BBQman

I am relieved to hear that the driver and co driver are safe and recovering. That was a crazy bad crash and indeed the cage did its job- amazing.

I must say that this kind of event has piqued my interest for many years- after seeing this- not too sure anymore.

The photos by OttawaFrank are astounding as they really put things into perspective. Pikes Peak is awesome and the road looks wild, the consequenses are real.

just happy that everyone is safe.

MOREPSiTEHBETT4

Saw this on the news this morning, I was like, is that an evo? Came here and it makes it feel like a small world.

Very happy you boys are alive, big up's to the cage build and car prep.

Carmi

Edit: wow bueller, u have no sense...

spdracerut

iTrader: (2)

For reference to a WRC cage:



WRC cages are probably the most built-up cages of any type of race car. Why? They race on narrow dirt roads going 100mph next to huge trees or cliff edges. The cage has to be designed to take on multiple hits along with many rolls.

A short article on WRC cages from where I found the picture:
http://www.automotive-media.co.uk/ar...ndex.php?p=279

momostallion

iTrader: (1)

the cage as they built it held up. quite well in fact.

i don't understand the second guessing about having a rally cage. it wouldnt have changed anything.

R/TErnie

iTrader: (32)

Glad you guys are ok to the point of having all your pieces and being able to sit on a rock after the wreck. Great job on the cage Kevin, your work withstood the ultimate test. I'll be praying for Yuri.

Kevin any plans on bringing the chassis back to your shop for a "post analysis?"

jerdeitzel

iTrader: (9)

Looking back at pics of the cage i'm wondering. Did it have a main hoop diag bar over the passenger? That's the side that bent and collapsed from the pics, and i thought that if you had a passenger you needed that bar?

KevinD

iTrader: (56)

the picture embargo was because lots of media people are interested in them and pikes peak people have rights to them as well (so those photographers who took pictures trying to sell them to me, you can't )

since 100's of people were taking pictures of the wreckage, i'm going to share what i have of the wreckage with a professional analysis of what exactly happened.

we didn't build it to "rally spec" because its not a rally car. if pikes peak thought it was a "rally" i'm sure they would use "rally rules". our cage was built to NASA specs, which was 95% of what pikes peak required. pikes peak had us add some additional gusseting in the halo above the occupants to 100% in compliance with their requirements.

from the start, the car rolled in the air to land directly on the passenger side roof line. this was the most severe impact as the car had a lot of momentum flying off the mountain. coincidentally, this is EXACTLY where your rally cages have additional structure that we argued about a few months ago. its clear from the pictures that even with the car falling 100ft down, and landing directly on that point, that a NASA cage is pretty f'ing strong.



here you can see the passenger side forward bar buckled under the load, but with the added gusseting to the A pillar, and the additional tube bracing it with the strut tower, the forward bar didn't "collapse" and crush the passenger.



the worst damage done to the car was the OEM b pillar buckling inward and hitting the seat.



it actually hit it so hard it ripped the seat out of the floor along the front edge.





this is where Yuris shoulder injury occured. thankfully it was only a dislocation and nothing more. i know hes in a lot of pain, but it could have been MUCH worse.

also, Yuris helmet went back and hit the roll hoop brace and cracked his helmet when the seat ripped out the floor (it was anchored by 1/8" steel plate welded to the OEM floor pan and also had large fender washers backing it from the underside). this is why he was care flighted out of the area as the first responders have certain procedures for injurys they see. in that case they took the safest route which we thank them for even though the hospital visit cleared him of head injuries.

you can see that in addition to the OEM b pillar collapsing inward, the NASCAR bars helped keep it from intruding into the passenger any farther. i believe they saved him from much more injury. also the seat ripping up and "giving" to the b-pillar also might have saved him from further injury.

last from that picture you can see the main roll hoop buckled outward. since i had so much triangulation at that node, it didn't completely collapse. i had the required brace back to the strut, and an additional optional brace going diagonally to the driver side rear strut.

here you can see that the "shape" of the roll hoop stayed largely intact and was still very stable due to the triangulation within it.


the driver side floor impacted pretty hard and was pushed upward under jeremys feet. thankfully it didn't puncture it, and you can see the NASCAR bars on his side sustained some impacts as well.



the top of the roll hoop took a lot of impacts from the rolling


the front of the car was relatively unscathed as well. the engine, transmission and tranfercase all appear to be ok from first looks.


the oil pan had a dent on the front edge, and didn't start leaking oil until they dragged it all the way up and the tow truck picked it up from it, when it finally punctured.



the entire body of the car came off the car:


roof, rear lexan, front windshield glass, all the doors, front fenders, hood, front and rear bumper, and even the trunk.

the fuel cell was completely untouched thankfully.

when the passenger side rear door came off, it pulled the fire extingisher cord, releasing the extinguishant on the occupants feet and engine bay.


the car required 350ft of cable to pull it out which means it traveled around 120-150 yards.


hopefully that shows some insight into how a NASA cage handles 14 rollovers, a 100ft flight down a 45 degree slope into a rock field. honestly i never wanted to test the strength of my cage, but i followed the rules and it save jeremy and yuris life. so i don't want to hear about how rally cages are built better.

jerdeitzel

iTrader: (9)

Be proud that you built an awsome cage!

Every bar and place that you noted that had and trouble, are the places a rally cage could have been extra protection. The door sill bar, the other diag bar in the main hoop and the extra a-pillar bar.

GTisRule

iTrader: (5)

A f**king mazing they're ok! That's a worst case scenerio. People need to lay off the critiques, as Kevin stated, the cage worked, the occupants are ok!
There's always more prep work that can be done to ANY racecar unless there's a full crew working full time on it.

Bueller

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and the pics. If you want to share more as you guys reflect on all this id be interested to read about it.

J. Fast

Agreed. The cage was scrutinized by some of the worlds most professional safety inspection officials. There's much to be learned thru the progression of rally and impact designs but Pikes Peak International Hill Climb isn't a rally and I hope it never becomes one. Safety has never been an oversight or something taken lightly on the Hill. There's very specific rules and mandatory cage design considerations that are carefully scrutinized. The safety reg also lists optional added safety considerations given the average speed of each racing class and terrain. Nothing more or less needs to be done, that's the inherent risk of racing. Wether it's a NASA cage or a Rally spec cage I would have faith in either given the hill's tech inspection and the professional scrutineer's specifically for that race.

AdvanRG2

If it wasn't for the cage, these gentlemen would've never walked out of there alive. Much props to the cage builders. Well done.

DaveK

iTrader: (21)

You have got to be effing kidding, right? Those "brilliant" folks don't know what an FIA approved safety belt is and I had to spend the entire week arguing that my Schroth FIA belts purchased last spring were good enough.

These guys got lucky - extremely lucky IMO, and count me among the fortunate who've also gotten away with one on Pikes Peak (I hit a guard rail last year). The cage was well built as is evidence from the cage bending but not breaking, but at the end of the day it was a road race cage. Rally cages have more bars because the crashes are typically different. Crashes on PP are much more like rally crashes in that you don't have gravel traps, safety walls, and catch fences, its just rocks and trees...typically just a few feet from the road's edge.

More bars up in the head region (A-pillar support bars, triangulation at the back of the door opening and an "X" or "V" at the top of the main hoop as required under rally regs cuts down the size of rocks that could intrude into the helmet area and strengthen the roof against collapse. You wouldn't likely have seen the same deformation of the b-pillar on a FIA spec rally cage, as the cage ties into this part of the chassis too. Also, in a rally car, the seats aren't bolted to the floor, they're usually bolted to extra bars attached to the cage structure or extra bars welded to plates on the sill and trans tunnel...though unsure if that would've actually been a good thing based on b-pillar collapse.

These pictures are a sobering reminder of how much risk we're signing up for every time we strap into our race cars.

A big THANK YOU Kevin for sharing pictures so that we can see how the cage fared and incorporate this information into future race cars.

Most importantly I'm just glad that these guys are ok!

Dave

KevinD

iTrader: (56)

i think that is the most important thing we can get out of this use the information from the wreck for next year and beyond. if rally cages are so much better then anything else, i'm sure they will start instituting those rules. heck, if people starting hitting walls head on, rally cages are weak compared to a cage for a drag race car. then we will all have to start adding to them.

the safety director for PPIHC was with us when the car got pulled up and they took LOTS of pictures to use for tech and training next year. they also wanted yuris helmet to show people, and were very proud of how well the cage held up, yet just like me, were looking for ways to improve it.

spdracerut

iTrader: (2)

IMO, your comment is a bit short sighted for which I'll explain why I say that.

Just because something 'meets the rules' does NOT mean that it is good enough. Rules for cars have evolved as lessons have been learned. Look at any type of race car from the 90's even (can go back to the 50's-60's if you wish) and compare them to the required safety aspects of race cars today.

F1, LeMans, Indycar, etc. F1 has mandated much higher bodywork relative to the drivers and improved crumble zones. Look at a F1 car from Senna's era and a current F1 car. And those F1 cars back in the day had more HP too.

FIA Rally cars cage specifications have evolved and become more safe as they have learned their lessons. Are their cages built differently than say a FIA GT1 or Grand AM GT car? Sure, different requirements. Those GT cars race on road courses where they typically don't have to worry about going sideways into a tree at 100mph or off the side of a cliff with boulders.

So the question is not if the cage met the rules, but if it could have been made even safer. Even cages for Formula Drift cars have become more extensive; they did not previously have proper protection on the corners of the cars. In a crash last year, the left front wheel was shoved into the footwell compartment breaking the guy's leg. Guess what? The rules have changed adding extra protection in that region.