There is plenty that can happen in a race car as it hurtles down a strip of concrete and asphalt for 1000 feet propelled by an 8,000 horsepower nitro methane-fed time bomb.

Ask any Top Fuel or Funny Car driver and they'll be happy to spend several minutes talking about what can go wrong in four seconds or less. And, the veterans will talk about making decisions based on pure instinct when something does go wrong. It is for that reason NHRA officials have mandated the use of a safety device which shuts off the ignition, shuts off the fuel pumps and deploys the parachutes if the burst panel, located on the manifold, is blown.

Could Full Control of the Race Car Shutdown Be In The Future?

There is plenty that can happen in a race car as it hurtles down a strip of concrete and asphalt for 1000 feet propelled by an 8,000 horsepower nitro methane-fed time bomb.

Ask any Top Fuel or Funny Car driver and they'll be happy to spend several minutes talking about what can go wrong in four seconds or less. And, the veterans will talk about making decisions based on pure instinct when something does go wrong. It is for that reason NHRA officials have mandated the use of a safety device which shuts off the ignition, shuts off the fuel pumps and deploys the parachutes if the burst panel, located on the manifold, is blown.

The device is called an electromotion safety shut off controller and it has the capability to do more than just react to a blown burst panel. There are several possible reasons a driver would want a device to do some of the work for him in the case of a disaster. There is also a reason for the device to engage when there is no immediate danger to the driver.

On Sunday afternoon at Pacific Raceway Park in Auburn, Washington, Graham Light, NHRA Vice President of Competition, talked about the future uses of the device

“We’ve been experimenting with oil pan pressure and when the pressure gets up to a certain point, it will trigger the device,” explained Light, adding, “We’ve been experimenting with transmitting a frequency just past the finish line when it senses that frequency and it sets off the device.”

For now the only mandatory use of the device involves the burst panel, but several teams have, as Light revealed, tested other uses in the interest of improving the survivability of the driver in the event of a failure.

Don Prudhomme's organization has tested measuring the oil pan pressure. Should the pressure reach a predetermined level the device, as in the case of the burst panel, automatically shuts off the ignition, the fuel flow and deploys the chutes. It is an action which could prevent the costly delays caused by engire fires and oildowns which make it difficult to show NHRA racing live on television.

John Force Racing has been testing a different use of the system.

What if the driver didn't have to worry about shutting off the fuel, shutting off the ignition and pulling the chutes at the 1000 foot mark? What if there was a system that did those things automatically? 

The system is already in the car, but how do you trigger it? Force, along with the NHRA, has been testing using a radio signal positioned at the finish line to engage the system. They've also considered and other teams have tested, a timing mechanism to engage the system. Once the engine was fired the timer would start a countdown and when it hit zero the system would engage. There are issues with the timing method because not every run from the point of burnout to the finish line is the same duration.

Force likes the radio signal system he has been testing. Opponents say it might be to easy for someone to sit in the stands and prematurely engage the system using some sort of transmitter. Force shrugged off those thoughts and moved forward with his testing.

According to Force, there will be different parameters utilized by the electromotion safety shutoff controller in 2010 and one of those will be engaging of the system at the finish line so that the driver, no matter what his or her condition, should not have to be concerned with shutting down the fuel, ignition and deploying the parachutes.

TUTORIAL: THE ELECTROMOTION SYSTEM

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