hi dave in mystic, and fellow land speed racers! i'm posting this not as a
slam to anybody or the scta or anything, so please dont take offense, this
is just an observation from an innocent bystander, yes -the rules thing is
biased towards newcomers , from what i've seen at bonneville there is a
good ole boys club. last year my brother and i spent the better part of the
day in the inspection lines watching the cars go thru, and we saw blatent
safety violations of the scta rulebook pass if you were in the buddy
system. for example, the wild looking #906 bright green saab sonnet, (i'll
use this guys car JUST AS AN EXAMPLE ONLY , i dont have a problem with the
guy or anything, i dont even know him or want to bash him or his car in any
way whatsoever ) who was known on a first name basis with the techs . here
the car is a record holder ( 230 mph + mod sports?), and he had closed end
acorn nuts without washers or anything on his aluminum wheels, his window
net was held in with ty wraps thru unfinished, undeburred, awl holes
punched in the rocker panel (and that was it keeping him in the car, there
was no cage rollbar on his left side !),his cage had no gussets, i could go
on and on ( i popped a roll of film on this car for reference). my favorite
thing was that this guy used some kind of plastic shower curtain( yes )
held in with ty wraps for his rear firewall , and then an hour later they
flagged a guy from austrailia in a beautiful, clean, pristine, safe orange
55 chev blown fuel altered ( castlemains rod shop?) who had a tiny gap less
than the thickness of a paper match(without exaggeration) in a metal
firewall where his backseat was, and required him to fix it and get it
reinspected. i was enraged that because this guy was making his first trip
to the u.s. that they shit all over him, while george was lining up with a
piece of plastic flapping in the wind in his backseat for another record
run in a comparatively blatent death trap. i asked the chief inspector who
performed the inspection and checked off all the items on his safety sheet
(jim something )to step aside and chat, and i went right down the entire
list of every safety violation on the car and he said "well , he runs all
the time so we down really look the car over as hard as new cars" i told
him that if anybody was to ever get a limb amputated or killed at
bonneville in a crash, this guy was a likely candidate- this is how we will
have a death on our shoulders at the flats, due to an extremely unsafe car.
oh by the way, his second, separate inspection consisted of jim walking
over to another inspector in another lane and saying "hey, george (last
name) is good to go , sign this". anyways, we're hoping to debut our car at
speedweek this year , and i'm waiting to go thru tech with these guys,
because i will take them and my supposed list of safety violations to
george's truly unsafe car and ask them why his car is "good to go" with
alot worse ! (AGAIN- I'M NOT TRYING TO BASH ANYONE IN ANY WAY !, this is
just the facts as i observed first hand)- this subject of safety is
important to ALL competitors and the credibility and longevity of the sport
itself , not just newcomers.
friendly regards to all ( including george and jim )-
doug ferguson
black radon engineering
groton, ct
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