Cleetus McFarland is going to get somebody killed...

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

Hailee was smart enough to use the pool noodles at least. And I heard a comment in on of Cleetus's short update videos about him having to do a few safety things to the cars to satisfy Bristol, so they must have signed off on the cars. Bristol is only a half mile track so they don't get up to any huge speeds, especially on street tires with no grip. And ultimately its a bunch of racing by adults of sound mind. Most if not all drivers had raced before and all were familiar with high performance vehicles so I say let them make their own minds up about the level of risk they are comfortable with. 

I hope they rethink where they take this show and having half the field of cars getting written off in one wreck will probably do that. Bristol may only be a half mile but with the high banking that leads to higher speeds and some interesting car behavior when you get off the gas and hard on the brakes as something like that happens up ahead.

Cleetus seemed to come up through the drag racing side of things too and I think some of that mentality shows in these cages. Just look at the NHRA 6 second  rated cages that are installed into the drag and drive cars with quite a few tubes surrounding the drivers head with zero padding and a non containment seat . Also look at the more basic cages that are installed in slower cars that still have a stock bench seat in them.

Hell, the OP mentioned they were watching Faster with Finnegan, Roadkill does not exactly give the impression of safety. You can also checkout his latest episode on Blasphemi and look at its cage, then look at the new seats and tell me you think that is a safe way to spend a week on open roads without a helmet.

akylekoz said:

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Re: ABS glitch, both my 2001 GMC van and my 2009 Mazda had bad wheel speed sensor wires at one time or another.  Both of them would go full ice mode on dry pavement occasionally.  Both at only under about 5 mph, not a big deal right.  That is precisely the speed that I enter a garage, I have puckered.  

Please explain.

Sorry for the thread jack.

ABS systems try to target a certain slip percent (say, the wheel is spinning 5% slower than if it was rolling freely), but they also look at the "rate of change" of the slip (first derivative if you thought high school calculus was useless). When a sensor drops out, the ABS thinks the wheel locked instantly which has a very high first derivative. This is worse than if the wheel locked naturally, so the ABS assumes the wheel is on some surface with no grip. 

Things like high-mu brake pads coupled with low inertia wheels can really put ABS outside of its comfort zone, and it will put the hammer down in a hurry when that happens because it is safer to have steering than brakes if you can only pick one. With locked tires, you cannot pick your target, so being able to pick, say, a car instead of a pedestrian or a field instead of a tree is seen as the correct compromise. 

Loads of people watch WWE etc. and then go out in the backyard and try it.............I assume people who are into this are of the same ilk.

This is no different then street drag reality shows. 

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

dean1484 said:

The hit that scared me was the car on the outside fighting for the lead (I think a famous Female Utuber was driving). 

She's not just a Youtuber, that's Hailie Deegan. She's a legit racing driver who's a full-timer in the NASCAR truck series. Honestly, I'm a little surprised she would even get into one of those cars. She has a lot more to lose than most of those folks. I guess she figured it would be a fun lark.

The name was familiar.  I don't keep up with NASCAR like I use to and I have not watched a truck race in a couple of years.   Her comments and her body language in the video now have even more meaning to me now.

For those that are saying that the speed at that track is not that great due to it being a short track are incorrect.  It has very steep banking that keeps the speeds way up compared to a flat track of the same size.  

Several drivers said they could lap without lifting, and Cletus went out for close to 100 laps with no tire wear other than the front right, which to me means the speeds were not high. I don't think this was anything like high horsepower purpose built cars with a lot of grip. And really the proof is that Hailee's car hit the wall as hard as anything I have seen and she walked away. So the safety features of her car proved adequate and did the job. 

To me, Cleetus is the automotive equivalent to Pro Wrestling. It's a spectacle event meant to entertain. I've watched a few of his events over the years. I try to separate the political BS from it. 

That said, the safety stuff is akin to what you find at your local circle/dirt track or fairground demo derby, and yeah, it can be dicey. It's unfortunately going to take someone getting hurt bad for them to change. Lemons is an organized amateur racing series meant to give regular folks real track time, and they make sure stuff is safe. It's not comparable. 

Would I race in one of those events? Hell to the berk no! Just like I wouldn't get in the ring with a pro wrestler or MMA fighter. 

Will I watch more of them? Probably. 

maschinenbau said:

hunter47 said:

AClockworkGarage said:

Background for those who don't know, Cleetus is a law school dropout who makes his living as an automotive youtuber. He bought a short track in Bradenton FL and named it the Freedom Factory (big Jan 6th energy there) before making a hard right into covid denial. 

I'm really upset that overt patriotism is associated with COVID denial and insurrectionism nowadays. I'm guilty of it too. Is flying a giant American flag suction cupped to your German FWD hot hatch corny? Yes. Should I immediately go to "wow he must not believe in COVID and/or hates Biden"? No, no I shouldn't. 

If you actually watch his channel, it's refreshingly apolitical unlike how this thread started. 

I change my mind though about the safety aspect, and agree he knows better and should put more effort into safety. It's a bit irresponsible to the rest of the motorsports community, even though yeah it's a free country and they can do whatever they want.

I occasionally watch his videos, and yes I understand it's relatively apolitical. I'm mostly expressing that I'm upset of the association of "Patriotism = Trumpster COVID Denier". I think that it was an irrelevant point in a very important topic. 

I am glad that you've changed your mind on the safety aspect. Either full-ass it or don't do it at all imo. 

RacetruckRon said:

I think you guys are looking at the "cages" the wrong way here.  Yes, they absolutely could be better, there's no rear bracing member or diagonal on the rollbar.  There is however a harness bar, some added rollover protection and a door bar for anti intrusion.  I'd rather have a "sketchy" doorbar in a pileup like that than a questionable rear braced rollbar.

The door bar literally does nothing.  In a side impact, it will fold and tear before it is under any kind of tension.  It may fold over you, trapping you in your seat.

I would love for every thread to be apolitical but the subject of the discussion ties his resentment of safety gear and authority in general to his political views, very directly.  In doing so, he represents a large and growing problem. It's hard to say "racing should have established safety standards" and "adults have free will and can do whatever they please" in the same breath. 

In reply to ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) :

Its easy. Talk about the cars, the safety of the cars, and whether or not people should be in them, but do not mention Trump, covid, vaccine, government, or other trigger words that are well known. 

It looks like the wall was the "safer" barrier design and surely helped. You don't get that on the freeway!

Finnegans car slid under whoever he hit, the body took the force,not the frame. Very scary. 

For all the damage done, there wasnt much intrusion into any of the passanger compartments i could see.

Would a person in similar hiway collision without the race seat and harness fare better?

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) :

Its easy. Talk about the cars, the safety of the cars, and whether or not people should be in them, but do not mention Trump, covid, vaccine, government, or other trigger words that are well known. 

OK then. People should respect that appointed competent authorities, through experience, empirical data and deductive reasoning, can impose uniform safety standards that are required to participate in certain activities.  Like racing cars.  These standards are to serve the greater good of all participants, as well as protect the individual participants from their own inexperience, incompetence or ignorance.  In cars.

In reply to adam525i :

In the modern world there is nothing safe about a 55, even in stock form.

Appleseed said:

In reply to adam525i :

In the modern world there is nothing safe about a 55, even in stock form.

^Especially in stock form. 

I don't have much of value to add, but I will say when I watched the testing video, I was rather concerned by two things - first it seems like the cars were having issues with the cooling system blowing out under the higher loads put on them at Bristol, and the second was the cages.  What was probably acceptable at Freedom Factory (3/8 mile with relatively low banking) is way unsafe at Bristol (smidge over a half mile with high banking).  I think they were getting to 80+ MPH at Bristol while they don't get over 60 at FF.   That's nearly twice the kinetic energy, and at Bristol they can hold that speed, while at FF they have to slow down for the turns.  Maybe I lean towards more paranoid than most, but I wouldn't have gotten in one of those cars without it having a triangulated cage with a much better driver's door protection.

Thank goodness for the SAFER barrier.  At least it also looked like drivers had helmet restraints.  Watching his videos chronologically, it does seem they are getting better at safety (especially after George rolled the Fiero and it caught fire), but they only do it after a near disaster.

Just a note. Randy Pobst, Alex Bowman and a few other professional drivers have looked at the cars and decided to do the race.  Does that make it a good idea?  No, but some people are willing to accept more risk than others. 

AClockworkGarage said:

Full disclosure, I cannot stand this guy. I think he's a terrible representative of the hobby. I don't watch his channel. Also he has a very punchable face.

I could not agree more. 

ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) :

Its easy. Talk about the cars, the safety of the cars, and whether or not people should be in them, but do not mention Trump, covid, vaccine, government, or other trigger words that are well known. 

OK then. People should respect that appointed competent authorities, through experience, empirical data and deductive reasoning, can impose uniform safety standards that are required to participate in certain activities.  Like racing cars.  These standards are to serve the greater good of all participants, as well as protect the individual participants from their own inexperience, incompetence or ignorance.  In cars.

Because I'm ignorant of the events described in this thread and almost everyone mentioned in it, except for Hailie Deegan, who are the "appointed competent authorities " in this situation?

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

If you say it with that much confidence then you must be right.  I fail to see how that bar does nothing. It is another layer of steel behind the door panel and is a pretty standard beam on NHRA and drift style cages. We can agree that the cages are subpar but to say that is going to tear and fold over the driver is a big stretch or a gross misunderstanding of how ductile steel is. 

In reply to RacetruckRon :

I am making the grand assumption that the tubing is something like .083 wall, something really weak in bending.  A good cage design makes the tubes load in tension and compression in an impact, because that is the way thinwall tube is strong.  In the case of a side impact, the tube would attach to an A pillar tube and be loaded in tension if you tried to bend it inwards.

That tube is attached to nothing that would load it in tension.  It is going to be loaded strictly in bending.  Heck, all they would have had to do is use a straight tube, without the downward bend, and it would be a better design.

That is why the lack of diagonals in the hoop is distressing.  It'll just fold over because tubes are not strong against bending loads.

I am also making the grand assumption that there are decently sized floor plates and they didn't just weld the tubes to the 22 gauge floor metal.  Given the way the window nets were attached, I may be giving too much credit.

As far as "it can't happen"... there was an incident a few years ago where that very thing did happen, with a PROPER cage, and the guy was stuck in his seat for 40 minutes with the cage trapping his leg in the seat, slowly bleeding out from a bad laceration, while they tried to cut away enough of the car and cage to be able to extricate him.

I'm not a cleetus fan, I've seen some of his content and chose not to watch anymore, but I don't see much problem here. People like his content, so good for him.

In another thread members where commenting on people's lack of personal responsibility. I'm not saying I'd get in one of those cars and race, but If an adult wants to, then I don't care. People choose to jump out of planes and off bridges, if they want to drive beaters around a track with minimal safety equipment, have fun. In this event they are unlikely to hurt anybody except the other people that made the same safety decision they did.

I think a bunch of people need to get off their high horse, and look closely at their own decisions, I bet most of the members on this forum, have made a decision to go out on public roads with less than perfect cars, and made that safety decision for themselves, while the rest of the people on the roads weren't willing participants in their safety decision which is much worse than what's being discussed here.

The political stuff about covid and insurrection doesn't even have a place in this thread and devalues your arguement, it makes you look like you are incapable of making a valid logical arguement. "His safety equipment is subpar, and, and, and he supports people that disagree with me about completely unrelated topics"

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I can't remember if it was in Finnegan's video or a different one, but it looked like they cut through the floor pan and welded to the frame.  

OP: You lost me at Trump/Covid/denier/punchable face. I dismissed you as a quack.

As to the topic of the car safety, that's a worthy discussion to have. Some of my favorite YouTubers race those cars and I sure wouldn't want to see them get hurt.

I also thought the 'burnout pit' setup was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. Anyone who got out of there with an undamaged car was lucky, not skilled.

Boy, I hope you guys don't stumble upon an Isle of Mann video.

In reply to Appleseed :

Selective outrage