Topic: RIP
started by: kuru
i watched the daytona 500 today. and when i saw the wreck in the final lap that dale earndhart got into i thought 'shit he's gonna feel that one tomorrow.'
well, as it turns out, he won't be feelin anything tomorrow.
dale earndhart died at age 49, and will be missed.
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost
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We will never forget you.
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"There is no hell, just France." - Frank Zappa
I guess the only consolation about this is that he died holding off the entire pack so that his teammate (Michael Waltrip... brother of Darrell Waltrip, now a commentator) could win his first Winson Cup race, at Daytona, no less. And, so his son could come in second. Kind of a silly reason to die for some people, but I think that that's probably the way he would have wanted to go.
You will be greatly missed, Intimidator.
he had an amazing career, and it's a shame it had to end so suddenly.
he was known as probably the greatest driver to ever sit in a race car, and while he wasn't my favorite driver, i know that racing won't be the same. at least he went out doing what he loved and he probably felt no pain.
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost
"my father used to tell me that childhood is over the moment you realize that you are going to die"
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...when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost
And I don't really think that's how he wanted to go, do you? I love breakdancing but I don't want to buy it in the middle of a headspin (although I nearly have, or rather, at the bone-crunching collapse of a headspin).
It's pretty weird when a racing driver dies like that though isn't it? I don't mean to get sentimental but it sort of shows how fragile life is. That one moment you're just doing your thing and the next, nothing, just eternal non-existence (unless you believe in life after death in which case just before you disappear out of existence you start thinking of rabbits in some kind of attempt to sway mystical forces that don't exist).
Saw a guy die in the bullring last night (no, I dislike it, think it's cowardly but I don't know much about it so I watched a documentary on the TV). A guy got rammed repatedly by the bull after he stuck some sharp sticks in its back. On one ram the bull put its left horn first at the guys side and I thought 'Shit, that's gone in' not knowing that the guy was going to die because of this attack. The bull charged off somewhere else leaving the torrero on the floor, he sat up and clutched at his side, I though 'Shit, it DID go in' and then the narrator said that the horn had gone straight through his lung and punctured the guy's heart. Shit way to go.
My condolences (like anyone that knows him comes here) and that but I'm an atheist, he's gone to a better place, one where he doesn't know he doesn't exist.
Anybody else see Ayrton Senna's crash at Imola? Nobody thought he was gonna walk away from that one. And he didn't, the car ended up smalled than him. Suspension wishbone through the head, at least it was fast I guess.
I'm rambling. He had a nice 'tasche aswell.
How many drivers die in Nascar every year?
cheers
maybe what stock car racing really needs is to slow it down by 50 mph or so. that way it can go back to what it should be, driver against driver, not machine against machine.
i love stock car racing, but there's no damn reason that four people a year should have to DIE for it.
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost
quote:
Originally posted by kuru:
there are no pads, no helmets and no restraints that will stop your brain from bouncing around in your skull like a ping pong ball when you hit a wall at 180 mph.maybe what stock car racing really needs is to slow it down by 50 mph or so. that way it can go back to what it should be, driver against driver, not machine against machine.
i love stock car racing, but there's no damn reason that four people a year should have to DIE for it.
The way the track is set up, there is no place the you can hit a wall dead on at full speed. Even though they are going 180 forward they cant transfer that energy laterally into the wall fast enough to change 90 full degrees. They can and do hit hard but not a full 180.
second it wasnt the fact that his brain bounced around in his head that killed him. It was the g force his helmet put on his neck. At 90 mph(which is the estimated impact speed with wall) his helmet goes from weighing 8 lbs to around 425 lbs. It severed his brainstem and did some crazy damage to his occipital lobe.
Third nascar already requires the racers to use a carburetor restrictor to limit thier speed. Befor the restrictor they used to hit 240.
Fourth lets think what pads would do to a car brushing against it runing 180 mph. The front right corner would grab increasing the friction and increasing the grab. All this would result in a 180 mph spin out....which is bad. If you watch the test videos for the pad designs, whether they be made of cardboard, rubber, honey comb polymer, or water/sand it always ends up the same.
They need to required the helmet restraints. A 2 inch vinyl strap that connects the spine of thier race suit to the back of their helmet. Its already required for kart(open cockpit) but optional for nascar. It keeps thier helmet from snapping thier neck during a hi speed crash.
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And padding will stop someone dieing when they hit at 180. They're in a stock car for christ's sake, it's huge. Formula 1 cars are tiny and I've seen some bad, bad accidents and almost everyone has walked away from them (the rest limped a bit).
cheers
quote:
Originally posted by LazyGit:
Bullshit. With the right structure around it I could throw an egg at a wall and have it not break. It's all to do with deceleration.
Exactly. The only question is do you put the decelerator on the wall or possibly in the car. Padded walls prevent injuries in head on crashes but seem to result in just as many injuries from "grazing" the wall. But what if the whole driver seat was suspended on a high absorbsion suspesion system or even a magnetic suspension controlled by a feedback loop. Theres more than one way to skin a Cat. Or stuff one in a jar. < www.bonsaikitten.com >
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost
he wrecked an suv, rolled it, seatbelt on. the "3rd impact" as it's called is what killed him. his cause of death was listed as 'massive head injuries'. what happened is that all the bouncing around of his brain in his skull caused major concussions, his brain swelled up, and the pressure from the swelling killed him.
you can pad a lot of things, but the only thing the brain really has is maybe an inch of fluid on all sides to prevent it from hitting bone. it weighs about 3lbs. what does 3 lbs turn into in force when it has to go from 90 to 0 in 2 seconds? it's a fragile bundle of squishy little nerves.
life's fragile. more so than we think. you run dead into a wall goin nearly 100 mph in a car, you probably are not gonna make it.
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost
With regard to the head trauma, Kuru is right on this one, In extremely high speed crashes, closed skull trauma can occur to the brain, due to the twisting and tearing forces caused by acceleration/deceleration.
If the body comes to a sudden stop, including the head and skull, the brain continues to move and slams into the inner skull wall. Even helmet straps unfortunately aren't going to prevent this at extremely high speeds.
The only real way to prevent death in racing is _not to race_. Once you make a conscious decision to get in that car, you're recognizing the fact that you could get hurt or possibly die..
Of course as a racer myself, I try to recognize this, and I don't think eating it in a race (or doing anything I love) would be a bad thing-- as dying goes.
Much better than in a hospital bed stuffed w/ tubes
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And something I was thinking about the other day... try sprinting 10 m/h and then imediately turn around and run the other way! It's pretty damn uncomfortable, AND it'll take about a second to get you balance. If you watch the video he hit it HEAD ON at 180, then in a spill second was going at LEAST 50 backwards! That's just insane, and no doubt your brain would be pretty screwed up.
Oh well, I'm not a big racing fan.
And I don't agree that he died doing what he loved... He loved the part where he's driving, not crashing... big difference.
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quote:
Originally posted by PersonGuy:
[And I don't agree that he died doing what he loved... He loved the part where he's driving, not crashing... big difference.[/B]
good point.
I went to physics class that night and we discussed what happened with his head while he was crashing and what kind of impact/speed he'd have to be going to be totally decapitated. Maybe it's just me, i thought that was slightly disrespectful. Our teacher (some guy from NASA) said that was the only way to learn...history presents examples. I must admit...it was kind of interesting, i just felt weird talking about this guy's inards/head flying around when he had just died. It's more fun to talk about hypothetically.
Second he DID NOT hit the wall with a force of 180 mph. Here is a generalized example. He was traveling east at 180 mph. He lost the rear end and it diverted his inertial movement to the northeast and into the wall. A majority of his inertia was still heading in an east direction. So lets say that his path moved 45*(which is very improbable it change this much) north(if it moved 90* he wouldnt have kept sliding in an eastern direction) That would mean that the speed he hit the wall at, is 90 mph(which is still bad). Now the whole accident only takes a few seconds. If you are doing 100 mph and you jerk the wheel to one side how fast does the car respond.(usually the front wheels go into a skid and the car continues in its original path of inertia) Now imagine how fast the car would respond at 180. What are the chances that some sort of head restraint could have helped in a 45 mph or a 65 mph collision?
The oval track is designed so that there is no place the driver can impact the wall at a perpendicular angle at racing speeds. Even in the turns you do not put the full force of your turn into the wall.
Now lets reasses the situation.
quote:
Originally posted by PersonGuy:
And something I was thinking about the other day... try sprinting 10 m/h and then imediately turn around and run the other way! It's pretty damn uncomfortable, AND it'll take about a second to get you balance. If you watch the video he hit it HEAD ON at 180, then in a split second was going at LEAST 50 backwards!
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