Start your engines!
Play RPM.ESPN Stock Car Challenge!
Win a Honda S2000!
Play The CART Challenge powered by Honda!
|
|
Friday, August 17
Robby Gordon incident prompts move
Associated Press
| |  | | | Gordon |
BROOKLYN, Mich. -- NASCAR made the use of telemetry boxes
optional for Sunday's Pepsi 400, a week after one of the device's
batteries failed in Robby Gordon's car and started a fire that put
him out of the Watkins Glen race.
The box -- which provides on-screen data for TV viewers such as RPM, speed and track position through the Global Positioning System -- popped and burst into flames from its position on the floorboard of Gordon's car after he made his final pit stop last Sunday.
NASCAR previously ordered all teams to install the systems.
Stan Honey, president and chief technical officer of
Sportvision, which produces the telemetry box for NASCAR, said
Friday the fire started when the jostling of the battery pack
caused one of three lithium batteries to fail.
"The fire started in one of the batteries, and it then spread
to the other batteries," Honey said. "The pack is mounted on
vibration mounts, which are rubber mounts intended to let the
package move separately from the car and get a smoother ride than
the car.
"In this case, the box was experiencing much more vibration than was intended."
Before the incident, Gordon appeared to have the fastest car, easily passing eventual winner Jeff Gordon at one point.
NASCAR spokeswoman Danielle Humphrey said teams would have the option this weekend of not running the system, and Honey admitted some teams probably would balk at using his product.
David Smith, team manager for the Richard Childress Racing car Robby Gordon drove at Watkins Glen in place of injured Mike Skinner, said the team plans to use the system Sunday.
"All I want to see is the thing fixed," Smith said. "We were
the victims this time, let's get the thing fixed and go on. We want
to work with (Sportvision). We'll run the thing this weekend."
Smith pointed to an earlier incident this year involving the
telemetry box in Jeff Gordon's car. The batteries went dead and
caused the box to shut down, which forced Sportvision to redesign
the system.
"They said the two incidents weren't related, but I told them
it was a battery issue," Smith said. "If that had been addressed
then, maybe we wouldn't be sitting around talking about this. Maybe
we'd have champagne all over us."
The box in Gordon's car was not given enough room to vibrate, causing it to hit one of the car's frame rails, said Danny Reichert of Broadcast Sports Inc., which provides and installs in-car
cameras for NASCAR.
The batteries, which were used to power the telemetry box and the in-car cameras, won't be used the rest of the season, with
Sportvision relying on a pack of 10 D-cell batteries.
Peter Larsson, general manager of BSI, said cars this weekend will not be able to carry both in-car cameras and the telemetry box.
"It just runs into physical space requirements," he said.
"The alkaline packs, we need three of them just to run the
telemetry. So now, we would have to put a whole bunch more weight
in if we were going to run both systems."
 Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
|
|
|
|
