I dont think he under-built it. It was more than what was required on pikes, and both guys lived. Sounds like he did well in my opinion.
Could it have been built stronger? of course. But it saved both of these guys and met all the requirements of the race.
You gotta read more into it then.
PP is grossly UNDERSPEC’D for its requirements aparantly. (probably will change next year because of this crash) So even though he put in “more” than was min req, its would never fly for a FIA/WRC rally which this course effectivly is.
The cage was well designed, and many people that are saying it sucks for rally/pp said so too, well designed for road and time attack… not hitting trees, rocks and falling off a mountain. Those designs “expect” to see different crash condition and are tailored to that.
And after the pictures with the body and body parts OUTSIDE the structure durring the roll down the mountain, and the intrusion on the pass side, everyone (builders, designers, drivers, officials, everyone else around the car and the sport) say they are 100% lucky to be alive, and the end result (being alive) wasnt totally up to the cage design. Put it this way, if that car flipped once and pegged a tree on the same passanger side roof area and came to an abrupt hault there, the co-driver would be dead and the driver would be questionable. The roll down the hill disapaites the energy through the car and cage (dis-reguarding how well or not this one is designed), so an abrupt hault would highlight the faults with this design big time.
The thing I found a little disturbing was the way the builder seemed to completely refuse the idea that he should have added the bars even after the crash. I mean granted he did say he was going to do a full analysis, but after seeing the pics I can’t believe he wouldn’t say that he would build the next one stronger.
thats the thing. They didnt build it for pikes peak, they built it for time attack and road course, and decided to try it at PP. So its apples to oranges from a design standpoint. It doesnt really need to be much stronger if at all to be a good TT/Road cage from what all the experts have been saying. They either A:Over build it and deal with the extra weight and what not for the TT/Road to safely run PP when they want, or B:Not run PP since its not built for it or C:Wing it again.
IMO, that high of a build effort is 100% pro race stuff. Build it to TT specs as its primary intention was and run it there, nowhere else. If you have 1/5 of a Mil to drop on another build you probably have money to build two, one for PP and one for road. Do it right or dont do it at all is my point.
Agreed money or running the fastest time shouldn’t be the main factor. If your not 100% certain that your people will survive another horrific crash like the one that happened and not due to luck your a jackass IMO.