[nathans1012]

Come across this on the POWRi website via twitter post.
Rule Changes encouraged; but not mandatory for WAR Sprints in 2019

Link - http://www.powri.com/news/?i=67090

[ISF]

Just from a bleacher jockey perspective this Sprint Car Council has the potential to bear some very significant fruit. A small, but very important, slice of our life is dedicated to the enjoyment that is derived from watching extremely extraordinary things accomplished in open wheel racecars by seemingly ordinary people. It's a safe assumption that everyone reading this feels much the same way. ANYTHING that can be enacted by anyone or any group which will reduce the incidence and possibility of bad things happening to any and all those responsible for putting on "the show" is a heartening development.

It's great to see that Casey is equally involved with this combined effort. In the long run that involvement can only bring about positive changes while mitigating the financial strain over a reasonable period of time. Many of us wingless open wheel enthusiast's that hail from to the west of Indiana hold Casey's WAR Sprint Car Series as somewhat our own given that several races close to home are on the schedule from year to year.

[Jonr]

My only wish is that Casey would have put a year in the future that WAR would be required to follow the rules. I understand not making everyone do it this winter, but having it a year or two in the future would require everyone to prepare for it.

[sprinter31]

I want to thank Casey for giving us time, as a War Regular we work regular jobs and odd jobs too just to make it to the track. We don't have 100k or 200k budgets. We just love to race and have non wing racing close to home. If Casey enforced the rule this year, his car count would be down by 10 to 12 cars. Anybody that know me know my cars will be legal, but we will have to have to cut cost on tires or shocks. Casey and Brooke take care of their racers and I would not want to race with any other series. Thank You

[cshuman]

As of right now there is a strong possibility we will require the changes for the 2020 season, but we have to also understand that in the next 5-6 months, there could be developments or tweaks to the rules that the council has just posted. We are going to keep an eye on it, and continue to be involved with the councils meetings. The council has a solid group of people involved, and they have one common goal to make this sport safer in all areas, including track safety. We really do encourage our teams to strongly consider the changes for the upcoming season.

[Chief Wahoo]

Originally Posted by cshuman As of right now there is a strong possibility we will require the changes for the 2020 season, but we have to also understand that in the next 5-6 months, there could be developments or tweaks to the rules that the council has just posted. We are going to keep an eye on it, and continue to be involved with the councils meetings. The council has a solid group of people involved, and they have one common goal to make this sport safer in all areas, including track safety. We really do encourage our teams to strongly consider the changes for the upcoming season.

Thank you for all you do

[darnall]

I see Caseys decision as being spot on for a blue collar series.....Or any series that only survives when owners can field cars and healthy talented drivers are available 2 gas em up....

Almost makes me think maybe Casey has experience with owning cars, driving cars, driving for a low budget owners, driving for big buck mega teams, at a tight bullring with no ambulance for $600 to win last night and tomorrow night at a dirt superspeedway for 6 figures to win with the same car. Surely nobody under the age of 70 could have that much experience though..

I will never understand how a 3rd year promoter still in his 30s has been able to take a series that grew so fast with Andy, Hoss and posse in charge and maintain the steep and steady trajectory WAR had since day one. More nicer tracks, more cars, more drivers willing to haul 6 hours and pass 25 other racetracks to get to a WAR show... oh wait...they aren't coming because of Casey, they come because their ego loves the thought of winning a race that people can watch on TV. Betcha Casey found that website... FLYONTHEWALLdotcom, that lets him overhear 20 years worth of discussions/negotiations between track owners, series bosses, contingency sponsors, manufacturers, and advertisers and understand what each needs out of a deal. Or maybe hes blackmailing Forest Lucas to get all those televised races on Mav and dates at nice facilities... gotta be one or the other but it's working so keep it up.

Ya know... seems like there was a similar story a couple decades ago... some dirt racer guy out west started trying to book a few races at a few tracks to go along with a strong weekly show at one track.. if I remember right, within a few years this local extracurricular series grew into the sanctioning body for all the highest paying nonwing shows from coast to coast, had 20 or so teams willing to cross the country once or twice a year to support the series, and plenty often the big check stayed within the series instead of being cherrypicked by some of the big name USAC teams they went head to head with when they went on the road. That dude learned how to accommodate the needs of all the business partners, please the paying customer, and maintain a good core group of owners/drivers who woulda drove the rig off a cliff if the guy told em he could book a show down at the bottom.

In my old age I'm havin a hard time remembering that guys name... I wanna say Don Shoemaker but thats wrong...he was a famous horse racer...or Miami Dolphins coach??? If any IOWers can remember any race history before messageboards maybe youll know who I'm talkin about... maybe Casey could call him or meet him someday and ask for some pointers.

Or maybe the only credit Casey deserves is props for marrying up... maybe WAR keeps kickin butt cause Casey married a girl whos entire extended family spent 4 nights in the shop and 3 in the pits every week of her life..never with unlimited budgets...maybe a family with more heart and talent than one gene pool should ever get...maybe her family dipped a toe in promoting to honor someone they lost, and due to another loss they worked harder to honor both and created the biggest, most diverse, most coveted 3 day openwheel show ever imagined in their part of the country..

It's likely that nobody will ever understand why one promoter can be successful, supported and appreciated year after year while another promoter a few miles away is surrounded by chaos, drama and discontent until they suddenly close down for good mid season. But one thing we can all do is recognize when somebody lucks into having a good growing track or series. Recognize em, jump on the I KNEW ITD WORK bandwagon, and make sure we smack talk every troll who ever asks a legitimate question or offers an idea on twitter.

[darnall]

As for this particular choice regarding these particular rules... I see at least 2 that don't apply here... if you show up at a WAR show with unsafe wing mounts IK for sure they make you remove all the wings as a penalty

Seems like many of the WAR cars have 4 point nerfbars.... the bulk of the rest are on full length 3 point nerfs... so far not many guys think tiny featherweight qualifying bumpers cotterpinned in the spuds are a speed secret for a nonwing group with a slightly chubby weight rule.

On the others lets remember how we got here.... 10 or so years ago somebody decided that all aluminum can only break, not bend, and all steel can only bend and will never break. since we already knew its dangerous to race with no steering we mandated only steel tie rods and draglinks were good enuf to tie aluminum pittman arms to aluminum steering arms on aluminum spindles... Now most of this contact will just BEND the steering, not break it, and still give the driver some control throughout the rest of the crash..

Usually cars quit steering cause the front axle was knocked out from under the arms... a huge percentage of front axles were knocked out because they clipped a giant yuke tire that, despite its mass, never finished a race night in the place it was set earlier.

Darland and Stanbrough are legends, but even on their best day I can't picture em being able to "Save it" 3 flips into a 12 rotation snap roll because a steel draglink bent without breaking. And you could build tierods outta krypton and kevlar all day long but a yuke tire will still knock the beam out from under the spring and park you. Did we put our heads together, develop a berm profile that allowed an escape path but still discouraged the infield groove, and demand the removal of yuke tire infield markers. No, we let em mandate steel tierods, draglinks and steering hiems.... I don't remember a reduction of wrecked cars continuing on until the broken draglink put em in the wall... but I do seem to remember more stories that included the phrases Hand Injury, Wrist Injury, arm fracture. No need to rush into mandating more steel rods and hiems.

I hate to take part in any discussion focusing on tethers. Unlimited hydroplane raceboats and fighter jets both have amazing crash survival numbers. I tend to think thats because as soon as something goes wonky either the drivers compartment or the pilot are ejected away from the object thats gonna carry all the inertia through each impact...they also get ejected away from fuel storage, spinning prop blades, etc.

If getting the driver away from the equipment helps those guys laugh off a crash why are we trying so hard to keep all these broken parts tied to the same part of the car that the driver is tied to? I remember... a once in a lifetime accident at Knoxville sent most of a front axle assembly over the fence, across the highway and through a hyundai windshield in the grocerystore parkinglot. Everybody said WHAT IF ITD HIT IN THE GRANDSTANDS INSTEAD OF THE HYUNDAI???? We gotta do something about these cars before this once in a lifetime event happens again.... Many of us replied with WHAT IF YER FENCE WAS 16 INCHES TALLER AND KNOCKED IT DOWN... didn't matter..too late.. no way the track can afford to make the fence 2ft taller, especially not in a week.. lets just mandate something in the name of safety.. they were barely on the market a couple weeks prior and now suddenly we need a pair on every wing car front axle in the country this coming weekend. Sure our drivers are now a human pinata with 10 ballbats worth of tethered broken twisted steel rods and tubes swingin at em while in a crash... but thats OK cause all our mandates always lay responsibility back on the teams instead of our facilities. Now the tethers we all had to buy not long ago aren't even OK unless you convert them to wraparound mount... So I hate tethers, the tether people say they suck until you quit bolting them on, we are drastically increasing the chances of another Kevin Gobrecht type injury by keeping steel spears tied to the motorplate, but we act like tethers are great because since the mandate weve not had one more stinking front axle kill a hyundai windshield in a grocerystore parkinglot..... probably really smart of Casey to not rush to mandate that revised mandate

[Charles Nungester]

Honestly, I hate that it cost so much more just to put the car on the track due to mandates.

That being said, Safety should be long before the brand new chassis and the Rider engine.

JUST DO IT! You can run on a injected lawn mower engine till you got that covered.

[Slider20]

So are we going to see USAC give teams an adequate amount of time (in terms of a deadline like WAR) to make the necessary safety changes? More often than not the back half/quarter of the field are local racers on a lot of nights.