Lets see who can figure out this reference:

In reply to ebonyandivory:

If the inner liner let go they are inflated to about 20 psi higher than the regular tire pressure so it could have started at about 65psi before it got hot.

I was watching it live too, and had the same confused thoughts as everyone else. If it were Jimmy Johnson or Joey Logano or Kyle Busch, I could buy the argument of a cheating attempt gone bad. But this was Derrick Cope. He hasn't been relevant in NASCAR for a really long time...wasn't it 1990 when he won the Daytona 500? He's a back marker car, at best. He doesn't have the resources (financial or technical) to come up with a fancy cheating scheme...and it wouldn't do him much good. Even if he cheated, he'd get 38th place instead of 40th. I'm much more likely to believe it was a bizarre mechanical failure...maybe from a second hand part he was using to try to save money.

The 40th place car is all over the news, with the team name, driver name and sponsors getting more press than the winner. An accident my ass, that's just good marketing!

gearheadmb wrote:

ebonyandivory wrote: As a not-a-big-NASCAR type, I'm very interested in this.

This is the kind of thing that could make me a NASCAR fan. Somebody mentioned propane in the frame, that would be some pretty high end cheating. I would have to applaud the ingenuity.

There is/was some amazing rule bending and outright chests in NASCAR over the years.

Wall-e wrote: In reply to ebonyandivory: If the inner liner let go they are inflated to about 20 psi higher than the regular tire pressure so it could have started at about 65psi before it got hot.

I thought they only used inner liners for Speedway use - big, fast ovals, not road courses?

Appleseed wrote:

gearheadmb wrote:

ebonyandivory wrote: As a not-a-big-NASCAR type, I'm very interested in this.

This is the kind of thing that could make me a NASCAR fan. Somebody mentioned propane in the frame, that would be some pretty high end cheating. I would have to applaud the ingenuity.

There is/was some amazing rule bending and outright chests in NASCAR over the years.

My favorite was some of the stories of Smokey Yunick. Lightweight flywheels weren't allowed so he took a stock flywheel, removed the ring gear and then drilled laterally down into it so that when the ring gear was on it covered it up. Porting heads wasn't allowed, so he just pumped a finely abrasive slurry through them to polish them to a mirror finish. He ran fuel lines back and forth the whole width and length of the car to get a few extra gallons of fuel.

He once won a race and the car got tore down for tech. The tech inspector announces that he found 17 violations, and an irritated Yunick climbs in and fires the car up with the fuel cell still sitting on the ground outside of the car. He yelled "Make that 18" and drove off.

bentwrench wrote:

dean1484 wrote: That could be a tire. I have tested tires to failure and we bent the 3" steel bars on the safety cadge out 4 inches. So it could be a tire failure

But the left tire did not fail, the right did. by the video the force of the blast was on the left side. In fact if you look closely at the video you can see a puff of brake dust pushed out through the LF wheel like a smoke ring! I just replayed the video about a hundred times and you can see a puff of brake dust from the right side as well, but not as strong as the left. There is also some kind of (white?) flash on the pavement on the right side it is momentary and begins about 5 feet from the car and extends to about 12-15 feet.

And.. . . . . It was a tire.

Tire exploded Article

In reply to dean1484:

And everyone was hoping for something less mundane

Like I said I have tested tires causing catastrophic failure and the amount of energy released is impressive especially with elastic nature of compressed gas as the propellant. We changed over to using water due to the enormous forces we were seeing.

The short of it is respect your tires. There is a huge amount of energy stored in them.

It is also interesting that with out the centripetal forces of the tire tred pulling on the sidewalls causing the tire to pull apart instead at the relatively low speed the heat from the failed hub and the motor caused pressures to rise to a much higher level that caused the eventual tire failure and why it failed so spectacularly. In short the tire was pushed apart from the inside untill failure instead of being pulled apart by the rotational forces when the car is moving.

A very interesting event from an engineering stand point.

I am betting I leads to some sort of pressure relief valve being installed in the rims.

From seeing tires explode I bet the tire pressure was in excess of 140 psi.

For comparison if you have seen the result of a small air compressor tank failure it I amazing the damage they can do.

This would make a great parts car.

I think some people don't really grasp the power of a tire exploding. I've been close to a couple that let go, plus a split rim that let go. It's eye opening for sure.

Also, anyone remember that video of the guy that was going around slashing bus tires? He finally got unlucky and the video caught the explosion. It blew his arm nearly completely off, it was in several pieces and it blew him about ten feet back.

I wonder if something like this happened, with the rotor or caliper for heat instead of the welding rod?

KABLAMMO

92dxman wrote: This would make a great parts car.

The car is probably already functionally repaired, with only bodywork needed.. those cars are designed for easy repairs of major damage.

Streetwiseguy wrote: Derrick Cope is running for Wayne County Speed shops now?

I was linked here from the GIF thread. Before reading this thread, WCSS was accused of running nitrous in their Pro Stock cars, and they stopepd competing after a somewhat suspicious break-in at their facility where engines were destroyed with hammers but no equipment was damaged.

So either Derrick Cope was caught with nitrous or is suspected of it, or sabotage occured at his team with a remarkably low amount of damage to anything actually useful...

dean1484 wrote: Like I said I have tested tires causing catastrophic failure and the amount of energy released is impressive especially with elastic nature of compressed gas as the propellant. We changed over to using water due to the enormous forces we were seeing. The short of it is respect your tires. There is a huge amount of energy stored in them.

I have heard stories from truckers about tractor-trailer tires blowing cars in the next lane clear past the berm and into the grass when they explode. (They are inflated to about 120psi)

There's also a story every few months in the trade rags about some kid at a tire shop getting killed by a tire failure while inflating/mounting tires.

I had a bead explode 10 feet from me at 35psi. Fortunately the other bead stayed seated so there was no major injury, but the guy mounting the tire was deaf for a few hours.

RealMiniParker wrote:

Wall-e wrote: In reply to ebonyandivory: If the inner liner let go they are inflated to about 20 psi higher than the regular tire pressure so it could have started at about 65psi before it got hot.

I thought they only used inner liners for Speedway use - big, fast ovals, not road courses?

I thought they were used on road courses too but they are not.

dean1484 wrote: Like I said I have tested tires causing catastrophic failure and the amount of energy released is impressive especially with elastic nature of compressed gas as the propellant. We changed over to using water due to the enormous forces we were seeing.

As a point of reference, even lower pressures seem to have a lot of force. I was visiting a local gas company for a meeting and they have a training area onsite where they simulated a gas leak at a residential gas meter. 20 psi leak from a 3/4" line or something like that. When they lit the gas it sounded like a jet engine.