Crashed Car Recovery

[Armco Bender]

Watching the racing at Pukekohe I couldn't help thinking it takes an awful long time to remove damaged cars from the track.Does every track provide its own recovery crews or are they part of the Super car setup?.On one ocassion a car was stuck on the edge of a sand trap,it just needed a quick push with a tractor to get it going again,yet they bring out the safety car and send a truck around to pull it out.I'm sure well rehearsed crews with the right gear and exit points to get immobile cars out the way quicker could save an awful lot of unnecessary safety car laps.

[tanalised]

Gotta agree with you there Armco. The crews at Puke were pretty slow. They ****ed around with the tyre barrier that got damaged on Ford "mountain" for about 5 or 6 laps. Maybe its another area that the Pukekohe organisers could look at to keep trying to improve the NZ event.

[Crash Test]

I know the QLD recovery guys were given some kudos from high places after their efforts at the 500. The slowest recovery of the weekend was when the tow hook on Morris's car broke during qualifying. Luckily, a quick thinking firey on the scene got them out of trouble . I believe the same guys are out there every weekend in their FWDs, and thus are pretty quick thinking.

[twig]

why do they have to bring out the safety car every time one car gets stuck in the sand trap, very shallowly.

Imrie car at Bathurst, Murrys corner. Changed the race positions. Just look at F1. At Monaco, when two cars crashe into the wall, they dont deploy the safety car, they just yellow flag that corner or sector for a few laps. Eg. Jenson Button and Olivier Panis at St Devote or Takuma Sato at the tunnel.

Tom.

[Armco Bender]

Yep it would be nice to see a standardised recovery set up used at all circuits.I was thinking along the lines of Crash Test,if you have the same crews at it all the time they should be able to remove a car,even with major damage in less than a lap or two,infact it would probably be quicker to bring out the safety car and let a recovery crew swoop in and remove the car from the track to a safe place,then they can muck around putting it on a transporter to get it back to the pits or where ever.Have to agree with Tanalised too at some crashes the recovery guys were standing around scratching their bums holding pieces of rope looking for ways to tow the car away.Surely if the cars just snotted the armco ,put a hook on it and drag it out of harms way,because your not going to inflict much more damage on it than whats been done already.I realise you cant crane a V8 off like you can an F1,but they should have a tow point front and rear that you can hook up too and drag them away clear of the circuit.That was the other thing too,why don't they pull the cars as quick as possible off through a gap in the armco,let the race get on,then put the car up on a transporter behind the armco if its immobile,instead of mucking around on the track trying to pull cars up on transporters?.Twigs point is good too,why dont they have a tractor at each sand trap just go out and push cars out as quick as possible to get them going again or if their immobile push them up to the first gap in the armco,would only need a yellow flag for a minute or two instead of bringing the safety car out for a whole lot of laps.Quick recovery would keep the safety car where it belongs,in the pits as long as possible and keep the racers at it as long as possible on the track.

[BFC]

re towing cars out of sandtraps alot of them have seatbelt webbing attached by one 1/4" bolt to chassis or similar and as the cars dig themselves into sand immagine pressure on towing point usually they break hence taking so long to remove them. if that happens we have to open boot put sling round rollbar in boot we have complain for many years to RAy Robins (v8 technical inspector or something like that) not much being done to improve situation still they break take my word for it no V8 supercar recovery is quick if front towing point breaks u have to take spoilers off can be difficult as each team has different way of attaching them as for moving cars behind armco to load onto tilt trays u cant always have a truck at the point the car crashes each track has its own recovery teams who work together all year at races so know the best and easiest way to remove wrecks of course we are "The A Team" down/over her.

[Dave Brand]

One or two of the posts in this thread show the typical spectators' ignorance of the purpose of the safety car (nothing personal, guys! ) The safety car doesn't just slow the cars down, it also bunches them up, which gives the people working trackside periods of a couple of minutes or so in which work in relative safety. Waved yellows don't give that safe period - the cars are still spread out around the track & a lot of them won't even slow down. One thing you can be sure of with gravel traps is that if one goes in, another one can - & they will go in under waved yellows.

The first priority of anyone working trackside is their own personal safety. There's no way, in most situations, that a car can be extricated from a gravel trap safely under waved yellows; that's why the safety car is needed. The way some incidents are handles may look slow from behind the spectator fences; on the other side of the fence, things seem to be happening very quickly!

A snatch crew at every place where cars are likely to go off would be ideal. However, in the real world, it's not possible, for a variety of reasons - finances, circuit layout, etc.

When it comes to retrieving crashed cars, there are two schools of thought - those who know it's a quick, easy job & those who've done it!

[BFC]

well said Dave Brand everybody is an expert untill they think they can do it better

[BFC]

Originally posted by twig
why do they have to bring out the safety car every time one car gets stuck in the sand trap, very shallowly.

Imrie car at Bathurst, Murrys corner. Changed the race positions. Just look at F1. At Monaco, when two cars crashe into the wall, they dont deploy the safety car, they just yellow flag that corner or sector for a few laps. Eg. Jenson Button and Olivier Panis at St Devote or Takuma Sato at the tunnel.

Tom.

wasn't Brights car pulled out of the sand at Murrays Corner without safety car i heard tractor wasnt even told to go out

[twig]

hhhhmmmmmm.......im not sure, i remember just seeing the car get out before the leaders car around.

But after everyone's protests about how long it takes to get the V8's out, i take back my arguement and agree that in F1 it is much easier as you can just lift them out.

[Crash Test]

Nah, Bright had a safety car.

Actually the other weekend a car was dragged out of the bunker at QR under double yellows during qualifying.