RIP 66 Barracuda

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72bluNblu said:
Why? Because no one has ever wrecked their car on the street or at the drag strip?

Dont get me wrong, it sucks. But if that throttle issue had happened on the street it could have been much worse. Heck if it had happened at a drag strip it could have been a whole lot worse, the speed could have been MUCH higher when the driver noticed the issue.

Track safety is something you have to pay attention to for AutoX. Typically the speeds are fairly low, and a lot of those competitions are held in parking lots vs a permanent track venue. So from one competition to another things can change a lot.

Watching that video, it seems to me that some those barriers are pretty close given the speeds that are being achieved on that course. I wouldn’t say it’s “dangerous” given that the speeds are still relatively low. But that’s definitely not the most run-off room I’ve seen at an AutoX event.
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I guess because I had not seen an incident like that at an AutoX event before now. My car has been a part of my life for more than 35 years. Longer than the wife and kids. I liked the idea of doing some "spirited" driving, and that looks like a TON of fun, but I hadn't considered that kind of risk.
 
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G-Fish said:
I guess because I had not seen an incident like that at an AutoX event before now. My car has been a part of my life for more than 35 years. Longer than the wife and kids. I liked the idea of doing some "spirited" driving, and that looks like a TON of fun, but I hadn't considered that kind of risk.
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Anytime you drive there’s a risk, driving on the street is far more risky than most types of racing.

AutoX is generally lower risk than other racing because of the lower speeds, but clearly things can still happen. Still MUCH safer than the street, you won’t get hit by somebody on their phone and most of the time if there’s an issue it’s the drivers fault.

A little awareness goes a long way. The Goodguys events are made to get people out there, but there are prizes and people get carried away.

If you’re out to have fun, just remember that. Obviously the Barracuda driver had a mechanical issue, and that can happen anywhere. The Mustang driver that spun in the video I posted, and that Chevy truck driver were trying WAY too hard to make up a tenth or two on that final straight. Both could have posted very similar times with a lot less excitement.

Bottom line is have fun! Don’t worry about the lap time, especially if you’re just starting out. Know your limits and your cars capabilities. And if you don’t, just go slower! The whole point of the goodguys events is to get new people involved, the time spreads are big at events like that.


Big Dad said:
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That’s definitely totaled.

Fixable too, but probably not worth it from a financial standpoint.
 
Wonder if functioning ABS would have helped the guy in the truck.
 
Compare the previous car's walking speed past the red flags to exit (.042) and when the announcer states its the Barracuda driver's best time (indicating he had tripped the finish timer). That's what should have happened versus what did happen.

Even with the standard throttle return check done in SCCA tech, if the throttle was getting actuated by stepping on the brake pedal, that's a tough situation to respond to in lightning fast time. Would have to think Neutral and kill the engine and then do it in less than a second.

Not that it would have neccessarily saved anything in this situation, but
SCCA course layout rules are a lot stricter in terms of room to hard barriers. I've posted some of my SCCA autocross runs here if people want to go look. I'm not going to repost in this thread. I only mention it here to point out for those that are unsure about autocrossing after seeing this that Goodguys version is not the only version.
 
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I'd really like to see just how janky your throttle setup would have to be to be activated by the brake pedal. Sounds like either it was put together unsafe, or the guy freaked out and ran out of talent. Glad he didn't hurt someone.
 
replicaracer43 said:
I'd really like to see just how janky your throttle setup would have to be to be activated by the brake pedal. Sounds like either it was put together unsafe, or the guy freaked out and ran out of talent. Glad he didn't hurt someone.
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These attach to the floor on early a body's so it's possible if the bolts were loose or came loose.
 
thesiren74 said:
These attach to the floor on early a body's so it's possible if the bolts were loose or came loose.
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That happened to me several weeks ago. The pin where the peddle swivels came out. The clip that holds it in broke. The peddle came off the rod. The fix was a bolt and lock nut
 
DionR said:
Wonder if functioning ABS would have helped the guy in the truck.
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I took a look at that video.
I think the answer is yes, but only a little.
Even a basic ABS should have pulsed the front brakes allowing for slightly better traction and maybe allowed for some steering.
But not enough difference to stop or turn it before the barriers.

Comparing with other drivers in that same video, the brakes were applied too late and too hard.
Ideally we'ld like to see all four wheels lock up together on dry pavement, although auto manufactures always lean toward front lock since its safer. But IMO that should happen on slick surface. The rear wheels can contribute significantly in the begining of braking application. If I was looking at this for lessons learned, I would want to explore the brake setup as well as driver decisions.

Other points from the video with the truck:
* Watching the other drivers in that video after watching the Barracuda it seemed to me all were accelerating after they cleared the finish lights. I'm not certain - just going by when the annoucer makes the statement about best time. Generally when we see people doing that at our events, someone is going to talk to the driver. Many times there will be opportunity to accelerate toward the finish and through the lights. That's different, and there will be room for the car to stop even if you do lock up or spin - although you may hit some cones.

* SCCA layouts are designed for participants to drive as close to 100% of the car and driver's capabiliity, and when that is exceeded the penalty is hitting cones (2 second penalty each cone) or going off course (no time scored). We're not seeing cones get hit during the course runs in the video. So its reasonable to conclude that Goodguy's course design concept is different.

* Just because an event is SCCA sanctioned is no guarentee there will be no incidents resulting in injury to vehicle or people. But TWO crashes in the same location on the same course in the same day raises a lot of questions. I would encourage anyone who does participate in a Goodguys event, or anything on a course setup like that (eg Carlisle) with physical barriers or poles so close to drive at 95 or 90% of what you think you and the car can do.

* Finally, SCCA sanctioned autocrosses are 'non-spectator' events unless specifically noted otherwise. This is in part to reduce motivation for "watch this!" driving. For the same reason most will not allow a second person in the vehicle except for an experienced instructor. At least not until you have some reasonable amount of experience yourself.

Those are just some things to think about when seeing these videos. Its sad to see anyone's vehicle damaged as occured at that event. The owners obviously put a lot of time and effort in to both, even if they had not fully tested them out. Autocrosses can be a fun and relatively safe activity to push yourself and your car.
 
72bluNblu said:
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The passenger in the blue truck is the builder. He is the same guy that has had my Valiant for the past 3 years. This truck and many other cars have leap frogged my car in his shop. My Valiant went in for body and paint along with a rollbar and fuel cell cage.
It's a mostly Chevy shop and they do high dollar pro-touring Chevelle and Camaro builds. When a customer comes in wanting to drop 100K on a '69 Camaro the Valiant always seems to get pushed back. The Covid excuse has also been claimed. Then it was the fallout from Covid, "People don't want to work" and he can't find labor.
While I am glad that he didn't get hurt I sure hope he is sore.
There has always been claims that "after SEMA", "after Optima", "after MATS", "after this camaro build" ... he will get back on my car. Guess what the latest claim was? After Goodguys! I haven't talked to him since this crash but I guarantee you he isn't getting started on my car.
If I had the time, space, knowledge, and equipment I would just bring it home. Even if I had the time, space, and equipment I would bring it home.
 
go-fish said:
If I had the time, space, knowledge, and equipment I would just bring it home. Even if I had the time, space, and equipment I would bring it home.
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So I had something similar. I had my '67 Barracuda in a shop since I was working out of state. It dragged out and the clincher was when I took a couple days so I'd have a long weekend to work on the car after they had the new engine in. When it wasn't ready because the owner had some Trans-Am cars from bigger customer, I asked if they had a flatbed service they worked with. Kept it business like but that was it. They got the new engine installed but not even fully bolted up. Had it flat bedded to my garage and that's where it sat. Made a seperate trip to pick up the old engine after buying a stand and borrowing a cherry picker so I could unload it.

There are other shops and people if you can't tackle all that's left yourself. In my case its was months before I could get to it, but that's how it got done in a small garage I rented about 4 blocks from my house.
 
Mattax said:
I took a look at that video.
I think the answer is yes, but only a little.
Even a basic ABS should have pulsed the front brakes allowing for slightly better traction and maybe allowed for some steering.
But not enough difference to stop or turn it before the barriers.

Comparing with other drivers in that same video, the brakes were applied too late and too hard.
Ideally we'ld like to see all four wheels lock up together on dry pavement, although auto manufactures always lean toward front lock since its safer. But IMO that should happen on slick surface. The rear wheels can contribute significantly in the begining of braking application. If I was looking at this for lessons learned, I would want to explore the brake setup as well as driver decisions.

Other points from the video with the truck:
* Watching the other drivers in that video after watching the Barracuda it seemed to me all were accelerating after they cleared the finish lights. I'm not certain - just going by when the annoucer makes the statement about best time. Generally when we see people doing that at our events, someone is going to talk to the driver. Many times there will be opportunity to accelerate toward the finish and through the lights. That's different, and there will be room for the car to stop even if you do lock up or spin - although you may hit some cones.

* SCCA layouts are designed for participants to drive as close to 100% of the car and driver's capabiliity, and when that is exceeded the penalty is hitting cones (2 second penalty each cone) or going off course (no time scored). We're not seeing cones get hit during the course runs in the video. So its reasonable to conclude that Goodguy's course design concept is different.

* Just because an event is SCCA sanctioned is no guarentee there will be no incidents resulting in injury to vehicle or people. But TWO crashes in the same location on the same course in the same day raises a lot of questions. I would encourage anyone who does participate in a Goodguys event, or anything on a course setup like that (eg Carlisle) with physical barriers or poles so close to drive at 95 or 90% of what you think you and the car can do.

* Finally, SCCA sanctioned autocrosses are 'non-spectator' events unless specifically noted otherwise. This is in part to reduce motivation for "watch this!" driving. For the same reason most will not allow a second person in the vehicle except for an experienced instructor. At least not until you have some reasonable amount of experience yourself.

Those are just some things to think about when seeing these videos. Its sad to see anyone's vehicle damaged as occured at that event. The owners obviously put a lot of time and effort in to both, even if they had not fully tested them out. Autocrosses can be a fun and relatively safe activity to push yourself and your car.
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I think it’s pretty fair to say that Goodguys and the SCCA have pretty different philosophies about AutoX. SCCA got pretty unapproachable for awhile, especially for beginners. Although I think they’ve definitely tried to address that a bit with the CAM classes. But from a safety standpoint I think they do a lot right.

Goodguys definitely seems more approachable for people to just go out and have a good time a couple times a year without having to be experienced competitors or familiar with a phone book sized rule book. And it’s nice to be able to go out and not kill cones everywhere, makes you feel a bit better about yourself if you don’t slaughter cones on every corner. Of course the downside is that people that aren’t driving all that well might get the impression they’re doing a great job and go faster than they should. Cones more as a boundary than an indicator.

I haven’t been to the Del Mar event before, but that runoff area before the K rails seems really short, especially in an area where you’re driving right at a barrier. It's one thing to have barriers out there on the inside of a corner or something where you shouldn't be driving right at it and your momentum will take you away from it. It's something else to have a barrier straight ahead that you're heading toward at speed. The way that stop line and barrier was set up there's no room for any braking problems, you just hammer the barrier. That truck was a good example, maybe that wasn't a good brake application but it wasn't a complete failure either. The Barracuda with the throttle stuck makes sense, that was gonna take a long time to stop and might have hit a barrier regardless. But there should be room for a simple lock up without hitting the barrier.
 
Mattax said:
I took a look at that video.
I think the answer is yes, but only a little.
Even a basic ABS should have pulsed the front brakes allowing for slightly better traction and maybe allowed for some steering.
But not enough difference to stop or turn it before the barriers.

Comparing with other drivers in that same video, the brakes were applied too late and too hard.
Ideally we'ld like to see all four wheels lock up together on dry pavement, although auto manufactures always lean toward front lock since its safer. But IMO that should happen on slick surface. The rear wheels can contribute significantly in the begining of braking application. If I was looking at this for lessons learned, I would want to explore the brake setup as well as driver decisions.

Other points from the video with the truck:
* Watching the other drivers in that video after watching the Barracuda it seemed to me all were accelerating after they cleared the finish lights. I'm not certain - just going by when the annoucer makes the statement about best time. Generally when we see people doing that at our events, someone is going to talk to the driver. Many times there will be opportunity to accelerate toward the finish and through the lights. That's different, and there will be room for the car to stop even if you do lock up or spin - although you may hit some cones.

* SCCA layouts are designed for participants to drive as close to 100% of the car and driver's capabiliity, and when that is exceeded the penalty is hitting cones (2 second penalty each cone) or going off course (no time scored). We're not seeing cones get hit during the course runs in the video. So its reasonable to conclude that Goodguy's course design concept is different.

* Just because an event is SCCA sanctioned is no guarentee there will be no incidents resulting in injury to vehicle or people. But TWO crashes in the same location on the same course in the same day raises a lot of questions. I would encourage anyone who does participate in a Goodguys event, or anything on a course setup like that (eg Carlisle) with physical barriers or poles so close to drive at 95 or 90% of what you think you and the car can do.

* Finally, SCCA sanctioned autocrosses are 'non-spectator' events unless specifically noted otherwise. This is in part to reduce motivation for "watch this!" driving. For the same reason most will not allow a second person in the vehicle except for an experienced instructor. At least not until you have some reasonable amount of experience yourself.

Those are just some things to think about when seeing these videos. Its sad to see anyone's vehicle damaged as occured at that event. The owners obviously put a lot of time and effort in to both, even if they had not fully tested them out. Autocrosses can be a fun and relatively safe activity to push yourself and your car.
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Those Goodguys autocross layouts are poorly designed. They are trying to put on a spectator show in event locations with limited area. It's a totally compromised situation.

Extremely tight courses with barriers in the run-off areas. :BangHead::wtf:

Just go to a SCCA autocross that are designed for safety and the racers.
 
autoxcuda said:
Those Goodguys autocross layouts are poorly designed. They are trying to put on a spectator show in event locations with limited area. It's a totally compromised situation.

Extremely tight courses with barriers in the run-off areas. :BangHead::wtf:

Just go to a SCCA autocross that are designed for safety and the racers.
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Or just remember that you’re there to have fun and you’re not gonna make up that much time at the stop line.

But since they do attract people that don’t have a ton of autoX experience they also have a lot of folks that don’t recognize safety things like that and still go 100% when they should dial it back because of the course.

It would be nice if there was something a little more in the middle, SCCA is working on it with CAM but they’re still super formal for a lot of things and that makes it less approachable for newbies and weekend warriors. But then Goodguys is like a total free for all. If we could just get something that was safe but also less about rule books and season points and standings it would be great. Something so folks could go out and have fun a couple times a year without spending a crap ton of extra money to compete in something that they’re not going to attend enough events to make a difference.
 
72bluNblu said:
Or just remember that you’re there to have fun and you’re not gonna make up that much time at the stop line.

But since they do attract people that don’t have a ton of autoX experience they also have a lot of folks that don’t recognize safety things like that and still go 100% when they should dial it back because of the course.

It would be nice if there was something a little more in the middle, SCCA is working on it with CAM but they’re still super formal for a lot of things and that makes it less approachable for newbies and weekend warriors. But then Goodguys is like a total free for all. If we could just get something that was safe but also less about rule books and season points and standings it would be great. Something so folks could go out and have fun a couple times a year without spending a crap ton of extra money to compete in something that they’re not going to attend enough events to make a difference.
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I don't think there's much to win at a Goodguys autocross. Mostly just for fun.

You can run SCCA autocross for fun too in a novice class. Just ignore what class you are put in and get runs in.
 
So, again, does anybody know the owner? My buddy has a nice complete 66 Barracuda body. If you do PM me. Be more that happy to help the guy out.
 
That is the risk one takes when driving a classic in any fashion.
 
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