VIEW FROM ACROSS THE POND

Greetings from the less sunny and a lot wetter side of the pond! Who ever said England was sunny had never been here! Anyway, I hope you don't mind responses from abroad, but as my name is Darryl and I drive a TF car I hope so!

Having witnessed many accidents over the years at racetracks all over the world, my first thought on getting into a TF car was safety. Now that sounds damn obvious to many who haven't tried it, but I was astounded just how many drivers really, really don't! Nearly 2 years ago I was nearly involved in one of the worst crashes anywhere I have ever seen!

Only the day before European top fuel supremo Barry Sheavills had his chassis fold at nearly 300 mph and walked away so when Sweden's Micke Kagerad and myself pulled to the line for round 1 another disaster wasn't that far from our minds. Unfortunately as Micke's car crossed the finish line ahead of me about 4.9 seconds later what happened next made me very glad I lost the race by more than a car length! The left rear slick exploded and the car broke up into many pieces, much like my poor namesake's I'm sure. Micke went into the field, the engine followed and I was left with the rear end and wing to dodge. Micke was thankfully ok after a trip to hospital, but I had that 'lucky to be alive' feeling for a long time.

Covering the rear of the rollcage is a great idea, but how many times have we seen accidents where the front of the car and the driver end up sliding backwards on their own with the rest of the car detached and bouncing down behind them?

Now after picking pieces of carbon fibre out of my helmet after Micke's crash, and hearing what happened to Darrell, why not a completely enclosed cockpit, like Garlits used to run but with 2 supporting chrome moly struts? The best graphic example of this would be George 'Bushmaster' Schrieber's jet dragster if anyone can remember that?

I just think in driver safety it is the best logical step. I would personally feel much safer, and I wear every available safety item as it is now. 2 arm restraints, HANS device, funny car boots etc. I was, like many others I'm sure absolutely amazed that anyone could lose their life in a modern day TF car and almost thought I'd mis-read it on nhra.com.

Anyway, keep up the good work on the website and thanks for giving everyone the chance to respond.

Regards,

Darryl Bradford

SAFETY COSTS MONEY

The costs associated with Top Fuel (Dragster or Funny Car) racing is far more than the costs associated with Pro Mod racing.

I believe that in the IHRA most Pro Mod fields are 16-car vs. the 8-car NHRA EXHIBITION fields. If Pro Mod was to ever become a Pro series in NHRA, I'm sure they would also have 16 car fields for the 20-25 cars that show up. The reason you have so many cars show up for Pro Stock, Pro Stock Bike, Pro Mod, and other ET classes, is that cost is not a barrier to entry.

When you run a car for a single pass at a cost of $20K give or take a few $10K depending upon what parts breakage you have, you can't afford not to make the field and the qualifying cash that comes with it. Therefore, when you do go racing and don't qualify, you have to have a really understanding sponsor or a lot of greenbacks in the bank.

If DRO or someone else is putting up money so if you make a qualifying attempt and don't qualify, you get some cash, I'm sure we can find more people willing to show up to qualify. We know there are many teams that just run IHRA because they would probably have a hard time making an NHRA field and stay within their budgets. If someone is willing to cough up money, we can probably talk a few of them (if not all of them) into showing up at more NHRA races.

Making smaller fields is not the answer. Money is. Safety costs money. Side Impact Airbags are an option (at a price) for most new vehicles. The more money we find in the way of sponsorships, the better we all are. I think an R&D sponsorship at the Sanctioning body level is a great idea.

Bashing the sport & sanctioning bodies isn't going to go a long way to help find new sponsors. Let's try to help, not hinder this process.

Scott Jurges