Champ Car crash-test at CAPE

CAPE is a state-of-the-art facility designed specifically for the evaluation of vehicle and occupant safety. "Conducting crash-tests like this helps us to obtain valuable knowledge as we continually improve our racecars," said Dykstra. "We're working on the design of future Champ Cars and Toyota Atlantic cars to make sure our drivers are as safe as they can be when behind the wheel."

A Hybrid III 50th-percentile instrumental test dummy, which represents an average male at 5ft10in tall and weighing 170lb, was placed inside a Champ Car chassis which was then projected 50mph backwards into a fixed concrete barrier to test the crushability of the structure.

Historically, drivers have sustained injuries to their backs and necks when high-speed rear-collisions occur. Due to the location of the gearbox and the engine, a racecar has more mass located within its rear-end and, with heavy impact into a barrier, that solid mass will be forced into the driver's back if a crushable structure is not properly intact. The test was designed to investigate the distribution of forces needed to reduce the effect of serious injury.

The test dummy was restrained by an experimental seatbelt system designed to improve driver comfort with the 'HANS' system. The dummy was equipped with an earpiece accelerometer, used to measure the forces on the head, and a crash box recorder was placed inside the car to obtain the correlation with the precise standard instrumentation used in the barrier crash-test. Seat harness loads and the vertical movement of the dummy were also recorded, as well as the typical dummy load measurements.

"I am pleased with the results," Dykstra stated. "The experimental belt system for the 'HANS' system successfully restrained the driver in a high-G rear impact. Valuable occupant load vehicle crush and vertical occupant geometry data was also obtained which will be used in future crash research for forthcoming Champ Car vehicles."