Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackduce
Answer Lucky 161 Having built and designed Indy cars from the transition of front engine roadsters and Champ dirt cars with steel tube frames to a crushable monoque crushable structure. The rules mandate that now. Ask Mr. Ashmore if he ever built a steel tube high speed formula car for 1.5 oval races? This would be a start for you to ask that question. I have to add I am envious of Mr. Ashmores achievments. And I am not on his level. What a life he has had. Most of our design and build was trial and error. I am sorry, I thought these were a new design. I did not know these were used race cars.
Lynn
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You seem to making a big jump to conclude that tube framed cars would be "unsafe for sure..." There were a lot of changes going from tube frames to aluminum monocoque to carbon fiber. To assign only one of those factors as the reason that one material is unsuitable is not likely to be correct.
Aluminum monocoque replaced tube frame design mostly for weight reasons not safety. It turns out they were not very safe. Carbon fiber was introduced to take replace the aluminum monocoque, but was deemed too expensive. The promoters of CF then proposed that CF was safer than the alumnium. The main comparison of CF with steel tube frames was that they were stronger at the same weight, which is true. However, that doesn't mean that steel tube frames cannot be safe (relatively speaking, since no race car of any kind of construction is completely safe). It means only that to build a race car using steel tube frames there would be a weight penalty for doing so. In a scenario where going faster is the goal and where there is plenty of money, that would significantly favor the CF construction. However, that is no longer the case. The cars can already go considerably faster than the sanctioning bodies will/can allow and money is tight.