That Wing

Did the wing make Newman's car do a backflip?

  • Yes, the wing caused Newman's car to backflip

    Votes: 6 31.6%

  • No, the wing did not cause Newman's car to backflip

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I'm not an engineer, but I think the wing caused it.

    Votes: 10 52.6%

  • I'm not an engineer, but I don't think the wing caused it.

    Votes: 3 15.8%
  • Total voters
    19
Magnethead

Magnethead

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Who here thinks that the rear wing caused Newman's car to go over? The roof flaps were fully deployed, and the car had no other reason to behave as it did- it wasn't even damaged. Some may say an air pocket formed under the car, but the hood vents are designed to depressurize the underbody in that event.

When you create lift in one direction of a one-piece (element) wing, you create downforce in the other. My dad cites a blow-over by Eddie Hill at Pomona, when his front wing rotated about the mounting axis, and lifted the front end.

img0390ob.jpg

img0442pw.jpg
 
I read something about the wing creating lift when the car turns backwards..wish I could remember where and when.

TPTB need to take a hard look at the wing.
 
It definitely helped lift the car. Maybe they need to rig it somehow to break away in case of car going backwards or just get rid of the stupid looking thing altogether. Keep the safety aspects of the C.O.T. for sure, but get rid of the C.O.T.!!!
 
The roof flaps did nothing. Take the flaps off the roof and incorporate them into the wing and it might let some of the air out.
 
How about putting a hinge with a quick release from pressure to allow the wing to flip backwards when the car is turned. Good question though.
 
Actually, I think Newman getting turned backwards caused his car to go over. That darn car is meant to go forwards if I remember correctly.
 
Smoke14 said:
Actually, I think Newman getting turned backwards caused his car to go over. That darn car is meant to go forwards if I remember correctly.
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Right, BUT, that's what they need to work on. Remember, that's why they added the roof flaps as well, so that if the car does get turned around, something can keep it from getting airborn.

After watching the replays again, I'd say the wing definately helped. I even before the wing, I've seen cars get airborn after getting turned around. But that thins just snapped over.
 
It has to be the wing.Because Ambroses car cutting in front of newmans should have cut most of the air going under the 39.So that's all that is left is what went over the top and hit the wing.
 
I would have to say this is just racing. At 180 or 190 mile per hour crap is going to happen. If you turn a car around backwards it does not fit into the natural scheme of things.

Take the plates off and turn the animals loose.
 
Roof flaps worked well on the old cars with spoilers. But looking at the replay as the car came around the roof flaps opened, as the car became completly backwards it started lifting and as soon as the wing blocked air flow to the flaps they closed. at that point it really lifted and the entire bottom of the car became an even bigger wing standing it straight up. they need to adress the wing area to effectivley let the air pass through it and not under it.
In my opinion flaps in the wing just might help.
Look at the replay on nascar.com
 
racer8 said:
Roof flaps worked well on the old cars with spoilers. But looking at the replay as the car came around the roof flaps opened, as the car became completly backwards it started lifting and as soon as the wing blocked air flow to the flaps they closed. at that point it really lifted and the entire bottom of the car became an even bigger wing standing it straight up. they need to adress the wing area to effectivley let the air pass through it and not under it.
In my opinion flaps in the wing just might help.
Look at the replay on nascar.com
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I posted a link and screenshots to the video in a prior post

The answer is simple. The mono-piece wing DOES NOT WORK. They need to go to a 2 or 3 element wing that creates a downforce effect in both directions (not actually that hard). Granted, it would look more hideous (see: ricey) than the piece of junk already there, but at least it wouldn't create lift.

Compare the 2 images below, that are MAYBE .75 seconds apart, if that. One shot, Ryan's on the ground with flaps just opening. Next shot, he's already airborne with the flaps wide open.

I'm thinking (hypothetically) that Ryan's car still had side forces acting upon the side of the car as he rotated. So air wouldn't have had direct access to under the car. But at the same time, any air that WAS quickly building pressure, probably didn't make it all the way to the hood vents either. But at the same time, there wasn't a great amount of air getting to the wing, because of the spill plate and the angle of lift.

My hypothesis of the moment: Air pocketed up under the car too quickly for the hood flaps to operate properly, the roof flaps deployed as designed, the car lifted while rotating, the wing and underbody then had full directional pressure, air caught the wing, pulled the car up, the roof flaps became inoperable due to the vacuum behind the car + the speed of axial rotation, and things just went to hell in a handbasket from there.

newman09flip1.jpg

newman09flip2.jpg
 
Smoke14 said:
I would have to say this is just racing. At 180 or 190 mile per hour crap is going to happen. If you turn a car around backwards it does not fit into the natural scheme of things.

Take the plates off and turn the animals loose.
Click to expand...

I totally agree!
 
Smoke14 said:
I would have to say this is just racing. At 180 or 190 mile per hour crap is going to happen. If you turn a car around backwards it does not fit into the natural scheme of things.
Click to expand...

:beerbang:

No matter what you do, if air gets under a car it will do what any aerodynamic, fast moving object must do: it will fly.

This isn't the first time the CoT has gotten turned around on a Super Speedway, and it wont be the last.
 
If the wing breaks off, or whatever, then what do you do when the car spins? Which is more likely to happen than a car going airborne. I say let's not over react and start changing the car because of this 1 incident.

If they do anything then put panels on the side of the car that releases when the wheels aren't on the ground. Then the driver could be yelling; "Watch me fly" like the guy in the oil commercial.
 
foehammer111 said:
:beerbang:

No matter what you do, if air gets under a car it will do what any aerodynamic, fast moving object must do: it will fly.

This isn't the first time the CoT has gotten turned around on a Super Speedway, and it wont be the last.
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You are right about that but the problem I have with it is that it will stay that way until someone gets seriously injured or killed. Anyone else here think that the outcome could have been different if Harvicks car had not been there to cushion the blow? I feel that if Newman’s roof had landed square on the concrete, without the 29 taking some of the blow, Newman could have been seriously hurt. He said that the roof bars were on the top of his helmet before he was pulled out. It scares me a little to be honest with everyone.

I thought when that happend that we could have just watched somene die on television. That was a bad wreck guys and nascar needs to try a little harder to keep these cars on the ground.
 
You're right Chrome. The roll bar is designed to protect the driver but not when the car drops flat on it's roof.
The COT is a POS IMHO of course

Bet Happy gets a Christmas card from the Newmans this year.:D
 
chromehorn said:
You are right about that but the problem I have with it is that it will stay that way until someone gets seriously injured or killed. Anyone else here think that the outcome could have been different if Harvicks car had not been there to cushion the blow? I feel that if Newman’s roof had landed square on the concrete, without the 29 taking some of the blow, Newman could have been seriously hurt. He said that the roof bars were on the top of his helmet before he was pulled out. It scares me a little to be honest with everyone.
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Well, first thing is that sounds like an issue with the roll cage, and should be addressed.

Secondly, it's going to be impossible to predict every possible outcome to a crash. I'm sure NASCAR has tested the CoT plenty of times for turning around backwards, and they felt comfortable enough with the results to put it on the track.

Thirdly, this same thing happened to Edwards in the spring race as Talladega. His car was actually on it's way back down to the ground when, ironically, Newman's car punted it back in the air, and into the catch fence. I bet NASCAR didn't test for that!

Finally, racing 800hp monsters at close to 200mph in tight formation isn't exactly the brightest thing in the world to be doing. Risk is inherant to the sport. Any driver that doesn't realize this needs to step out of the car while they still can.
 
I could have swore I saw Newman walk to the ambulance. Seems to me everything did it's job yesterday. Can things be improved? Sure it can. That's probably being worked on right now. I'd imagine that car of Newman's and that of Martin's is back at or on it's way to the R&D center for that very reason.

Kudo's to the safety crew too! I'm sure it wasn't fast enough as far as Newman felt at the time but they got him rolled back over pretty smoothly from what I could see.
 
Newman was fine but I bet it could have been much worse if Harvicks car wasn't there to cushion the blow for the 39s roof.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I could have swore I saw Newman walk to the ambulance. Seems to me everything did it's job yesterday. Can things be improved? Sure it can. That's probably being worked on right now. I'd imagine that car of Newman's and that of Martin's is back at or on it's way to the R&D center for that very reason.

Kudo's to the safety crew too! I'm sure it wasn't fast enough as far as Newman felt at the time but they got him rolled back over pretty smoothly from what I could see.
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I took issue with the way they got him out of the car, it took nearly 15 mins to get him out. Ive seen wrecks with cars end up on the roofs and drivers are out of it pretty quickly.

Nascar had to flip the car back on its wheels and then cut the top off of the car to get to an unhurt driver out. My major issue is that this car is supposed to be safer than the old car...Thank God that car didnt catch on fire yesterday.

Couple of things scared me. The driver being pinned to the roll cage and the entrapment.
 
Go Panthers said:
I took issue with the way they got him out of the car, it took nearly 15 mins to get him out. Ive seen wrecks with cars end up on the roofs and drivers are out of it pretty quickly.

Nascar had to flip the car back on its wheels and then cut the top off of the car to get to an unhurt driver out. My major issue is that this car is supposed to be safer than the old car...Thank God that car didnt catch on fire yesterday.

Couple of things scared me. The driver being pinned to the roll cage and the entrapment.
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Kinda concerns me too, especially about how it appeared that the cage crumpled down onto the driver.
 
racer8 said:
The roof flaps did nothing. Take the flaps off the roof and incorporate them into the wing and it might let some of the air out.
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The roof flaps were designed for the old cars. NASCAR never designed new roof flaps for the COT.

Best analogy I heard all day: That's like putting the wings of a 727 on a 747 because it worked on a 727.
 
I guess I was the only one that saw several with fire extinguisher around Newman's car. Also, the guy holding the fire hose off the back of the truck, I'm sure was just there observing.
They said that if they needed to get Newman out faster they could have but since he wasn't injured they didn't want to drag him out and maybe injure him on ragged metal.

I do wish that after the wrecker had flipped the car over they would have moved it out of the camera angle. That was the best and closest view except for that darn truck. The other angle was a long shot from a rear angle so you couldn't really tell what they were doing when cutting the bars.
 
I agree with much of what has been said there, about "what if" Harvick wasn't there.

Here are the questions I sent Harvick's PR for him to answer (he is not doing scheduled interviews at TMS this weekend)


1. Kevin, after last week's incident with Ryan, first, what were you thinking as you saw the 39 car doing an aerial backflip in front of you, then you becoming Ryan's cushion, and second, as the safety workers were taking their time, extracating Ryan as gingerly and cautiously as they did?

2. As a Mechanical Engineering college student and seasonal reporter at TMS, I have been paying lots of attention to the COT, especially in pertinance to Michael McDowell's accident last year, Carl's accident in the spring Talladga race, and now, Ryan's wreck last week. How do you attest the COT's safety systems to all 3 drivers being able to walk away from their respective accidents, even when Ryan said the roll cage was effectively on his helmet?

3. In reference to Ryan's accent, and somewhat to Carl's, it is my opinion that the design of the wing is creating lift when the cars get turned around backwards, as well as negating the function of the roof flaps. Would you agree, why or why not, and how do you anticipate NASCAR will look into what is causing the cars to get airborne?
 
Magnethead said:
I agree with much of what has been said there, about "what if" Harvick wasn't there.

Here are the questions I sent Harvick's PR for him to answer (he is not doing scheduled interviews at TMS this weekend)


1. Kevin, after last week's incident with Ryan, first, what were you thinking as you saw the 39 car doing an aerial backflip in front of you, then you becoming Ryan's cushion, and second, as the safety workers were taking their time, extracating Ryan as gingerly and cautiously as they did?

2. As a Mechanical Engineering college student and seasonal reporter at TMS, I have been paying lots of attention to the COT, especially in pertinance to Michael McDowell's accident last year, Carl's accident in the spring Talladga race, and now, Ryan's wreck last week. How do you attest the COT's safety systems to all 3 drivers being able to walk away from their respective accidents, even when Ryan said the roll cage was effectively on his helmet?

3. In reference to Ryan's accent, and somewhat to Carl's, it is my opinion that the design of the wing is creating lift when the cars get turned around backwards, as well as negating the function of the roof flaps. Would you agree, why or why not, and how do you anticipate NASCAR will look into what is causing the cars to get airborne?
Click to expand...

I can't wait to hear what kind of feedback you get. :beerbang:

I like the way you think and would love to have a dialogue with you. That said, we folks from Indiana do not have an accent. :D
 
Smoke14 said:
I can't wait to hear what kind of feedback you get. :beerbang:

I like the way you think and would love to have a dialogue with you. That said, we folks from Indiana do not have an accent. :D
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damnit... crap!
 
It is all OK man. Trust me, in ten years you will forget the rest of us race lovers. :biggrin:
 
Magnethead said:
I agree with much of what has been said there, about "what if" Harvick wasn't there.

Here are the questions I sent Harvick's PR for him to answer (he is not doing scheduled interviews at TMS this weekend)


1. Kevin, after last week's incident with Ryan, first, what were you thinking as you saw the 39 car doing an aerial backflip in front of you, then you becoming Ryan's cushion, and second, as the safety workers were taking their time, extracating Ryan as gingerly and cautiously as they did?

2. As a Mechanical Engineering college student and seasonal reporter at TMS, I have been paying lots of attention to the COT, especially in pertinance to Michael McDowell's accident last year, Carl's accident in the spring Talladga race, and now, Ryan's wreck last week. How do you attest the COT's safety systems to all 3 drivers being able to walk away from their respective accidents, even when Ryan said the roll cage was effectively on his helmet?

3. In reference to Ryan's accent, and somewhat to Carl's, it is my opinion that the design of the wing is creating lift when the cars get turned around backwards, as well as negating the function of the roof flaps. Would you agree, why or why not, and how do you anticipate NASCAR will look into what is causing the cars to get airborne?
Click to expand...


I'd really like to see the reply
 
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