How dangerous is drag racing?

obi_waynne

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Have you ever seen any accidents? What tends to go wrong? I reckon that this is probably one of the safest Motorports but was just curious to see if I was wrong with that assumption.
 
It can be dangerous, it depends on how much power your running, how qiuck you react and how you react if things get a little out of shape and if your car holds together while your pushing it as hard as you can.

I have seen a few accidents and they all tend to be nasty. I have seen people with poor reactions spin out from the line and plough straight into the wall or the car in the next lane.
The car can let go at the finish line when you lift off the throttle. I have only seen this once but it was mega nasty, imagine loosing the rear end at over 100mph.
Most common is something breaking causing the car to spin out.

Your odds on walking away (obvoiusly) depend very much on the safety devices you have installed.
 
So a roll cage, air bags, crash helmet and fire resistant clothes are pretty important then :shock:
 
the main thing with drag racing is yourself. have you the balls to take it to the limit. i take my firebird to santapod and so far i have only had one near escape front tyre blow out at 90mph cost me a new front end. like fingers said depends on your car. i tend to drop the tyre pressure on rear to 15 to 20 psi but it can be quite scary when you start drifting at 70mph plus. the main thing is driver error as the car will only do what you let it.i have seen so many people think they can take it to the limit and lose it and then panic and bye bye car. dont get me wrong there are a lot of good drivers on the street but also a lot of fools. a car is only as good as the driver behind the wheel
 
kemo said:
dont get me wrong there are a lot of good drivers on the street but also a lot of fools. a car is only as good as the driver behind the wheel

Ditto that. :rolleyes: When you first start, you need get used to what you can do with the car before you go for that golden run.
 
fingers when is the next time you go to pod i only live 5 miles from it so i can bring the firebird up and make a day of it
 
kemo said:
i only live 5 miles from it

Lucky git. :wink:

Not sure at the mo. I need to make sure my motor is all good after I put it back together and I have a baby due in June. I'm sure I'll be able to squeeze a RWYB day in somewhere. :D But when I do, yes mate definatley, we'll have to see if we can get a group of us there for a meet. 8)
 
Worst crash I've seen is a Top Fueller flip up at the front end at the finish line. The resulting accident sequence split the car in half and the engine ended up tumbling over the safety wall. Luckily the safety kit did its job and the driver (Barry Sheavills) was unhurt - bit shaken up though!

The worst 'amateur' incident was when a fuel line let go, on an AC Cobra replica with Nitrous. A lot of fuel leaked around the engine bay and underneath the car, the driver took around 10-15 secs to stop the car mid track and jump out, and was slightly burned in the process.
 
Well the worst accident I've seen here on Iceland was when some amateur was trying to hard with a 1.4 or a 1.6 engine with Nitrous and put to much pressiure on it and it almost blew the front part of the car off...The bonnet ended up a few hundred yards away along with some bits of engine wich spread all around the place. I don't think the driver got hurt but there are a wery strict rules on safety matters on the tracks here and that's probably why we've never had any really serius accidents here.
 
i seen a pro mod. lose controle at 122 mph head over heels for 3/4 of the track scared me .. he lived
lucksvill quebec
 
Drag racing is the safest form of motor sport. No bends, no hills, no overtaking, only two cars on track at same time but in their own lane. Even boy racers can usually manage to point their cars straight for 1/4 mile then stop. :)
 
When, i go to sanctioned events, accidents are rare and fatalities nonexistent so far. Accidents involve usualy a rwd car side swiping hitting the opponent.

Some drivers will shake hands while some will resort to the good ol "Lets go to the parking lot" method were in they are already surrounded by it. However, the same can not be said on a street race.

I for one used to race on the street, I have witnessed drag racing/street racing accidents but there is one accident that i can remember and i think of it from time to time.

It was march of 1998 and it is the graduating month in my country. a father gave his son a new car. a Honda civic Si. And he and his friends were racing it on the streets.

There are 5 17 year old kids the car. they went to a local place where in they could race which is not frequently patrolled by cops (and sadly unknown to most ambulance drivers, i beleive every city and country has a "racing street") they were racing the whole night, the car is brand new but the driver had one race to many.

two cars lined up and they drag racd, the engine is revving high and it was the usual adrenaline filled drag race, now for one reason or the other, a stupid friend who is watching in the long line decided to make things "funnier" by walking in the middle of the race, i beleieve he popped out 300yards into the race.

the driver of the honda civic swerved to the right avoiding the stupid person. the honda civic crashed against the volvo he is racing and the two cars crashed in to the guard rail. the volvo driver went out of the car dazed but unhurt but the same can not be said with newly graudating kids. the driver's head hit the wind shield, for one reason or the other, he was not wearing his seat belts, the front passenger was tossed out the window, she fell in a very bad way.

the three passengers in the back suffered bruises and severe cuts. every one was in pancik. we immediatley went to pull the driver out and attend to his girl friend people called for an ambulance but due to the hidden nature of the street, they had a hard time getting there. the driver and his girl friend are breathing heavily for ten minutes then the driver stopped breathing, a few minutes later the ambulance arrived.

the civic driver was declared dead on arrival while his girl friend must have her left leg amputated. as for the audience who wanted to make things "funnier" he was crying the whole time, no one from our school talked to him during graduation, i never spoke to him since
 
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Street racing is illegal for these reasons. If a legal venue with safety marshalls and barriers can experience problems then an unorganised event on the street is just asking for trouble. Sadly the victims are often innocent people who were not involved.

Thanks for posting up your experience and I hope this will at least make the young and inexperienced think before trying to race on a public street!

Street racing is not tolerated by TorqueCars in any shape of form.
 
back home, we have a section that is shut down bout twice a month for races. they have EMTs and cops on scene just incase. Used to be free to watch and like 5 bucks to race. They would make sure everyone had proper saftey equipment, normally a full face helmet and functioning seatbelts. this started up after a family got nailed head on by some teens racing illegally. closing strip being almost 100 miles away. you still get the street race attitude (the bests and boasting and all that) but it is much safer. They eventually plan to put in a full strip but its cost prohibitive atm.
 
I've only had a few minor nasties in my time, fortunately these weren't more than the odd lump of aluminium piercing the skin, and the occasional burn. It can get quite dangerous at times, normally due to a 1 in a million type incident, whereby something goes wrong that normally wouldn't.

A lot of it depends on the particular car / bike in question. Rear engined cars are inherently safer than front engined cars, meaning any explosions, oil fires etc are directed away from the driver. In my case, I'm sat in the middle of it all, with legs wrapped around a transmission and clutch. So it's not the safest place in the world, but I quite like that. Not many front engine fuel cars race in the UK (currently only 2 in the UK, mine included).

There's been a big push in general in recent years, namely this year where HANS devices are mandated for certain classes, and any car exceeding 200mph trap speed. That's £575 of helmet and £455 HANS device I hadn't really prepared for, but the safety provided is quite useful.
 
Been to the drag strip twice with my Passat W8. Once at GTi International 2008 and once at Santa Pod.

Didn't see any accidents. I can imagine most of the accidents come from the highly modified "on edge" cars, which the W8 is far from. At 100mph the Passat feels more stable than my sisters car does at 60.
 
I wish that my local authorities were as smart as wcnwizards. The local government could make some serious jack out here as there is an old abandoned short oval track with a nice quatermile strip not 8 miles from my house which is approx the same distance from two metro areas. Whereas the closest strip now is 30mi away and is out in the middle of BFE. Don't get me wrong its a great track but you'll come off a 20 dollar bill and then you can only run on fridays. If they opened this track they would get all the local kids from both cities and be able to do 'test and tune' fri and sat.

As far as drag racing being dangerous it can be as dangerous as any sport that puts someone in control of an object doing 80+miles per hour. The biggest thing you have to watch out for here are the sharks. An example would be the old guy that pulls up in the 1979 Chevy LUV truck and consistantly runs between 12.9 and 13.6 for two to three runs and loses the bet each time. To then find your friend who had a 98 Mustang Cobra which ran 11's and bet a nice wad that he could beat him. Long story short the old man flipped a switch under the dash which activated the rear 2 cylinders and he smioked my buddy by pulling a 10.7 1/4.
 
Try being in a stripped Punto at 140! Makes you feel uneasy to say the least pmsl.

Yeah - I can only imagine.

The W8 is the most stable car i've ever had when it comes to strait line speed. I did 175MPH in it once (before anyone jumps on me, t'was not on a public road) and while the world going past was a blurr - it felt very planted to the ground.
 
The biggest thing you have to watch out for here are the sharks. An example would be the old guy that pulls up in the 1979 Chevy LUV truck and consistantly runs between 12.9 and 13.6 for two to three runs and loses the bet each time. To then find your friend who had a 98 Mustang Cobra which ran 11's and bet a nice wad that he could beat him. Long story short the old man flipped a switch under the dash which activated the rear 2 cylinders and he smioked my buddy by pulling a 10.7 1/4.
I like that Hustler! Might be a good way to make some money.;)
 
I have raced at Warner Robbins dragstrip with my bug , here is a video of the race track where C130 lives ,
As far as drag racing being dangerous , its all about safety equipment and car preparation.I broke an axle at a race, put me into a wall before I could do anything , the only thing that got hurt was my feelings and my paint job. I had a good car and great safety equiptment . Mike McCarthy
 

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