14 replies to this topic

[MichaelJP]

Was looking at this fine photo of Spa 1967 the other day:

Spa pit lane 1967

It made me think; it's striking from the photo that Chapman is standing in an open pit lane, fully at risk from the cars speeding down the main straight.

Obviously this was pretty much standard practice in the 1960's, but when did pit lanes start to have the wall built between them and the track?

Was there a terrible accident that initiated this change?

- Michael

[David Beard]

Originally posted by MichaelJP
Was looking at this fine photo of Spa 1967 the other day:

Spa pit lane 1967

It made me think; it's striking from the photo that Chapman is standing in an open pit lane, fully at risk from the cars speeding down the main straight.

Obviously this was pretty much standard practice in the 1960's, but when did pit lanes start to have the wall built between them and the track?

Was there a terrible accident that initiated this change?

- Michael

We had a very similar thread here, Michael....

http://www.atlasf1.c...hlight=carlisle

[MichaelJP]

Thanks, David, but did you know the answer to my second question, i.e. was there a bad accident that made the introduction of pit walls widespread, or was it just a general move towards racetrack safety in the 70s?

- Michael

[David Beard]

Originally posted by MichaelJP
Thanks, David, but did you know the answer to my second question, i.e. was there a bad accident that made the introduction of pit walls widespread, or was it just a general move towards racetrack safety in the 70s?

- Michael

The Christabel Carlisle accident at Silverstone was one......

[FEV]

Originally posted by MichaelJP
Thanks, David, but did you know the answer to my second question, i.e. was there a bad accident that made the introduction of pit walls widespread, or was it just a general move towards racetrack safety in the 70s?

- Michael

Le Mans '55 probably played that role, at least in France. I seem to remember they built a pit wall for the 1956 edition following the previous year nightmare. On the other hand, most tracks waited for years before building their own pit walls, but I'm positive Le Mans was a trend setter here.

[Manfred Cubenoggin]

Mosport opened for biz in 1961 and ran for years without any pit wall seperating the track proper from pitlane. An Armco barrier was erected circa 1965 and it worked a charm. I know because at a regional event there in 1966, my buddy Nick and I were checking over a car in pit lane, standing opposite the pit stalls and nearest the track surface. Our backs were turned from the track but we looked up when we heard screeching tires coming from over our shoulders. A rapid Formula Junior lost it coming off corner 10 and looped it into the barrier with a sickening thud. The car was badly damaged from the heavy impact but the driver was OK. Now, if it hadn't been for that barrier, Nick and I would have been statistics for this forum! We were directly in the car's path!

Also, I saw the Armco here do a similar save when Brett Lunger looped his McLaren M-2 at the the 1967 CanAm. Results similar to the FJ. Without that barrier, a shocking shunt would have surely resulted.

[Macca]

The ACO built new pits at Le Mans for 1956 but didn't erect a pit wall until 1971; their main concern was to prevent a recurrance of 1955, so they widened the track a lot and also pushed the spectator areas further back behind a wide ditch (which then traditionally became used for the winning car to parade back past the crowd with the mechanics on board).

IIRC Silverstone did their own version of a pit wall in the early 1960s after a nasty accident, by elevating the pit lane above the height of the track, with ramps at each end. It's surprising that it took so long to sink in, because in 1959 Stirling Moss was accelerating his Rob Walker Cooper out of the Goodwwod pits in practise for a F1 race when he hit a puddle, spun, and smashed backwards into the brand-new Aston-Martin F1 that was standing in the pits; yet nobody twigged that it might have been people that were written-off instead.


Paul Mackness

[Ray Bell]

Not a definitive answer, but looking at the Motor Sport pics of the 1969 French GP we find this caption:

WIDER ROAD. - In line with safety regulations all over the world the pit lane was separated from the track by an Armco barrier and the banks on the right had side of the road have been cut back considerably since the last Championship event in 1965...

There is nothing definitive in this. In fact, it opens the question to more speculation. Were there FIA rules coming into force ('all over the world') or just more and more local regulations (and then racing regulations or government ones)? And were they universal or merely still spreading?

[fines]

Can't have been general rules, since Monte Carlo still had the trackside pits in 1971. But then again, wasn't M-C always different???

[JohnS]

Originally posted by Macca
The ACO built new pits at Le Mans for 1956 but didn't erect a pit wall until 1971;

I think I remember reading that Steve McQueen filmed lots of pitlane footage for his film in 1969, only to return in 1970 to film the race and find that they'd built a pit wall, making his 1969 footage useless.

John

[Rob Semmeling]

Nürburgring pitwall: 1968

[Doug Nye]

I started work at Brands Hatch in November 1963 and there was a wibbly-wobbly pit wall - timber barrier - there even then...a chap named Doug Brailey, I believe, was killed against it on a general test day soon after my arrival.

DCN

[Ray Bell]

Not sure about Warwick Farm...

There are two Warwick Farm photos somewhere, I know I've posted one of them, the other might be on the Tasman site.

One shows the start of an openwheeler race, the front row getting away, and the row of mechanics from the leading cars sitting against the pit wall right near the grid. How could they do that? Of course, they were used to doing that...

The other is of the BRMs being tended behind a nice pit wall.

The first pic was taken in 1965, the other in 1966, so I guess that dates Warwick Farm's pit fence...

[Aanderson]

Originally posted by MichaelJP
Was looking at this fine photo of Spa 1967 the other day:

Spa pit lane 1967

It made me think; it's striking from the photo that Chapman is standing in an open pit lane, fully at risk from the cars speeding down the main straight.

Obviously this was pretty much standard practice in the 1960's, but when did pit lanes start to have the wall built between them and the track?

Was there a terrible accident that initiated this change?

- Michael

Indianapolis had an open pit lane from 1909 through 1956. The pits were originally brick, just like the racing surface until sometime in the early 50's, when they were paved in concrete.

Safety was a constant concern there, but not acted upon until the summer of 1956. In fact, one of the most horrendous accidents at Indy was a pit lane crash in 1933, when a Duesenberg-powered car (using a hopped up Duessenberg Model A engine) broke its crankshaft, locking up the rear wheels at speed on the front straight in practice. The car spun, slid backwards into the pits, where it struck at least three other cars which were being worked on. The impacts, and the resulting fire killed, I believe 3 people, and injured several others. (This crash resulted in the immediate banning of that particular model of Duesenberg production engine from all AAA races for good, as it's crankshaft had insufficient main bearings, making for a very weak bottom end).

In the summer of 1956, after the 500, the present layout was created, a 36" high concrete wall placed at the edge of the brick front stretch, with a short entrance at the north end of the pits, with a connecting wall jutting out from the infield at nearly a right angle. The first exit was right at the end of the front stretch, where cars were already setting up for the first turn, not exactly the best place for a race car to be accelerating out of the pits, particularly in the day of Offy roadsters using simple 2-speed gearboxes!

The outward extension of the wall at the north end of the pits claimed the lives of three race drivers before it was finally changed to its present configuration in 1993, in preparation for Nascar's first appearance at the 1994 Brickyard 400. In 1964, Dave McDonald, driving an absolutely horrible car built by Mickey Thompson in '63, subsequently modified for the larger 15" wheels mandated in '64, spun coming off the 4th turn, slid sideways into that outward pointing section of concrete, striking it right at the corner, bursting open a 40-gallon fuel cell of gasoline (yes, gasoline!), which exploded as his wreck slid into the path of Eddie Sachs, who, with no place to go, T-boned McDonald in the other fuel cell, both drivers being fatally injured in the resultant fireball (this all happened about 200 feet in front of me, as I was standing in the infield on a general admission ticket that race) In 1973, Swede Savage spun in almost exactly the same way and place, and hit the outward-facing north pit wall head on, leaving him clinging to life for 6 weeks, until he also succumbed. In 1969, Art Pollard blew and engine on the front stretch, his car sliding sideways into the end of the pit wall itself, right at the entrance, destroying the car, but not himself.

Thankfully, the pit wall, now fully exposed to oncoming traffic, is protected on its north end with a crush-barrier. Cars have hit this with massive force, but no driver has been killed by it. The "right angle wall", extending out from the infield was removed in the summer of '93, to make way for the "slowdown" lane for entering the pit as required by Nascar. A great safety improvement, decades late, if you ask me!

Art Anderson

[MichaelJP]

Thanks, Art, for that interesting and detailed Indy pitlane overview.

Ironic that the creation of pit walls for safety reasons led directly to the problem of exposed ends of pit walls!

I suppose all safety improvements are incremental, as people build on the work done by others.

- Michael