John Force’s potentially fatal crash really bothered Jim Head.

 

The accident bothered him so much that he said he spent hours, and he doesn’t exaggerate, hours watching tape of the crash and analyzing what happened.

 

Head resolved to prevent the same thing from happening again. Head was so intent in his efforts he was prepared to be the lab rat in a high horsepower experiment.

 

Head flew to Indianapolis to look at the remnants of the Force chassis. The thought of what could have happened scared him enough to put his engineering education to work.

 

“I’m not going to debate anyone’s theories,” Head said. “I’m just going to build something safer for myself and if anyone wants to look at it, more power to them. There are just too many opinions and the debate doesn’t need another one.”

 

Head has designed one of the initial, if not the first, encapsulated Funny Car cockpits.

Always the innovator Jim Head makes a huge leap forward in Funny Car safety

John Force’s potentially fatal crash really bothered Jim Head.

 

The accident bothered him so much that he said he spent hours, and he doesn’t exaggerate, hours watching tape of the crash and analyzing what happened.

 

Head resolved to prevent the same thing from happening again. Head was so intent in his efforts he was prepared to be the lab rat in a high horsepower experiment.

 

Head flew to Indianapolis to look at the remnants of the Force chassis. The thought of what could have happened scared him enough to put his engineering education to work.

 

“I’m not going to debate anyone’s theories,” Head said. “I’m just going to build something safer for myself and if anyone wants to look at it, more power to them. There are just too many opinions and the debate doesn’t need another one.”

 

Head has designed one of the initial, if not the first, encapsulated Funny Car cockpits.

 

Head said this isn’t a shoe-horned capsule. His driver’s capsule is fabricated with current and proven technology.

 

“I reacted to what I saw on John Force’s chassis and adapted mine to not fail in the same fashion,” Head said. “I’m concerned about my safety as well as the person beside me. Force’s car smacked Kenny Bernstein pretty hard. Overall safety is paramount and I recognized the chassis was deficient but I didn’t realize to what extent until John’s car broke in half. I fixed mine but it is my fix.”

 

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Head said most of his innovations follow a simple procedure. He creates a design and then hands his plans to longtime crew chief Johnny Davis who fabricates the plans into existence.

 

“That’s the way most everything works around here,” Head explained. “We talk throughout the project. But, it is really a simple procedure. I went from being so uncomfortable with Funny Car safety that I wasn’t planning to run Richmond to the point that I am very comfortable in my race car.”

 

Basically, Head has strengthened every area where he saw Force’s chassis had failed in Dallas. He’s added titanium plate in every area that would expose the driver to harm. Head also added extra tubing (4130 conditioned end tubing) over the existing joints to strengthen what were considered vulnerable areas.

 

Davis, a welder since he was 15 years old, welded inserts over the top of the frame rail in order to spread the load across the chassis. He also added titanium inserts and tabs and purposely spaced them three inches for increased load balancing.

 

Davis said that he figured it took him at least seven and a half minutes per each of the 75 tabs added. The total project required two sixteen hour days of steady work to complete.

 

Davis used the same type of tabs that were employed on the chassis to add the titanium sheeting around the roll cage. Despite the extra weight from all the tabs, Davis isn’t afraid the extra pounds will affect the performance of the race car.  

 

“Performance wise, if there is any deficiency, I think we can tune around that,” Davis stated with confidence. “We just recently went from a slip-tube car in the front and welded it up solid so the car would steer solid. We didn’t see any performance loss whatsoever.”

 

The additions give Head and Davis a more secure feeling with a chassis they both believed was made from “normalized” tubing and later discovered to be heat treated.

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“I feel comfortable to the point that we should be able to have a tire failure and not worry that it will rip the joint out of the car,” Davis said. “We’ve spread the load and that’s increased the strength of that load.”

 

Both Head and Davis said this is just a makeshift fix for present. Over the winter, Davis said they are planning on building new cars with larger diameter and heavier walled tubing.

 

Head said NHRA tech director Danny Gracia approved his fix, saying  that he liked the design. On Saturday, NHRA officials paid a visit to Head’s pit area to inspect his latest design.

 

Ready to skip the Richmond event because of safety fears, Head acknowledged the completion of this project changed his mind. And, after all, it’s his life on the line each time the race car roars down the track. Who better to be concerned about his safety than himself.

 

“I think it is far ahead the safest car out there just like my Top Fuel dragster was,” Head said of his beefed up chassis. “I’m just a hard head when it comes to this safety stuff.

 

“There are way too many opinions out there about these race cars and not nearly enough facts. One engineer is quoted as doing this and that, others are doing other things. As far as I can see, none of them are burning nitro. I’ve been doing this for thirty years and you learn a lot.

 

“To me, engineering is the challenge of drag racing. You’re always trying to move forward if you’re an innovator. You don’t take things just because they are existing designs. You have to move forward with newer and safer ideas.

 

“I hadn’t planned on doing a lot more, but now I am dedicated to make these Funny Cars a lot better than they have been.”

 

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