‘Door Car’ Driver Safety Initiative Gaining Momentum

CUBA, MO (Sep. 30, 2008) — With “bipartisanship” one of the key watchwords for this political season, that same spirit of cooperation is being sought for the recently formed Driver Safety Initiative, following the death of drag racer Steve Engel after crashing his 1963 Corvette while competing in an NHRA Pro Modified event at Clermont, Indiana.

Chris Bell, crew chief for Dean Goforth’s IHRA Pro Stock entry, has been tabbed by DSI co-founder and professional chassis builder Tim McAmis to head up the new program. Bell has been deeply involved in professional drag racing for nearly 20 years with several major NHRA and IHRA Pro Stock teams. As such he’s worked with several top-level chassis men, including McAmis, Jerry Haas and Rick Jones.

“I think I have a good working relationship with a lot of the pro chassis builders and my hope is that we can convince all of them to participate in our search for ways to make these cars safer,” Bell said. “The cars advance in performance every year, but safety, while certainly getting better, has not advanced at the same pace.

“This isn’t about redesigning our race cars from the ground up,” he added. “We’re not interested in telling anyone how to build a car; we just want to give them the information they need to build their cars safer.”

According to Bell, the first task will be to examine race accident data “to figure out what actually causes the injuries.” To get a good baseline, DSI hopes to work with John Force Racing, which instituted a similar driver safety project two years ago after NHRA Funny Car star Eric Medlen died after a crash during testing at Gainesville, Florida.

Bell stressed, however, that the focus this time will be on so-called “door cars” and the unique demands that such things as car weight, driver position and current safety practices place on them.

“What if, for instance, a car is upside down with its driver door against the wall?” he asked. “We want to look at how to best extricate that driver after an accident, what we can do to make it easier and safer for everyone.”

Plans call for the creation of a password-secured Web site where drivers, crew chiefs, certified track safety workers and car builders will be able to voice concerns or offer suggestions for improvement in a professional setting.

Though each chassis builder has their own “tricks of the trade,” McAmis sees a need for more standardization in areas like fire suppression and power shutoff placement or window net and seat belt installation and release mechanisms. He said he’s also interested in looking into anti-lock braking systems, additional driver arm-and-leg restraints and even the feasibility of driver airbags in the future.

“We don’t want to redesign the cars, we just want to find all of the smaller items that can make it safer for these drivers,” McAmis stated. “I know every car builder out there shares that same desire, so I want to encourage them all to offer input. This is not just a Tim McAmis Race Cars effort; it’s got to be an industry-wide effort.”

Of course, an undertaking of this sort requires significant funding, so ADRL president and DSI co-founder Kenny Nowling seeded the effort with a $10,000 pledge immediately after Engel’s accident. ADRL Pro Extreme points leader Joshua Hernandez followed suit a few days later, donating the $1,000 bonus he earned for winning the pole at an NHRA Pro Modified race.

Additional donations to the Driver Safety Initiative can be sent to:

 

“This is bigger than the ADRL or Tim McAmis or NHRA or IHRA,” Nowling said. “These drivers literally put their lives on the line every time they make a pass and we all owe everything we have to them. Supporting this safety initiative is not only a good thing to do; it’s the right thing to do.”

 

Every inch of the modern “doorslammer” chassis and its related components will be examined for improvements through the new Driver Safety Initiative headed up by IHRA Pro Stock crew chief Chris Bell. 

ABOUT TIM MCAMIS RACE CARS

Tim McAmis Race Cars is a full-service, chassis-building shop in Hawk Point, Missouri, that specializes in purpose-built, drag-racing cars. McAmis, the 1990 IHRA Pro Modified national driving champion, employs 27 full-time race-car fabricators. For more information on Tim McAmis Race Cars and Tim McAmis Performance Parts, visit online at http://www.timmcamis.com.  

ABOUT THE ADRL
Based in O’Fallon, Missouri, the American Drag Racing League is the nation’s premier sanctioning body for the sport of eighth-mile drag racing. The professional categories featured in the ADRL are Pro Extreme Motorcycle, Extreme 10.5, Pro Nitrous, and Pro Extreme, the quickest doorslammer class in all of drag racing. The 2008 Flowmaster ADRL series presented by the National Guard consists of eight national events run throughout the United States. For more information on the ADRL, visit http://www.ADRL.us.