In a message dated 11/15/1999 11:13:31 AM Pacific Standard Time,
dfergus@bactc.com writes:
<<
When you say George lost a major portion of his belly pan do you mean it
fell off ? If that was the case, shouldn't he have been reinspected? I have
seen cars that spin or handle poorly get sent straight to impound for
reinspection to ensure the safety of both the car and driver. Often we get
too excited about racing to take a step back to look at the big picture, and
run with less than 100% equipment. More often than not, this is when you get
bit. I'm glad to hear George is OK after his crash but hopefully this might
bring to light my concerns as far as safety.
Darrell
>>
Group,
George was pitted next to me at the World Finals, so I saw the whole
thing take shape over the course of a couple of days. The part of the
belly-pan he lost, as I recall, was the part from the motor-plate fwd. I
heard him say that it might have come loose when the rusted Dzus fastener
attach points failed. I don't know if he spun the car on the run where he
lost the belly-pan, or if he had the car reinspected before running it again.
SCTA ruless call for re-inspection after a spin, but I'm not sure what they
require after losing a body part.
Next thing I knew was when it flipped in the 3rd mile. On Friday, the day
I left after blowing a cylinder wall, George and crew had the trailered
remains of the car parked at the 8 X 30 dumpster which they were trying to
fill with chartreuse fiberglass.
In 1990, after I spun thelakester right in front of the timing stand on
the return leg of a record run (Cagle jabbered about the spin on the CB for a
while), I started to head for the pits when my crew suggested that while a
spin terminates a record attempt it doesn't necessarily negate the whole
effort. The times we recorded in the same relative mile of both passes
exceeded the old record, so we got it.
Ardun Doug King
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