[Keith Collantine]

Just seen this fascinating video from the FIA Institute on improving crash safety in V8 Supercars:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJw-Jt1OfY8

See the article here for more:

http://www.fiainstitute.com/news/Pages/article-9999998.aspx

[SoerenKaae]

They should do some rear impact test, and try to improve their fuel cell safety.

[Dave]

Thanks Keith, great find! It’s strange to see a crash test where all of the data is collected from the wall and not the car.

@soerenkaae the category is currently testing the next generation chassis and one of the things they’ve done is move the fuel cell closer to the middle of the car to better protect it in an accident. At the moment it’s behind the rear axle line, like in a normal road car but the new car has it inside the wheelbase.

I’d imagine a lot of this work to improve side impact protection would have to do with Mark Porter’s fatal accident in the Fujitsu Series race at Bathurst in 2006. I remember reading that the next gen car has the drivers seat moved even closer to the middle of the car to put more space between the cage and the driver where Larko was pointing out in the video.

[SoerenKaae]

@Dave Ok thanks for the update. I don’t understand why it has’nt been done before.

They move the seats like in DTM where they are almost sitting in the middle off the car. I think that has something to do with Frank Biela crashing in to a dutch racer (dont remember his name) in 1994…

[Author]

Posts