Rollcage issues

[bret]

At the risk of appearing opportunistic...
This is a link to a post about the 10.5 Mustang whose rollcage weld had no penetration.

http://www.bangshift.com/blog/Insane-Carnage-Photos-A-10.5-Tire-Mustang-Meets-Its-Maker.html

I would never say that the TigerCage would protect a driver completely from such a violent crash, but one has to think about the concept of “bending before breaking”, “crash energy absorption”, and the structural integrity of a bolted connection versus a weld that may be [unknowingly] inferior.

In a related incident last week, I was approached by a Porsche owner who wanted to develop a cage for a particular Porsche racing series. He brought his club racer spec car down for us to look at as a starting point. This was a true race car built by an experienced shop. The very first thing I saw when I poked my head in the window was that the connection between the main hoop and the rear brace was only welded about halfway around, apparantly because it was hard to get to. I've seen this kind of thing before and just can't help but think there is a better way.

If I get really aggressive in promoting this product maybe I need to collect a library of these kinds of incidents. I hesitate to do that because it preys on others misfortunes…never a good business path, at least not in my book. On the other hand, if we could initiate racers thinking about the integrity of their welds instead of just taking it for granted, we could make these cars safer, be it with a welded cage or a TigerCage. At the very end of the day it is truly about protecting lives.

It should certainly cause all of us to think just a little.