Originally Posted by ThrowbackRacingTeam:
Might as well run 1/4 miles if safety is such a big concern. No one even got hurt at Pocono this year. Bunch of rich, second rate cry babies that would never make a midget A-main.
Well..... true.... no one was seriously hurt this year. But don't discount Robert Wickens and his injuries from last year and Justin Wilson's death from years' past. I like Pocono, but IndyCar had to make a decision.
Correct me if I am wrong with who brought this up, but I think Will Power is on to something: The problem mainly lies with the catch fencing. Once an IndyCar leaves the ground it goes into the fencing and can easily hook on the fencing from a variety angles of the car. The nose, a wheel, the rear wing, etc. Once that happens it starts spinning wildly and then nothing good will happen. If the fencing did not allow for the open wheel cars to get hooked, the cars would essentially just "ride" along it, albeit airborne, but not spinning wildly as they go. Think of it as the "boards" around a hockey rink - smooth and high.
Now a stock car or IMSA car is a different beast. There is less to get hung up on a fence once one of those goes airborne. Closed cockpit aside, those cars have less of a chance of hurting driver in a Wickens/Rosenqvist-type mess.
Now granted, something like the boards in hockey with shatterproof glass atop would more than likely not be feasible in racing, but how about a huge tall wall around the outside of some of the Pocono corners? Nothing is outside of Turns 1 or 2 as far as fan viewing goes, so it is not like you are impacting sight lines. Knoxville, for example, has a huge armco wall outside of Turns 1 and 2. There is no "fencing" there at all. So someone has already picked up on this idea. It would just have to be improved upon for larger tracks like Pocono.
I like to think IndyCar left Pocono for safety purposes. Next comes their standard windscreen. The little fin in front of where the windscreen will go also served James Hinchcliffe well in the Pocono wreck, as pointed out in another thread on IOW. A series cannot back off on safety when there are immediate problems facing them.
But as far as "smooth" fencing goes, it will be interesting to see if any of this technology kicks in in the next decade, or so. Look at how the SAFER barriers eventually came about. It all started with styrofoam blocks. They worked well on some smaller ovals, but cleanup was a debacle. It took quite awhile to make the final product work, but eventually it was put in place. The SAFER barriers are here to stay.
Let us see if this idea gains steam.
