Hi,
At the 1993 TRF Summer party, I was eyewitness to a TR6 rollover. The
autox was at the airport and a driver who had not walked the course went
out for his first run and got really loose in a slalom. When the car
wiggled the other way, he went off driver's right into the grass with the
car still rotating 'till the back of the car hit an embankment (stopping
the motion of the vehicle). The car stood on the rear (I think the left
rear dug into the dirt) exposing the entire bottom of the car and the car
then rolled back onto the driver's side. The only thing keeping the car
from turning turtle was the windscreen and the angle of the embankment,
otherwise the windscreen would have pancaked.
Would a roll-bar have made a difference. Probably not. Would it have
helped? In this case, not really. But had the car had just a slightly
different "vector" it would have been ugly. As it was, the entire driver
side was messed and two wheels were bent and the windscreen and frame were
toast.
But to your question, it is extremely hard to flip a car, maybe even
moreso with a low CG car like a TR6. But in real world driving, there are
curbs, soft shoulders, ditches and all sorts of stuff that can make huge
changes in the basic physics of a car in motion.
On the other hand, having a hard object to hit your noggin on is asking
for trouble. Absent high density foam (not roll bar padding - real high
density foam), even a minor shunt can result in various trauma including
"closed head" injuries.
So you have to ask yourself - if the risk of your head hitting the roll
bar greater than the risk of rolling the car? That's something that only
you can answer.
Ten years ago, if you'd ask me how hard it was to flip a car, I'd tell you
"it's pretty hard". However, I live in a major metro area (Boston, MA) and
_every day_ there's a rollover somewhere in the traffic reports. We all
know why - it's usually some person that thinks you can stop a high CG
car/truck on a dime and make change while you're driving 75 mph. And the
victim is usually someone that gets ping-ponged off the road. So it seems
that the risk has increased. But for ME, I'd take the rollover risk vs.
the potential to bang my head and skip the bar. I have a bar in the race
car, but I wear head protection while I drive that (and I have
high-density foam to reduce the intensity of helmet contact with the bar,
per the SCCA regulations.)
That is all.
rml
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Bob Lang Room N42-140Q | This space for rent
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On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, Robert N. Clark wrote:
> I am interested in what TR6 owners are looking for when considering a
> roll bar for a non racing car. Does anyone have any real life
> experience with rolling a tr6?
>
> Bob Clark
> 69' TR6
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