rec.autos.simulators

It may "stand to reason", but it doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny.
The only way to determine the relative crashworthiness of the cars is
to look at the impact tests they are required to pass. That shows that
F1 cars and CART cars are required to meet similar standards.

It is, however, far more compelling an argument than "because I think
CART cars must be stronger"...

Geoff Schuler
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And, it could be that they were talking about needing to strengthen
wheel attachments and suspension components to cope with the extra
wheel-banging that happens on ovals. That's got nothing to do with
crashworthiness.

That is more likely to be because of the almost total reliance on
wing-generated downforce, rather than the underbody downforce of CART
cars.

Geoff Schuler
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Pat, where were you sitting at Vancouver?? Maybe we were right beside
eachother ;-)

Safety between the two outside an oval is hard to calculate-
F1 tracks are buried in a sea of gravel. CART cars are built
for more protection but run on more realistically equipped tracks.

Tom

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Sorry, that's simply not true.

Geoff Schuler
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CART cars weigh more primarily due to their regulations requiring
it. They are cheaper due in part to them being production oriented
product with profit as a motive rather than proprietary, exclusive,
the sky is the limit fantasy objects as in F1.

Unlike F1, CART cars frequently slam into fixed concrete walls
sideways at speeds F1 cars rarely reach. They are built for sustained
G loading, longer race distances, higher speed, and a wider variety
of tracks with different demands that F1 cars never see. CART teams
travel longer distances, have more races, often get crunched on ovals
and rely on chassis manufacturers for spare parts along the way.
Its really hard to make a direct comparison between the two without
ignoring a lot of what makes each series special.

I would argue that CART cars not being stronger and safer has
no basis in fact either. Both series place different demands
on their cars and both have gone their own direction in meeting
the challenges of those demands. An F1 car will never hit the wall
of an oval at 240MPH and few CART tracks are buried in a sea of
gravel which is the F1 approach.

But he hit the same wall Berger had years earier and done nothing about.
The risk of going off track in F1 usually carries less consequence than
going off track in CART.

Tom

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Designer-Illustrator-Modeler     Iowa State University
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"The requirements of a given test, and the fact that a car passes said
test, in no way implies, much less proves, that the tested car is only
as good as the results of the tests would imply."

Read it again. And again.

All such tests set *MINIMUM* requirements that must be met. But we're
not talking about minimum requirements here. Is that really so hard to
grasp?  Once again - even if F1 test requirements are a bit more
stringent (and I've seen zero proof of it), that in no way makes it true
that F1 cars are more (or less) crashworthy than CART cars.

They are different tests for different cars, built for different purposes,
with different demensions and design requirements. Applying standards
to an object designed for a different purpose and different requirements
doesn't prove anything.

Tom

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Tom Hiett
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You haven't verified a thing. You have simply asserted that you are
right and that I am wrong and tried to prove it by pointing to
crash/impact tests that tell you only the minimum strength of the cars
as measured by that finite set of tests. Period. Such tests do NOT tell
us how strong the cars *really* are. They tell us only that the cars ar
AT LEAST strong enough to pass the tests.

Boeing, when designing and building a new plane, actually stress tests
the wings to the point of breakage. They actually tie the plane down and
bend the wing until it breaks. So they KNOW exactly how much it will
take. They can pint to the numbers and say "At this point it fails."
They don't have a test that says "will the wing stand up to at least X
pounds of pressure?" They find out the actual limit. To my knowledge,
neither F1 nor CART does such a thing. Their tests are minimum, "it has
to stand up to AT LEAST so much stress". Those are two very different
things and until representative example cars from each series are
stressed until they actually break - until the actual limit is known -
this is all just supposition.  

I'm not arguing about the rules. The rules have nothing to do with this.
The F1 tests could require that the cars pass a test that's 50% more
stringent than CART's equivilent test. That still doesn't mean that you
can infer that F1 cars are stronger. Simply stated, the results gained
from a "minimum" test do not, in any way, tell you anything about the
maximum (unless it failes the minimum test, of course.) That you can't
understand this simple fact means this (alleged) discussion is
pointless.

1. It is just a theory. Period. I have neither the desire nor the
   obligation to hash it all out in court with you.

2. You have a blind spot that isn't allowing you to see the flaw
   in your reasoning. As long as you maintain that these tests
   are a reliable and accurate means of comparison, then we have
   already said all that needs to be said.

Geoff Schuler
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We're talking about *verifiable* facts here. So far, all you have come
up with is unsupported speculation.

Then I suggest you read the rules. Arguing about the rules without
reading them isn't a good idea.

Then provide some evidence to back up your theory that CART cars are
stronger. At the moment, the *only* verifiable evidence we have, the
impact tests that the cars must pass before being allowed to race,
show the F1 cars to be stronger.

Geoff Schuler
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Response moved down to where it is in context.

Not at all, or at least, I'm not. I enjoy both series. I'm only
pointing out that the oft-repeated claim that "CART cars are stronger
than F1 cars" is *not* supported by any evidence.

Geoff Schuler
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Actually, Brian, it is you and the other posters who seek to argue
that CART cars may well exceed the minimum CART standards who have the
blind spot. This is motor racing. The chassis builders are in
competition on performance, not safety. Anybody who didn't build their
car to the limit of the regulations (and, in the case of CART, the
market price) would be uncompetitive. If the impact tests in F1 are
tougher, then the chances are that the cars aren't weaker. Accept it.

It's not as if it's a point of honour, for God's sake. All Geoff and I
have been doing is debunking a popular myth. We're not criticising
CART for its safety performance, and if I was to do so it would be the
circuits which I focused on, not the cars.

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