PHOTO: JOE MCHUGH |
Al Billes: A lot of cases, I totally separate both of them, in the sense that anything that is safety-related can’ t be touched as far performance modifications. Safety is first. A lot of the driver cockpit stuff, I think it needs to be even enhanced more. You look at what they do in NASCAR, I think more driver protection is even better. The stuff is working quite well now. You see some of the violent wrecks and the guys aren’ t beat up too bad, but more cannot hurt.
Cars go fast – you see a lot of guys driving them more aggressive because the class is tougher. You can’ t just run down the track and put a number on the board, and then you’ re qualified for the weekend. Every run you’ ve got to be on it, so the guys are trying harder. Performance-wise, I look at the driver’ s cockpit and there’ s not a whole lot I would modify there for performance.
The performance of the cars in these classes continues to improve at an incredible rate. How do you get the safety measures to keep up?
LB: I think( SFI) 25.5( firesuit) should be a minimum. I think a Funny Car hoop is a definite. A fire suppression system, that is a no-brainer. The purpose of a firewall is to keep you separated from the engine compartment in case of a fire. We drill holes, you’ ve got piping coming through and we all run our wires through there. You need to seal that stuff up. That was a big fault in our part as far as my crash. Steven Fereday at Georgia, he had a pretty nasty fire and fortunately he didn’ t get hurt, but he said that while he was in there trying to get stopped it was very visible where his weak points were because that’ s where the fire comes.
As far as the way things are progressing now, when I started running X275, it was a high 5.00s-low 5.10s class and now they’ re running 4.30s, which is absurd. Eight years ago, we were running 5.00s and then the next year we were 4.90s and 4.80s, and the class left me. It’ s just crazy how fast the class has taken off. Radial vs.
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the World is some of the most outrageous progression I’ ve seen. I remember thinking there’ s no way they’ re going in the 3s and now we’ re knocking on 3.60s. Unless you’ re on top of that or building a new car every couple years, there’ s
DRIVER’ S ED Billes has repeatedly witness doorslammer wheelmen overdriving their cars, leading him to believe one of the next big steps towards improving safety should be better training drivers to lift when a run isn’ t worth saving.
no way you can keep up with your chassis and car safety as fast as the car progresses. It would be really hard without a big-time budget to keep up progression-wise. The cars can go fast and not be safe, but in order to keep those two together
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it would be tough( financially). I think my crash definitely opened a lot of eyes. They’ re fairly safe, but I think it would be tough to keep up.
AB: Most of the stuff doesn’ t really involve safety, save for modifying supercharger components or engine stuff. I guess inherently you’ re saying you don’ t want to modify a part and it break. But at the end of the day you just don’ t want it to break regardless because of the expense aspect of it, so they kind of mix together. As soon as you talk safety and performance together, it’ s difficult.
Drag racing has always been home to forward-thinking individuals when it comes to car performance. Do you feel like that aspect is in a good place while still maintaining a focus on safety?
AB: I think that it’ s not bad right now. I think one of the biggest things to move safety ahead is driver training. I don’ t know how you control that or manage that, though, but that’ s huge. At the PDRA race( at Darlington) I watched guys drive across the centerline into the next lane, and it’ s like,‘ What on Earth are you guys doing? That wasn’ t a sudden move.’ I think of the slow improvements with the guys with traction are making and all the head protection and all the body stuff, I think that stuff needs to evolve a little bit. But I think there’ s just a whole aspect of the mentality of the racer. I watched one guy leave the starting line in the left lane and he drives across, slowly, slowly and then he’ s three feet from the centerline, where you’ re really out of the groove, and the car made a sharp turn into the right lane. He was fortunate that nobody was beside him.
To me that seems to be the biggest and hardest thing to get at. How many races do you watch and wonder why on Earth did that guy not lift? It’ s a tough call when you’ re in the car because so often it feels fine, feels fine, feels fine and all of a sudden you’ re turned into the wall. That, I think, is simply the biggest area; somehow teach the drivers and change the mentality of when to
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May 2017 |
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