![]() “It’s like the right rear falling out from under you.”īoth an engineer and a metal expert hired by the Sentinel found that the stud on Orr’s car was cracked long before the wreck. The car “would go straight into the wall,” he said. Richard Petty, who has won more races than any other driver in Winston Cup history, said controlling a car when the part snaps is impossible. ![]() Without the shock absorber locked firmly into place, the car could bounce drastically out of control. In Orr’s death, the part that failed was a 3-inch, screw-like piece – called a stud – that held the right rear shock absorber to the car, according to experts hired by the newspaper. Its practices mean problems that cause fatal crashes may be overlooked and other drivers may be in danger. In all those cases, NASCAR routinely conducted short examinations, released the wreckage to owners and seldom conducted in-depth interviews with crew members who prepared the cars for the race. In the past 20 years, eight drivers have been killed and another is in a coma after crashes in the Winston Cup Series, stock-car racing’s elite level. NASCAR’s cursory investigations are not unusual. In tests commissioned by the Sentinel, Standards Testing Laboratories of Massillon, Ohio, found that Orr’s tires met all construction, design and compound standards. in recent years for a bigger share of the racing market. At the time of their deaths, Orr and Bonnett were using Hoosier tires, which in recent years has been challenging Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Racing tires built by Hoosier did not contribute to Orr’s wreck, as drivers and owners suggested after the crash. Any chance of discovering the cause is gone because the car was destroyed shortly after the crash. ![]() ![]() But NASCAR still has not said what caused the wreck. Nice work, Tim.NASCAR, after saying Bonnett’s driving had caused his wreck, quietly retracted its finding shortly after the crash amid objections from champion driver Dale Earnhardt and Bonnett’s family. The perfect ending to this story is that he got back in the Camaro the next night and ran a 3.893-second 1/8-mile at 193.52 mph. The car landed back on the pavement without so much as touching a wall or another vehicle and Slavens was able to walk away completely fine. Even with his vehicle several feet in the air, he manages to reel it in and pull it back into his lane. With the chute deployed, the car can catch wind that adds a level of difficulty to trying to get the car back on the ground. While trying to correct the issue, the parachute deployed (as it should) but can sometimes cause additional problems for the driver. It appears that Slavens might have known there was a problem and tried to correct it before flying through the air. In this case, however, it ended just fine – relatively speaking. Usually when a car goes airborne at these speeds, whether on or off a track, it doesn’t end well. Tim Slavens and his 1969 Chevy Camaro pulled off the landing of a lifetime. At South Georgia Motorsports Park’s Lights Out 12 drag race event last week for example, things got wild. If you’re looking for an exciting day, heading to the dragstrip is almost always a good option.
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