Red Bull Air Race IDIOTIC penalties/rules
 

Not sure if anyone else here enjoys watching the Red Bull Air Race series, but there are at least two idiotic rules in the series.
1) the max speed for course entry of 200mph
2) the rule that one cannot exceed +10G's for more than 0.1sec at any given time.

They should get rid of BOTH stupid rules and make it a "run what ya brung" series with ZERO limits on entry or top speed as well as ZERO limits on max G's.
If the airframe and pilot can take it, that's the ONLY limit that should exist.
The aircraft are capable of pulling about 12 G's.

If ya can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen.

As usual, I would put emphasis on speed and performance (as I would with ANY other form of racing), with safety a DISTANT third place.
NOBODY and I mean NOBODY goes to a race and says "Wow ! that racer sure puts on a SAFE performance"

My old reply (below the photo) to the last time you whined about race safety rules is just as good now as it was then. Different sport with high-speed fatal potential, same basic issues.

But before that, here is a pic from a different series of pylon racing, P-51 crash into crowd at Reno. Killing the pilot and 10 people on the ground and injuring 69 others.



From:
http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/show...82&postcount=13


All talk, no skin in the game.

YOUR a** is not the one at risk on pit lane if the cars didn't have any speed limits.

YOUR a** is also not the one in the driver's seat, at risk of injury or death

All the safety stuff is needed. The 1970's? Only a bit better than the 1960's, which were a bit better than the 1950's, as far as drivers killed in wrecks at far slower speeds than later on. Like the high-sitting open cockpit Indy cars, no roll cages, where sometimes a driver could FALL OUT of the car, as happened in Indy in the 1950's or so.

Or the flaming wrecks that caused drivers severe permanent injury (Nikki Lauda) or literally burning to death trapped in a car (Swede Savage, though it took 2-3 weeks but IIRC seeing his car rocking back and forth after it stopped……like he was trying to get out as it burned as safety equipment took way too long to get there). And that is just two of too many.

Ah, those were the days be a "race fan", eh? Permanent injuries or death a few times each year. Bull****.

I remember in the 1990's when a number of drivers died. Adam Petty (Kyle's son, Richard's grandson). Clifford Allison (Bobby's son, brother of Davey), Neil Bonnett, and a number of others. Most of them in accidents that broke their necks due to the car and their bodies coming to a sudden stop while their head and helmet were not restrained so the skull popped loose from the spine.

Every f*cking time, NASCAR said nope, no safety devices that could be developed to prevent those. Translation: SUPER-Star didn't die, they were not important enough to NASCAR. Then Dale Earnhardt Sr died, and THEN within a YEAR, all of a sudden new secret technology was given by NASA and DARPA to address many of the key problems. Well, not really. NASCAR required drivers to wear the HANS device that had already been developed for use by drivers in CART and Indy car racing, which is what helps keep the head attached to the body in Adam Petty / Clifford Allison / Neil Bonnett / Dale Earnhardt SR -type crashes.

And the "soft wall, for decades NASCAR claimed a "rubber wall" would just make cars bounce back onto the track, and also of course nobody "important enough" had died yet. And still it wasn't NASCAR that developed it. It was developed for Indycar, for the Indianapolis race track, using crushable foam (like wall insulating foam sheets) with a flexible steel wall in front that would bend and absorb shock without cars bouncing back like a rubber ball. Today, most of the viewers of NASCAR races think the SAFER barrier was a NASCAR invention.

Sadly, many of my favorite drivers of the 70's and 80's and into the 90's did not retire of their own. Richard Petty retired by choice, few other of my favorites got to retire. Bobby Allison was in a horrible wreck, hitting the outer concrete wall very hard, which caused a brain injury he nearly died from. A SAFER barrier would have probably prevented that severe brain injury, though a HANS device may also have helped. Definitely the HANS device and/or SAFER wall would have probably saved Clifford Allison, Neil Bonnett, Adam Petty, and many others through the years ( I think Tiny Lund died the same way in the 1970's), but NASCAR kept treating the same "skull snapped off from spine" fatal injury (like a long-drop hanging execution) as the price of doing business….when it was the drivers, their families, friends, and fans paying that price, not NASCAR (also most of those happened during practice or running for the pole and not during an actual race).

When Earnhardt was killed on Fox Sports' heavily hyped FIRST Daytona 500 broadcast, in what looked to be a relatively minor crash, that is what had the fans and the networks clamoring for NASCAR to finally quit pretending it was not a problem and stop lying about it being impossible to do anything. That was NASCAR's "9/11", or "Challenger" moment, unfortunately caused to some extent by their own neglect of not having a high priority on driver safety, as shown by ridiculing the soft wall idea for decades rather than actually trying to test any out.

I'm a big fan of racing. And I mean RACING. I'm not into it for the crashes, anyone who cheers for crashes is not a race fan. I worked a few times on a charter bus from Birmingham to the Talladega races. One time two guys, who brought their own ice chest of beer, asked where the best place would be to sit to see the crashes. Those guys were not race fans, they just wanted to gawk and get drunk (one of them was a problem on the drive back). But since they were customers I didn't tell them that they were not real race fans, but I also didn't recommend anyplace to see the wrecks better, even if any place had come to mind. I can think of a wreck that happened with Kyle Busch, who drives too recklessly and crashes out other drivers more than most anyone else. The crowd cheered when he wrecked…. but several other cars got wrecked with him and I do not know how so many in the crowd could be sure that THEIR favorite driver was not caught in the same wreck, in which case some probably were accidentally cheering their own driver being wrecked (because the wreck was at the far end of the track where it was hard to make out the other specific cars by eye, Talladega is a huge track). To me that's another big reason NOT to like wrecks, aside from the danger, and injury risk, but that wrecks are wild cards that can catch your own favorite driver in one and ruin your enjoyment of the rest of the race (not to mention your driver's of course!).

So, GH, how many real world car races DID you race in and win? How many times were you on the pit crew "over the wall" during green flag racing, with no speed limits? When was the last NASCAR or Indycar/CART race you attended?

If you don't like the safety rules in racing……. then don't watch it! I'd rather see safe races that are RACES rather than crash-fests, and for drivers to eventually retire of their own choice rather than to be crippled or killed.

- George Gassaway

As one who was at Reno that year, I would rather not see that sort of thing in person or on tv.

Frank

My ONE word answer to George is as follows- TOUGH !

Can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen !

No Rules OUTLAW RACING has maximal thrills for both the participants and spectators.

When it comes to safety equipment, it should ALL be OPTIONAL to be used by the pilot/driver including even helmets.
I have no problem with OPTIONAL safety but have a MAJOR issue with FORCED safety.

NASCAR should STILL be saying "NOPE!"

Bet you can guess how I regard Seat Belt laws, Car Seat laws, and Motorcycle Helmet laws.
Thankfully my state finally got rid of the stupid mandatory motorcycle helmet law.

During my youth, ALL of my buddies ran our motocross cycles WITHOUT any helmets or other safety garbage. We wore goggles just to keep bugs out of our eyes. Very FEW ever wore helmets.
Kids that dared to wear helmets on bicycles were ASKING for a righteous butt-kikkin'.
The over-emphasis on utopian safety is a ridiculous JOKE.

STREET OUTLAW racing is where it's at !
Even NHRA has went mamby-pamby by reducing the Nitro-class races to 1000'.
DUMBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

Most of the races I attended were back in the days of very few safety rules/restrictions.
I won't pay to see the crap that is offered now.

The Busch brothers are the BEST in NASCAR.
We need an entire starting field of racers with the SAME attitude.
Win at all cost including deliberate RAMMING.

Racing without danger, risk and pushing the limits is just plain boring. I used to watch alot of Nascar back in the 80's and 90's but I cannot stand it anymore. IMO Nascar died with Dale Sr. Ultrasafe cars wrapped in styrofoam, you lead no go ahead you have a turn not too rough now ... Ugh.

I still follow / attend Indycar and can be found at the local dirt track quite often, but the glory days of racing are gone and are never coming back. Young people don't care about cars anymore. Society won't tolerate any injury / death in sport anymore. Innovation and pushing the limits has been replaced with spec racing.

Back in the day racers knew the risks and it was their choice as it should be. I have been pelted the face with rocks at the local dirt track and have been showered with carbon fiber at Indy. I know the risks and I accept them ... makes you feel alive. If something happens to me I will sue no one.

+1 to what Scott just said above.

All of this emphasis on safety in racing above all else is just another symptom of the mamby-pamby sissy nanny-state society is becoming.
Given the choice between this and the WILD WILD WEST with next to no rules/safety, I choose the WILD WILD WEST FREE-FER-ALL every time.

Totally agree that RISK/DANGER makes one feel alive.
We are moving WAY too close to a passivist WIMP society.
This attitude PERVADES NASA now as well.

I dunno..I think it's a toss up, I can see both sides. For instance, as a kid I used to love watching Evil jump his Harley over rediculous distances, part of the excitment was the possiblity of seeing a spectacular crash, on the other hand I was always afraid that if he got killed we would never be able to see him make those jumps again. Danger is the excitement and the draw. Should we go to full protective head hear in boxing?

Caesars Palace
https://youtu.be/cnPZq9rdNEI

I gave up on NASCAR shortly after they mandated POS restrictor plates beneath the carbs for Talladega and Daytona.
Something is SERIOUSLY wrong with a series when the record qualifing speed of 214mph by Bill Elliott from like 1984 still stands today.
The cars would be capable of close to 240 if they got rid of the stupid restrictions.

The series today is a freakin' joke where all engineering innovation is stymied to attempt to 'equalize' the cars. All that creates is huge pile-up wrecks due to all the cars being so close together.
I never watched for the wrecks in any racing series. I watched for PERFORMANCE and SPEED above all else.
They should return to ZERO cubic inch engine limitations and no pit speed entry/exit limits.
THAT would get me interested again.

The only non drag-racing series that is even close to decent any more is Formula 1.
They start the race the way ALL races should start; a standing-start holeshot launch MELEE !
They handle cautions correctly as well; rarely is a full course caaution issued; it is usually just for one turn.
Yes, they have tragedies; I saw the crash live where Ayrton Senna was killed. It involves risk and danger. As the $$$ goes up, so should the RISK, NOT the opposite.
That series still mostly features SPEED, PERFORMANCE, and INNOVATION over POS mamby-pamby safety. Those racers still have major STONES !

For the money professional sports figures make, they should have the risk of gladiator combat, NOT the opposite with over emphasis on safety.

I'm 100% against seat belt laws and helmet laws. Society doesn't need to try and save people from themselves. Or to save ME from MYself.

I've been riding a motorcycle for years and would never ride without a helmet, I am smart enough to know how much it protects me and I value my skull a LOT. But if someone else wants to risk their skull, why should I impose my values on them?

I've been driving a car for over 30 years and would never drive without a seat belt. I'm smart enough to know how much it protects me and I value my life a LOT. But if someone else wants to risk their life, why should I impose my values on them?

With NASCAR it's more about the sponsors and the money and much less about safety of the drivers. When some earlier drivers died the public thought it was sad, but they didn't want to stop watching. When Dale died there was a very public outcry for more safety for their beloved drivers and the sponsors put the heat on NASCAR - increase safety or we're pulling our money. If there were NO safety restrictions, like some fools want, there would be a potential bloodbath every race, the sponsors would run away, and most of the better drivers would refuse to race. The races would stop. You just can't have NASCAR races without safety rules in place. It wouldn't be possible.

Sometimes a safety rule is in place for reasons other than to reduce the amount of fun the spectators can have, and it's not always to make sure the participants are safer either.

I went to the Red Bull Air Race at Texas Motor Speedway last year and it was awesome. I am absolutely going back again this year. They not only get the air race right, they get the entire experience right. They even let everyone down on the track after the race, pushed the planes out to within a few feet of the spectators and several of the pilots chatted and signed autographs for hours. In fact, Kirby Chamblis was increadibly good to the crowd, particularly the kids.

The racing was entertaining, and the experience was an excellent value overall. Entertainment quality is not determined by the body count.