Making wheelless cars 'self slowing'

[RWC]

I've been thinking for some time about slowing wheelless cars.Burti's accident made me revisit the subject .
Could they have rubber strips under the edges to grip on the track when they lose thier wheels?How likely would this cause the car to roll?
Sugestions anyone?

[dedieux]

How about having wings that are integrated to the chassis (to the top of the side pods?). These wings won't be exposed until the driver lose the control of the car. Such big wings could slow the car a bit.

[RWC]

Yes,better.But they would lose all downforce when side on...

[shazzman]

Hi Guys,
i am a very big F1 fan and i do have a lot of respect for safety and driver well being... but in all honesty, the very fact that injects enthusiasm into people's blood about motor sport is the risk factor.I do believe the answer is in better run off area design and impact absorbers.

[Lola]

How about using those flaps as used on Nascar roofs.
They open when the car travels in a reverse direction, these could be fitted to the sidepods.
I know it will only work when a car is spinning but its a start.

[Nicholas]

Is that the Handford device?

[RWC]

Yes shazman,your right,impact absorbers by the track are the ONLY foolproof,reliable way of slowing cars.Even reletively crude things like tyre barriers work ok.Thier main drawbacks(though not too serious)are they bounce back causing unessesary extra forces & cars tend to seperate them.The airbags used in motorcycle racing are truly great at what they do.Prob not fully usable in f1 though.

The handford device is a 'simple' flap that goes on the rear (only?)wing of champcars to create drag.it's shape is such that there's not much a wing designer can do to avoid the drag & loss of downforce.(f1 could use these & reduce downforce while still keeping thier precious advertising billboards,Er wings.)

The flaps in the nascar roofs are another example of a brilliantly simple answer to a serious problem.
Several years ago nascar had a very serious & worsening prob with cars tending to roll in high speed accidents.They approched the prob sensibly & found that the modern cars were developing high air pressure INSIDE the car when they were side on mostly .The answer was a simple flap that opens when the car turns side on to the airflow(because now it isn't being held shut by that airflow)simple!High pressure vented,all tyres massively flatspoted & underpants filled to the brim--but no roll,no cartwheeling over spectator fence & much less multiple pileups.

[Nicholas]

Originally posted by RWC
The airbags used in motorcycle racing are truly great at what they do.Prob not fully usable in f1 though.

Are they used instead of tyre barriers or what:confused: :confused: :confused: and why aren't they fully useable?

[XAutoRacer]

Interested parties may wish to review the slightly crazy (especially mine) suggestions regarding race track barriers in the "gravel trap" forum....

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...5&pagenumber=2

[RWC]

Sorry i took so long nicholaswhite.The air bags used at bike racetracks are better than tyre walls because they don't bounce back(oh,& they're GREAT for stopping a human body because they tend to conform to the body's shape-spreading the load)Tricky to use in f1 because they would have to be made puncture proof