TBK-Light.com

i cant find it but im sure someone knows, what was Arie Luyendyk's top speed during his run? not quickest lap but top speed at the end of the straights?

Don't know about on the qualifying run but he says he was hitting 243mph when he set an even faster lap (239.260mph) in practice.
http://www.motorsportretro.com/2012/05/ ... -luyendyk/

Ouch.

Back in the late 80/90's we had a spate of similar incidents in formula ford & first where the wishbones penetrated the chassis and essentially stabbed the driver, leading to quiet a few people getting hurt with similar injuries, back then the fix was to put an additional horizontal bar between the two wishbone legs on the outside of the chassis which made the wishbone less arrow like, after that happened, no more leg injuries even if a few of us got close.

If Indycar is as serious about safety as they appear to be, they could get this done for Sunday, one guy at Van Diemen managed to modify 60 wishbones in a few days, they were sent out and we were told, fit them or you don't race. If they cut the bullshit, they could get them done for carb day.

Man, this is just more gruesome each time more details are revealed.

Given the angles and anatomy mentioned, I really hope the wishbone missed his...private region. That's an extra level of misery I can't imagine.

http://www.racer.com/indycar/item/116939-indy-500-hinchcliffe-saved-from-serious-injuries

Damn,

For comparison's sake... I also know that the pushrod Mercedes/Illmor motors in the Penskes in 1994 resulted in some serious top end speeds. They had to back off the throttle early in practice to avoid letting USAC see just how fast they were to avoid getting their boost reduced before raceday. They were hitting 250mph trap speeds if they actually ran full throttle the entire straightaway. And the fastest trap speed ever recorded in IndyCar/CART/IRL was Paul Tracy in 1996 at Michigan in the draft heading into turn 1... 256mph.

The Penske Ilmor/merc of 1994, reportedly had approx 1200 h.p with trap speeds in the 250 mph range. If the chassis was as good as the engine, this should have resulted in lap speeds of approx 244 mph. The qualifying speed was 228 mph.


In my opinion the reason that Penske failed to qualify in 1995 was that the car did not have the h.p to make up for the chassis dificiencies which they should have noticed. The qualifying speed was 228 mph i.e, the speed split should have been around 5 m.ph and not 22 mph.

When the 1995 Penske cars where fitted with "conventional" H.P, the rest is history.

From memory, Sneva, Mario and Jeff Andretti, Emmo, Crawford, Mears, Brian Bonner and Vasser all went to Methodist on Race Day '92.

Plus I don't remember LMP's getting this much stick when they had all those take off's.

James Hinchcliffe is improving as he remains in stable condition following surgery yesterday at IU Health Methodist Hospital for an injury to his pelvic area and upper left thigh. Hinchcliffe is undergoing further evaluations in the Intensive Care Unit and has been ruled out of Verizon IndyCar Series competition for the foreseeable future