sow’s ear look like a silk purse. I’m not an expert on aerodynamics or an engineer but I do know a little bit of something about Bernoulli’s principles. In very simple terms a wing is a wing, period. It doesn’t matter if it’s going forwards or backwards. It only affects the control surfaces used to change directions but as there aren’t any control surfaces on the wing of the Kit Car (another great Monte description) we can forget about it. When enough lift is created, a wing will cause whatever it’s attached to to go airborne. Newman’s car is probably the best example of this. His car was going fast enough while going backwards to generate enough lift over the wing to cause the rear end to lift off the ground and give us the spectacular wreck we all witnessed.
I’m not an engineer but I did have 50 hours flight time as a student pilot before I joined the Air Force and then spent the next 20+ years either working on aircraft or guided munitions (i.e. laser guided bombs, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles), both of which involve aerodynamic principles. I know that a lot of time goes into designing the wings used on both aircraft and munitions to create the best lift and least drag possible. A lot of time is spent in wind tunnels and on computer simulations to give the engineers a pretty good idea of just how well the wings are going to work. And they also test these same wings in wind tunnels to see what happens when the air goes backwards over these same wings. This is particularly important on an aircraft because it helps to develop maneuvers a pilot can use to correct the aircraft’s attitude and return it to a normal flight attitude.
Now if His Royal Highness had truly had engineers at the super secret R&D Center checking out the prototypes of Crusty’s Old Toilet, they would’ve started out with scale models of the car and done some wind tunnel testing to see just what all would happen with it not only going forwards but backwards as well. They would’ve seen that same wing which keeps the car on the ground while moving forward would also cause the car to lift when it goes backwards. They would’ve also seen that the old rear end spoiler would’ve acted like a plow to slow the car down and keep the rear of the car on the ground. They could’ve just as easily have watched some wrecks of Indy cars before the installation of the Hanford devices and seen what happens. But these rely on the use of common sense and as we know, common sense isn’t very common when it comes to His Royal Highness and his henchmen.
If they really were so dead set on having a wing on the back of the Crap on Tires, they could just as easily have used some 1960’s technology pioneered by Jim Hall with the Chaparral cars. The wing stayed horizontal when the car was on a straightaway and came down to an almost vertical position to block the wind and give the car control and down force in the corners. But that’s 1960’s technology and we can’t have any of that in Faux King Brian’s New and Improved NA$CAR.
Which leads us into another aspect which doesn’t seem to be addressed and that’s once again another flaw with the hype of the Can of Tuna. According to the safety hype put out about the Can of Tuna, the bigger greenhouse on the car was supposed to keep the driver safe because it wouldn’t collapse thus giving the driver easier access to escape from the car after it came to rest. This wasn’t the case with Newman’s car. The roof and roll cage collapsed to the point that Newman’s helmet was touching the roof. Now, had this been a taller driver like the Human Shill, we’d have been reading about either his death from serious head and neck trauma as they both would’ve been driven downwards into his shoulders and rib cage or a head and neck injury which would’ve been serious enough to medically end his career. But we don’t see this being addressed by the Beach Boy Bubbas because this is, after all, the perfect race car. Just ask His Majesty about how perfect it is.
This fiasco with Newman’s car being upside down leads into another issue which has been brought up time and again and ignored time and again and that’s of a traveling safety and medical crew. Did anyone happen to time how long it took the safety crew to get to Newman’s car and actually get it turned over so they could cut the roof off of it? Newman was upside down for about 20 minutes. Despite the verbal attempts to make righting Newman’s car sound like it was being done by professionals, if you watched closely you could see they took their sweet time getting the wrecker in position to roll the car over. Why? Because the only people who actually have the knowledge aren’t the actual track safety people. It’s the NA$CAR officials. Luckily Newman was conscious and didn’t have any life threatening injuries or he would’ve bled out before they got the car righted much less before they actually got him out of the car and to the infield care center. A trained and dedicated safety crew like the IRL has is what is really needed. But why doesn’t NA$CAR do this? Because they hide behind various bogus legal issues. The fact is they’re too damned cheap to hire a group of professional track and medical personnel whose sole job is to rescue the drivers and keep them alive after an accident.
So how could this whole mess have been
avoided? First by having some real professionals
who are actually concerned about the safety of
the drivers as a full time track safety, rescue, and
medical crew. Then have some engineers design
the car and look at every aspect of it, including
every angle of the aerodynamics of the car
design. Then actually test all of these design
principles on scale models before creating a full
scale test model. Once the full scale test model
passes the testing, then bring in the drivers, team
owners, and manufacturers for their inputs. Don’t
put something out there that’s half baked just to
satisfy an enormously swollen, alcohol infused
ego because you want to make your mark on the sport. It’s better to do the job right the first time than to have to keep going back to the drawing board time and again and turning out something that’s slip shod.
Folks may have downplayed the first voice of concern about that wing but it looks like Dale Jr. was right when he first questioned it. Looks like June Bug knew more about it that good old Jabber Jaws did.
I know some folks make fun of this place, but Golden Corral is offering a free meal to veterans, service members, reservists, and National Guard members on November 16th www.goldencorral.com/military/ So it’s good to see yet another company recognizing our folks who have done so much for our country and the personal sacrifices they make or have made. And no, I don’t get anything out of this. I’m just mentioning them because they’re taking that extra effort to recognize our veterans and service members.
Motherhood, Apple Pie, and John Wayne
Mad Mikie, Curmudgeon at Large
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