Nightmare at a Drag Strip

Car & Driver ^ | July 2005 | STEVE SPENCE

[wallcrawlr]

[Bluegrass Conservative]

I've never understood why these things are so popular. Personally, I have NO desire to see a person in drag strip. :-)

[My2Cents]

Tragic and bizarre.

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

I read about this when it happened months ago and it was very sad.

[trisham]

What a tragedy. Very sad.

[The Electrician]

Lots of vehicles have "dead man" switches that cut off the engine if the operator becomes disabled. These don't have such a thing installed?

[wallcrawlr]

I never heard about it until it hit Car & Driver. Then I looked it up and found other news articles online.

It is very sad.


Makes you think about putting a remote shut down device on there.

[Palladin]

I hate it when that happens.

[sandydipper]

Way wierd - 1st. Saturday in April - I was at my accontants office crying.

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

They have a "kill switch" to shut the engine down. They believe Shelly was dead or unconscious after the blowover and thus she could not hit the "kill switch".

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

Her vehicle was equipped with a kill switch.

[biblewonk]

Ping

[Fierce Allegiance]

Racing is all about finding that fine line. Sometimes it gets crossed and this is what happens. It isn't for everybody. If you play, expect to pay.

Sad anyway.

[Not now, Not ever!]

Even a stand-alone garage door opener could have allowed her husband to kill the engine with the push of a button.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Probably not because the car is shaking like mad and there is the possibility of accidentally killing the engine and losing the race. However, it might not be a bad idea to have safety man with a digitally encoded remote control (digitally encodes to block random or malicious signals and dual buttons to prevent accidental shutdowns) that could kill the engine from anywhere on the track.

[SandyB]

The drag strip was where all the kids went when we were in high school. Why didnt the engine stop when she went unconsious? her foot was no longer pressing the pedal, and if there is another way to give it gas(like on a boat), that is a bad idea because if you go unconsious, the car will keep going.

[wallcrawlr]

How about a remote one?

Could that be a safety feature in the future?

Something the pitcrew would hang on to that could shut the car down in a crash.

[newgeezer]

When the magazine arrived a couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon this column and could hardly believe what I was reading. Wow.

I wanted to post it then but it wasn't yet online. Glad to see someone did.

[xp38]

She was beautiful.

[Little Pig]

I'm amazed that the thing stayed running that long. These things don't carry that much fuel, and the engine is running on compression only by halfway through the run. By all rights, it should have grenaded after being kept at full throttle so long.