Oops! It didn't work as advertised.

[Nem14]

The new car anti-launch rear bumper that is.
And, it failed in it's intended role at a relatively low speed. Marco's car even gained some altitude after it launched.

The rear bumper looks to be about as good an idea as putting a canopy over the drivers.

It looks like Graham Rahal had a serious wetware processing fault (ID-10-T error) there.

Marco Andretti + Rahal Big Airbourne Crash Long Beach 2012 IndyCar - YouTube (http://youtu.be/KWCRCP6GO44)

[Andrewmcm]

Front wheel to rear wheel contact lifts the nose of the car in a vertical sense. It seems that it's the subsequent contact of the rear wheel of the following car to the rear wheel of the leading car that really launches the trailing car in the air at an arbitrary angle.

Compare and contrast Marco's incident with that of Webber at Valencia in 2010. No rear wheel to rear wheel contact for Webber, and the car largely flies in a straight line. Marco's incident (and his take-off) is made much worse by this secondary wheel to wheel contact.

There's not much that can be done to prevent this, other than the cars not touching in the first place.

[garyshell]

The new car anti-launch rear bumper that is.
And, it failed in it's intended role at a relatively low speed. Marco's car even gained some altitude after it launched.


I was waiting for such a message to appear. One sample incident and let's throw the damn thing out? Yep let's just go back to doing nothing at all to prevent cars from launching. <shakes head>

Yes the car launched, so what? It's racing there is no way to 100% guarantee that the cars will never launch again. There were several other incidents today that would have resulted in cut tires and possible launches. Rubens had one such incident. The bumpers and side pods made for much braver racing than we have seen in a long time.

As was said above,it was really the secondary contact that caused the car to gain altitude.

Gary

[Nikki Katz]

I think the point was more to prevent the cars from running with a front wheel on one car inside a rear wheel on another, so any slight error would definitely result in wheel to wheel contact. It's clearly not going to prevent cars from going airborne altogether as it's only made from fairly flimsy carbon fibre. Likewise with the rear bumper, it's more so the first brush would be against that, if someone's going much faster than the car in front and hits then it's still obviously going to get launched.

I think we need to see the ovals for how these things work, but I don't think this proves them unsuccessful at all.

Still looks weird though.

[FIAT1]

Best solution to a flaying problem is to bring other builders in to the competition and Dallara would disappear as they should. Builder of ugly should never been picked up in the first place. Defenders of this design please restrain yourself, because fact of the matter is that one ugly bumper will not correct flaws of these cars, and fact is that Dallara had more cars flying in short years in the series, then all other builders combined from the bigining of Indycar . When is somone going to say ,ENOUGH? Harsh? Yes, because there is no excuse or some other spin on this situation. I really want this series to build great product that once was and be the best of the best , but this bs is pi..ng me off.

[Andrewmcm]

Let's not slate the current Dallara, and let's not say that it's the solution to all launching problems. It wold be nice to have one of those rare things on an Internet forum: an informed discussion without the usual knee-jerk reactionary nonsense and futile agenda pushing.

[FIAT1]

Informed discussion is stating the fact, nothing more.

[Phoenixent]

If there were some type of blow off panels on the side pods that come off or open when there is a pressure change on and in the side pods to create large hole and eliminate the lifting surface. Roush Racing came up the the flaps used in Nascar and they work for the most part to keep the car down. It's not that had to think out of the box but it's something that Dallara has a hard time with.

[downtowndeco]

If want them to never leave the ground lets reduce the horsepower to 200, increase the weight to 5k, make them block shaped & add a parachute to each corner.

Seriously. While all efforts to make the cars safer should be applauded, we have to be realistic about it too. On YouTube a year or two ago someone had posted a collection of "flying cars" Most were not Indycars. Every concievable variation of racing cars on all sorts of circuits from around the world were shown going airborn. This is not just an Indycar problem This is a "race cars going fast" problem. Indycars just happen to race faster, closer more often.

[Phoenixent]

I agree with you Downtown....... Cars have been airborne in crashes since 1909 so most have to just get off this band wagon realize that cars will always get airborne if everything lines up just right during a crash. When the make the cars Mag-Lev's then they won't have that issue anymore...

[Anubis]

The question you have to ask yourself by way of comparison is what would've happened had the bumper structure NOT been there? Would that have been a smaller or bigger accident? Might not have stopped the car getting airborne, but maybe it stopped the car getting REALLY airborne or flipping over as the two rotating wheels got a "kick" from each other?

[00steven]

It looked to me he hit the back of the sidepod more than the bumper. The sport is incredibly dangerous, all we can do is make it as safe as possible without going overboard. If the drivers would look out for each other a little more, a lot of potentially bad accidents could be avoided.

[Marbles]

I think we need to see the ovals for how these things work, but I don't think this proves them unsuccessful at all.


Yes, this is really what's important. We'll see.

I think calling these things bumpers is a little too generous. I could easily tear one of these things off in a fit of rage without breaking a sweat but I digress... CART's Lolas, Reynards and F1 cars have all gone skyward although this one did get some pretty good distance and to be honest, I think it's awkward backwards landing was the best chance that Andretti had at actually making that corner. Cop out on Rahal's part but what else was he going to say? "Guilty as charged!"

My personal theory is that the corners of the cars, especially the front wheels, are so much stronger than they were just a decade ago. Instead the wheel, control arm, suspension, etc. doesn't simply crumple as it it did in years past. Front to rear contact similar to what Franchitti did with Newgarden and RHR on Sato would create a lot more concern in years past -- now there seems to little to worry about. The Bing car looked very drive-able after it was pulled out of the tire barrier -- surprisingly.

[heliocastroneves#3]

You can't stop cars going airborne. But hey, it doesn't happen every race.. :)

Racing has it's dangerous aspects, and it will be always like that. Especially on the ovals.

[Nem14]

I was waiting for such a message to appear. One sample incident and let's throw the damn thing out? Yep let's just go back to doing nothing at all to prevent cars from launching. <shakes head>

Yes the car launched, so what? It's racing there is no way to 100% guarantee that the cars will never launch again. There were several other incidents today that would have resulted in cut tires and possible launches. Rubens had one such incident. The bumpers and side pods made for much braver racing than we have seen in a long time.

As was said above,it was really the secondary contact that caused the car to gain altitude.

Gary

Full fendered sedans sometimes launch from car to car contact, even on road courses. The rear bumper may reduce the number of Indy Car launches, somewhat, but that is the best it will be able to do.

The only sure solution to keeping race cars of any kind from sometimes launching when they have contact, is to not race cars of any kind.

Graham Rahal got a 6 race probation for that utterly amazing, ill-advised move.

[nigelred5]

They are trying to stop a car.... with wings.... travelling at highspeed....from going airborne..... think about it. Cars that have for years have been advertised as being capable of sticking to the ceiling upside down if going the right speed. A piper cub takes off around what... 40-45 mph?? It's going to happen..

[nigelred5]

They shaped the rear attenuators like a ramp. It looked like Marco's front wheel was able to climb right over the bumper. Did anyone see Webber almost get airborne again in this weeks the F1 race from singapore? F1 cars riding a wheelie......

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/59697000/jpg/_59697593_mmwebberwheelie.jpg

[call_me_andrew]

The only sure solution to keeping race cars of any kind from sometimes launching when they have contact, is to not race cars of any kind.

That's quitter talk. I demand to have my cake and eat it too.

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