CAR SAVER

Car Saver

Normally an off into a barrier at around 160kmh would result in a write-off or at the very least, some major repair works. Not so for Graham Streat and Piers Harrex at the recent Lakeside Tribute meeting.

By GARRY O’BRIEN

Thanks to the recently installed and newly designed Soft-R-Wall COTA Barrier, both drivers and cars escaped with none or very little damage.

Graham Streat in his Historic Touring Car Holden Torana XU-1 lost control coming onto the main straight at Lakeside Park. Usually that would result in hitting the tyre and concrete wall which replaced the armco in 2018, and would cause serious damage.

On this occasion all he needed was a bucket and sponge to wash the mud off. The barrier on the outside of that corner had been relocated further back from the bitumen. But what really saved his car was the addition of the COTA Barrier, the newly designed Soft-R-Wall.

Event officials were both amazed and pleased with the outcome. The car had no physical damaged and it started on the turn of the key in the pits afterwards.

Harrex had a similar off-track excursion at Hungry corner. The improvements there resulted in merely broken taillight lenses and a split rear wing. Previously when the concrete wall was there with the regular tyre barrier in place, the BMW would have been wrecked.

Prior to installation, testing was carried out in the Coliseum area at Queensland Raceway in February last year by the Australasian and South Pacific Association of Collision Investigators. A head-on impact into a regular four-deep tyre buffer produced significant damage when compared to an incident at the same speed into the COTA Barrier.

The difference was that the four rows of tyres were spaced apart, therefore absorbing much of the impact as the first barrier was pushed back into the second row. That row took less force as it moved into the third and fourth rows.

The new safety barrier has also been installed at the kink on the front straight. “I wish we could use it everywhere,” said circuit owner and operator Queensland Raceway’s CEO John Tetley.

He added that the results of those tests have been shown to Motorsports Australia and the FIA but have not been implemented – or even examined by them, to his knowledge.

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