Road & Track Accidents in a Seven

[Andy Checkley]

Following the very intresting discussion in a previous thread about crash helmets, I have been wondering about the overall safety on the Seven in an accident.

 

I have always driven defensively on the road in my Sevens as I have always felt exposed. On track days I am always aware of the possibility of a high speed accident into the Armco or possibly even worse, a side impact from another vehicle. I have an FIA bar, decent Caterham harnesses, and I use the FIA strutt on trackdays when I am not expecting to have passengers.

 

I suspect that the Seven is more robust than it actually looks, but does anyone have any experiences of how a Seven stands up in a road or track accident?

[CHRIS CLARK]

I can only comment first hand on this from my days as a race marshal; the answer is they appear to be very good. We've had them hit hard at 'Tower' & 'Quarry' at Castle Coombe and sure, the rear wings part company etc & we've even had them rolling into the tyre walls hard but they stand this abuse remarkably well (if a bit banana shaped). All my 'victims' walked away albeit some with a few bruises!!!

 

Some of my 'best racing ever' memories as a marshal (including the Grand Prix's ie. Senna at the Euro GP, Donnington) would be the fantastic Steve Parrish in a Seven at Coombe. Bl%$£Y brilliant!!!

[Simos]

Hi Andy,

I can only relate my one accident as I've managed to avoid all the other "opportunities" sometimes I'm sure by the intervention of extra-terrestrials (it's the only explanation !)

 

I was hit from behind by a brand spanking new (3 weeks) Rover cabriolet whilst 10th in a queue for lights in Islington.

 

On getting out the apparent damage was a broken number plate... later investigations in the light and by Caterham showed that damage had extended to bending the rearmost chassis tube a bit closer to the petrol tank and folding the rear aluminium panel by an inch or so (bumper shaped)

 

Examining my opponents car had me absolutely livid as he'd clearly been in another identical accident previously and was thus a menace on the roads.

It took 5 mins for me to catch the fact through his blubbing that it was brand new and the total write off of his front end was done by my little seven.

 

His bumper and front valence were in bits on the floor, his headlights were looking decidedly skew, his bonnet was buckled back far enough for me to see underneath the fold from one side to the other, his radiator was trashed etc etc

 

He was probably pretty ticked of by my victory dance and grin as I drove off and left him to sort out the recovery and insurance claim.

 

Cheers, Simon.

[Red SLR]

Buy Millenium Havock and there are 2 VERY big 7 accidents on there, one involves a superlight roling 3 or 4 times at over 100mph, driver walked away, also havock 14 has about 35 7 crashes.

 

Simon

 

X777CAT

[Matt Prior]

In Chris Rees's 'Caterham Sevens' book there's a pic of a Seven after the 30mph-into-a-wall frontal crash test, and the Seven appears to have stood up very well. The front wheels moved back by a couple of mm, I believe, but the passenger compartment was completely untouched.

 

Crashing on your own, into a hedge or something, is likely to be okay. I wouldn't, however, fancy getting hit by a rampant Ford Explorer with its throttle stuck open!

 

[Simos]

 

Doh! double posting. How can you tell if it posts if you get 404'd ?

 

:-)

 

Edited by - simos on 28 Nov 2000 12:28:35

[Wallbanger]

My experience and those of racing friends is that the cars stand up extremely well. I must say however that this is with full cages. I've written my car off once and have a number of other hard impacts with the armco (and other cars) and other than a large dent in my pocket I have walked away from each one without any problems.

 

One friend of mine barrel rolled his seven at Silverstone. He quiet literally launch off the car in front rolled, hit the armco (breaking three oak pillars), continued to roll into the gravel and landed upside down. Once the car was righted he was cut from the wreckage. He 'got away' with mild concussion and some superficial bruising on his arms.

 

Having watch the video several times I now always race (and track day) with a neck brace and arm restrains but have confidence that the car will hold up to big bashing.

 

My only real concern when driving on the road is having an accident with a lorry. I suspect that the lorry would just drive over you and leave one hell of a mess.

 

[Super_Rich_Bernie]

I don't understand the dynamics and physics of car crashes, but do we wnat our cars to come out looking relatively unscathed like the one Matt prior mentions.

 

I thought modern thinking is along the lines taht you want the car to collapse in a controlled fashion, absorbing energy as it does so. The bit that you sit in needs to remain intacxt whilst all this goes on.

 

That way the deceleration on your body is not so high, and your brain doesn't come out of the cradle it's held in, and internal organs don't crash into each other with so much vigour.

 

 

cheers

 

 

Jonathan

 

 

[Graham Sewell]

There are two trains of thought here:

 

1. Rigid cell with passenger securely locked in. This works well in the long term as soft tissue and skeleton survive well, but the passenger may suffer whiplash and bruising - but otherwise unscathed.

 

2. Soft crumple zones with a loosely secured passenger, assisted by explosive bags, etc... In mild collisions (<30mph) the passenger should walk away unscathed. Above this, the car and passenger cell do not have the rigidity to stop the bulkheads and engine entering the cell and smashing the lower limbs. Add the dangers of airbag deployment (unless you're >6'0") with broken ribs and wrists as common 'side-effects' and generally, the passenger will not walk away.

 

Out of these two, I prefer a rigid cell and properly adjusted 4-point harnesses. As an example of what the body can stand, an american (had to be) decided to strap himself to a rocket sled and set light to the blue touch paper. At the end of the rail track, the braking force exceeded 10g. Because of the harnesses, he walked away almost unscathed. The only reported problem was detached retinas leading to temporary blindness (a couple of days IIRC).

 

Cheers,

 

Graham

[Pierre Gillet]

Simos,

was your car carrying its spare wheel? Seems to me that it must provide a pretty good protection. I have been wondering why sevens have still a spare wheel blush.gif while the essence of its design is really lightness, at a time when most of modern sportscars do not carry one.

Also would the FIA roll bar provide increased protection for a rear impact?

Andy,

what is exactly an arm restraint question.gif

 

Pierre

[CHRIS CLARK]

Maybe Alex W would like to comment on the relative pros & cons of rigid cells/crush zones etc.

[JKJ]

My experience of the robustness of a seven was from a spin on a public road which resulted in the car being slung forwards into a stone wall. The impact was enough to send the car backwards into the opposite wall. The result....a smashed front end, damaged rear end and loss of most of the sticky out bits. The chassis was totally intact, proving, thankfully the inherant strength of a spaceframe to end on impacts. Side impacts though do not bear thinking about, which is unfortunate as they are probably the most common on our roads.

[simonray]

In general terms it is better to be in a structure that deforms and thus reduces the deceleration that the body is subjected to. High deceleration forces can result in injuries such as tears of the aorta or other great vessels (usually rapidly fatal), brain injuries or liver/spleen injuries despite the lack of severe external blows. The belts/harnesses provide some gradation of decelerating forces as they stretch (a lot - ask Mika Hakkinen who hit his head on the wheel in Australia despite being very tightly strapped in). I understand that the other problem with spaceframes is that they remain relatively un-deformed up to a point then collapse. I should add that the couple of sevens I have seen in accidents while a medical officer at Silverstone a few years ago stood up very well.

 

Simon.

 

Edited by - simonray on 28 Nov 2000 22:49:11

[Graham Sewell]

Side impacts in a seven are not that bad - providing the fight is fairly even. What I mean by that is my seven was hit by a Citroen AX which was doing about 60mph at the time. His front bumper hit my front wheel at a near 90' angle. The Citroen was written off with the driver recieving 2 broken ribs for his trouble - my wife and I walked away and had the car rebuilt (the front was about 2" out of line with the transmission tunnel).

 

While it was being repaired, we saw the results of a similar impact between a seven and a Golf GTi. In this car, the Golf hit the seven between the wheels and caused a bending of the chassis at the scuttle. Again, the seven driver walked away - shame about the accident as he was driving to a circuit to race (750MC I believe).

 

The side chassis rails and honeycomb ali panels work. However, I would not like to think about the consequences of a side impact from a lorry sad.gif.

 

Until the previous post, I was worried about frontal impacts but it seems that the chassis is as strong in that direction.

 

Cheers,

 

Graham

[Wallbanger]

Errr, Graham, was it about two years ago, and was the car at Ratrace. If so, guess who's car it was. Car was written off, fortunately Footman James paid up in full with no questions.

 

[JDoc]

My theory of rigid cell vs soft cell is:

Make sure your car has the rigid cell design, and the other guys car has the soft cell design. Let all the energy of impact spend itself turning the other guys car into a pretzel, leaving yours without much of a dent.

 

Given that most cars these days are going for the soft approach (as evidenced by quite a few postings on this thread) you've got good odds in a Caterham :-)

 

Cheers!

 

JDoc

 

I mean, come on, it's only a car, right?

[tgracing]

i crashed my car into a tree at Wiscombe hillclimb and the last thing that went through my mind (wasn't my *rse actually) was that a) the car was well built, b) I was wearing a crash helmet and c) I was strapped in with a 6pt harness. I actually only hit the tree at low speed. The only damage was superficial plus bent front chassis cross tube and stuffed rad. Apart from a banged elbow all I had to endure was a bit of marshall p*ss taking.

 

We got arm restraints with our (Caterham Academy) cars. They are basically thick velcro straps that go around the arm (anywhere between forearm and upper arm) and have a thin strap with a loop on the end which goes into the tongue of a 4 or 6pt harness buckle. The thin straps have double D rings to adjust the length. They are about 25GBP from Caterham (from memory). I don't even notice they're on in the car. They are a bit restricive (obviously) so you have to do them up last, but they are velcro so you can remove them if you need to operate anything, and they do stop your arms from flailing about in the way of rollbars, tyre barriers, trees, barmaids, auctioneers or fellow competitors.

 

Someone doing last year's Scholarship was doing some crash test work and said that the Caterham chassis was a bit too stiff compared to latest trends in passenger safety cells. I think when yer numbers up...start the harp lessons.

 

Cheers,

 

Davebo

C7 CAR

[Graham Sewell]

Yes it was about 2 years ago, and just why are you called 'Wallbanger' [:?]. Mine was the green/yelow aniversary car on the opposite corner.

 

Glad it all worked out for you. What did you replace your car with?

 

Cheers,

 

Graham

[Wallbanger]

Wallbangers' a sort of nick name that I picked up earlier on in life before reaching seven navarna. Yes it did involve a car and a wall.

 

What did I replace the car with. Another 1400CC K race car. If fact, if you visit Ratrace at the moment you can seen the front end being rebuild as I decided to hit the armco at Snet a couple of months ago. Only having to replace the chassis from the scuttle forward this time wink.gif

 

[Tim Sture]

Someone from Caterham apparently hit a lamppost at about 60-70 and walked away. A couple of years ago someone doing the Scholarship suffered a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder when he rolled his car (I think) - I understand this resulted in the requirement for arm restraints in the series. No more injuries since, as far as I know.

 

I've seen a video of one Caterham t-boning another during a race and the drivers of each were fine, but I understand a roadsport driver died at Oulton Park in a race a couple of months ago.

 

Conclusion? No car can guarantee survival in a prang, but Caterhams are much safer than they look! I was quite insulted by some old buffer when I was filling the car up at a petrol station a few weeks ago when he said "you'll kill yourself in that"! Hope he's not right...

[Graham Sewell]

Following my prang, as detailed above, I had to take my wife to hospital A&E (ER in US?) because she had a tiny cut to her head (later diagnosed as the plastic strap at the back of the baseball hat). The doctor could not believe that we had been hit by a car doing 60mph without having a broken limb, damaged kidneys, whiplash, etc.... "especially in a kit car, they're not built like ordinary cars!" - thank God....

 

Cheers,

 

Graham

[Marius]

I already heard about that sad incident at Oulton Park, what happened excatly there ?

 

Marius

[Wallbanger]

The guy involved was driving a Superlight in a Jargue Car Club 100 mile race. He came off at Lodge corner. I don't know the full details but I believe he died of internal injures due to the crash, probably from the sudden deceleration. He actaully survived the crash and was taken to hospital but die a couple of days later. I know a some people who where at the meeting and consensus was that the car was no too badly damaged.

[Red SLR]

Its gonna happen to us all one day, which is why we enjoy ourselves in our 7's while we still can, even if there are a few risks.

 

Simon.

 

X777CAT

[Red Line Components]

Blimey Simon - is it being so cheerful that keeps you going!!