John
A good thought, but what is the difference between out of control 300 HP and
out of control 600 HP? Not much, I'd say. We had a situation last year, and I
won't go into details, but we as a region dodged a serious bullet in the form
of a driver who became incapacitted whaite on course, driving his Corvette.
Fortunalty, we had the good Lord and fate smiling on us. The car coasted to a
stop, headed away from a public viewing area.
So what could have happened? The driver could have have jammed the throttle
when he took ill, and the car could have been pointed toward the viewing area.
Corvette+instant horsepower+no control+ bad direction=Disaster.
Repalce Nitrous in this scenario and the same story exists. The bottom line
here is we cannot control and out of control vehicle, and in many ways, Solo,
because of the nature of the event and lack of adequte positve protection in
many areas for worker and spectators, can be a more dangeroaus environment
than on road course where positive protection and adequte runoffs are
mandated. I know speeds are higher in road racing, but the possibilty of an
sudden acceleration is very real in Solo, and a serious problem can occur
either with our normal, safe way of running things, or some dummy foolish
enough to use nitrous by reconnecting.
Mike D
> A big THANK YOU to all of you who have responded to the nitrous issue.
> Please keep those responses coming. MY biggest concern is this: What
> happens if somebody accidentally (or intentionally) hits the "go" button
> while on course? Our primary responsibility as Solo Safety Stewards is
> to insure the safety of spectators and course workers. How can we
> insure their safety if somebody's car suddenly turns into an
> out-of-control missile somewhere on the course? When you hit the
> nitrous, you basically double your horsepower - on the spot. It's
> pretty easy to predict what a car's going to do with that kind of boost
> in a straight line. But what's it going to do in a turn or in the
> middle of a slalom? That's where MY biggest concern lies with this
> whole issue. Your thoughts?
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