting was called and it emerged that 18 of the 20 drivers had experienced symptoms related to excessive G-loading. The 2 drivers that had no symptoms had done less than 4 consecutive laps.
All 20 drivers would have likely had debilitating G-LOC symptoms after 6 or more laps during the race.

A meeting of CART management, team owners, track management, and tire/engine reps lasted 9.5 hours exploring ways to slow the cars down enough to avoid the driver G-loading problems.
No solutions were found, so the race was cancelled.

G-LOC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to worry we won't have that problem for long time to come ,if ever.

[call_me_andrew]

Was this split from another thread or are we discussing history and trigonometry for kicks and giggles?

[Andrewmcm]

It's an interesting notion. People keep banging on about wanting "A Newwww Track Record" at Indy, but the fact is that we will ultimately end up at a point where humans cannot stand the forces that the cars will generate at a sufficiently high speed.

Yes, I know Texas has higher banking than Indy and so on, but Texas was a good insight into the fundamental limits of humans in racing cars.

[Anubis]

It's an interesting notion. People keep banging on about wanting "A Newwww Track Record" at Indy, but the fact is that we will ultimately end up at a point where humans cannot stand the forces that the cars will generate at a sufficiently high speed.

Or even if they can, they're less likely to survive the results of things going wrong at said speeds.

[bricarr2]

Andrew:


When I set out to write an article about Indy car CEOs I certainly did not foresee this discussion. However, you raise a fascinating point.

Making the race cars faster may not be the issue. Rather the human limits may be the issue that keeps speeds in check.

[MAX_THRUST]

I think at that time CART was strong and wanted to keep pushing the "Fastest series in the world" tag line. I was interested to read the above thanks for posting. It was an interesting season that year and the accident to Alex Z at Germany reminded everyone how dangerous ovals were. The series had a great mix of ovals and road, street circuits that year and for me being the first time I attended a race, still remains in my opinion the best season. Shame it all came to an end.

[bricarr2]

I think at that time CART was strong and wanted to keep pushing the "Fastest series in the world" tag line. I was interested to read the above thanks for posting. It was an interesting season that year and the accident to Alex Z at Germany reminded everyone how dangerous ovals were. The series had a great mix of ovals and road, street circuits that year and for me being the first time I attended a race, still remains in my opinion the best season. Shame it all came to an end.

Max:

You're right. CART had an incredibly deep field in 2001 and still 3 engine manufacturers. Sadly, they could never come to a consensus as to how to to grow the series going forward, and the indecision played right into Anton's hands.

[Nem14]

Alex didn't drive an Indy (or F1) car in 2000, the year the TMS race was cancelled. But, he got an Indy car ride with Mo Nunn for the 2001 season.

Alex Zanardi's incident at the Lausitzring in Germany happened on 9/15/2001, just a few days after the 9/11 terrorist attack on America.

[Civic]

A similar situation regarding the human body's physical limits is already happening in aerial warfare. There are already AAMs/SAMs and UCAVs in development that would exceed the performance envelope of any manned aircraft now or in the future.

I don't remember the aero package used but I'm assuming the cars were in superspeedway trim. I wonder if the short oval aero would've made the cars slow enough.