Great Video on New Anti - Launch Bumper Issue

Are Open Wheeled vehicles supposed to be “safe?”

I wager it’s drivers neglecting courtesy and margin of error miscalculations (or willful ignorance!) that cause most of the issues…

The video was well done. The basic gist of it is that launch bumpers will likely help with some the less-common cause of flip-overs, but will actually exacerbate other issues which cause flip-overs/accidents because of the increased exposure of the sidepod edges and bumper edges that the launch bumper cause (there are visuals for this in the video, as well as some other interesting visuals).

The case is also somewhat convincingly made that pretty much all bodywork on a modern kart is a mostly ineffective attempt to cover up the inherent risks that come with an open wheel platform. An observation which is there for the viewer to chew on in terms of whether that’s a bug or a feature, but from a pure safety point of view anything less than a full wrap-around bumper is always going to be a compromise. He does a much more interesting job of explaining things than my summary, but that’s the TL;DR.

I watched this video as well and agree with everything he’s saying. It’s adding an expense for something that is not a major issue in our sport. My soon flipped this year. This wouldn’t have helped. Through 14 club races and 3 rounds of regional racing, I can’t recall more than a handful of flips. And everyone walked away that I can recall.

It reminds me of a parable:

The Parable of the River

  • A group of villagers finds a baby in the river and saves it.

  • Soon, more children are found, and the villagers work tirelessly to rescue them.

  • The rescue work becomes overwhelming.

  • Some villagers decide to go upstream to find out why the children keep falling into the river in the first place.

  • Core message: This is a story about addressing the root cause of a problem rather than just dealing with its consequences

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Karting parents metaphorically tossing their babies into the River of Motorsport. :thinking:

I think it will get to full wrap around bumpers eventually…

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This is supposed to be open wheel racing not NASCAR. If we go to wrap around setups people will turn it into a demolition derby. It won’t “fix” it but it will change it…

I watched this video the other day. I like his phrasing of how “the solution the FIA is looking for already exists” (Rental Bodywork).

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The FIA, as well as all series and clubs, should focus on the root cause, bad driving standards, vs coming up with physical solutions to protect from poor driving standards.

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Part of why I’m in favor of HIGH driving standards in karting is that it sets the stage for proper etiquette in full-size open wheel racing… you try some of the things I’ve seen in karting with full size and you’re in the hospital or dead – or your competitor is. Sadly, some people these days probably feel, “as long as it isn’t me…”

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Another video explaining new rear bumper I found..

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The proper solution is to fix the driving standards, when they tested this device it was quite clear that driving standards dropped even more. When you watch any race that be In Europe or US the quility of the racecraft and driving standards are very poor and this is the main reason we see karts being flipped.

Next reason is that FIA insist In putting 12y kids In karts that In some places are faster then the KZ. They are simply not ready for it. And they never get the chance to learn before they are off to next class and will most likely be looking into cars when they are 15..

This device will help on safety, but fix the root cause.

I do belive that we will end up with a wrap around bumper with In a few years, its bound to happen unless FIA wakes up.