Me neither. I just want to say that the HANS device supports your head against frontal impacts (or so it seems so) to prevent basilar skull fractures. This does not mean it can prevent all kind of impacts that causes them. The weight of the helmet can actually works against you: just read "Combination of factors killed Dale Earnhardt". I know this is a controversial point, so sad we wouldn't like to read about it (my heart became slumbered just by looking for the links): check "Racing past the truth", where it says: "Earnhardt suffered a skull fracture which ran from the front to the back of his head -- not the base" or "Ethicists debate independence of Earnhard report", where you can read: "The basilar skull fracture wasn't caused by a whiplash-like affect".Tom wrote:... with the HANS device his neck wasn't at great risk... Still, I suppose we don't know what could have happened
I agree instictively (a bad thing to do...): I doubt very much it can help you that much against lateral impact, look at the shape of the support and the belts and their anchor points.
There are worrying reports about how effective HANS is against lateral impact: "... we were struck by the violence with which the structure slapped up against the left side of the neck and the fact that the carbon fiber cracked in two locations ... The HANS device reduced lateral head torque by only 18%. In the case of the Isaac system it was reduced by 85%." (admitedly written in a comparison of the Issac and HANS devices).
I'd say it was luck and perhaps the new regulations that raised slightly the lateral protection of the cockpit. Mr. Wurz HAD NO CHANCE to pick up the angle of the crash, but some of you, racers, may have a split second to decide HOW to crash. Read some of the links, please. I don't know if they will make you any good, but perhaps you will have a thougher stand when race organizers decide something. (for example, wiki on Death of Ayrton Senna and Dale Earnhardt).
Anyway, I'd say that even if Mr. Wurz fingers were saved by the bell (I guess the tire markings mentioned by pRo were on top of the steering wheel), what worries me A LOT is how close Mr. Coulthard was to flip the car: the issue of open-wheel racing that worries me is how easy is to throw a car into the air and the two possibilities you have in a crash. Let me try to explain:
Thank heaven the Red Bull car was lifted horizontally. For me, this means (I haven't checked the tape, sorry, perhaps some of you can) that the left front wheel of Mr. Coulthard impacted the right front wheel of Mr. Wurz on the back of it, interlocking the wheels, instead of hitting it on the frontal part.
Just make two circles with thumb and index finger, like when you make the "OK" sign, with each hand: make the two circles "spin", as a wheel does, and make your right hand "circle" touch your left "circle", first on the back of your left thumb: the wheels move in opposite senses and the resultant force is vertical. Now do the same touching your left "circle" on the front: the resultant force produces a torque that spins your car (or Mr. Coulthard) and would have thrown the car upside down. I don't know if this is feasible (or if it introduces more problems that it solves) but I would cover somehow the frontal part of both front and rear wheels, to prevent this effect. Anyway, I don't know if this is a crazy advice, but when I see I'm going to hit another wheel, I try to do it on the back of it. Again, you may have a split second to make that decission.
I also think that the aerodynamics of a flying car must be revised somehow. I don't know if this is feasible, but the flaps of NASCAR could be used somehow on the undertray: it's evident, for my naive eye, that when the car lifts off the ground you have a huge surface that act the way a leaf behaves when falling from a tree. I wonder how you could "cut" that effect and preven the flipping of the car.
