John Force Kenny Bernstein crash, Force injured

[Verne_Frantz]

Thanks for posting that Craig. The article also said that from other angles viewed, the cone went behind the tire. Too hard to tell from a front view..

Verne

[GRB]

Somebody will have a picture. Those tires don't normally just explode on their own.

[Verne_Frantz]

In the comments by Force on the NHRA site, he said his chassis came apart. I"ve heard they're changed chassis designs to address the tire shake issue, and they may have also incorporated a "break-away" feature to get the driver away from the engine in the event of a serious accident. Just repeating what I"ve heard...

Venre

[SS427]

That is fact as they did redesign it after their driver was killed earlier this year. It was designed to seperate just behind the rear engine plate. Now the question is did the tire explode causing the chassis to seperate or did the chassis seperate prematurely causing the tire to explode?

[GRB]

They will find out why the tire let go eventually. If they don't it won't be from lack of effort. I don't think Force was running one of the new break away chassis'. The fact that Bernstein hit the cones and timer shortly before Force's rear end and tire exploded may be coincidental...but probably not. They probably can't prove that from the remains of the incident so they have to hope somebody will come up with a photo taken at just the right instant.

[mockingbird812]

Failure analysis will reveal a bunch about what happened and in what sequence. They will take a look at the mishap remains and use things like scanning electron microscopes to help them figure things out. Believe it or not, the pictures and video are very helpful, but the real hard evidence is derived from this analysis. They can determine if something failed due to fatigue or an outside source.

[GRB]

Failure analysis will be very difficult especially in the area of tire failure. If the event could have been analyzed at the point of failure or immediately after the event meaningful data could have been found. The problem is similar to Firestone/Ford's problem with the Explorer. There is so much damage that occurs at 300mph after a tire failure that it is impossible to tell what damage occurred before or after the failure.

[mockingbird812]

Failure analysis is routinely done in military and civilian aviation mishaps with speeds well in excess of 300 mph and routinely provides useful info to the investigation teams. They will look at more than just the obvious, i.e. tires, but each component recovered after the mishap will be considered for the analysis. From the videos it all looks chaotic and violent, but you would be surprised at what the teams can reconstruct.

[GRB]

Bernstein crossing the line and throwing debris toward Force at 300+ MPH while almost simultaneously Force's car virtually explodes. Correlated or coincidence? I hope we find out.