Quote Originally Posted by Greg Amy View Post
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Honestly, Chris, there was really nothing you could have done differently to the passenger side to affect a significantly different result; it was that hard a hit.
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In the past, the simple X door bar design was not allowed in any SCCA road race car. The reason was that the perception of greater strength from this design is inaccurate. As noted, the door bars failed at the weakest point - a single bar crossing the center of the assembly. The rule should never have been changed, or at least only allowed such designs if significant reinforcements were added accross the weak point. I think the rule was probably changed due to lobbying of competitors who already had such door bars that had been overlooked for years, and one day ran afoul of a wise tech inspector who gave them grief. The X design may add a high level of stiffness to the chassis but doesn't provide good intrusion protection by itself.
Adding "taco" gussets would have significantly reduced the likelihood of complete failure of the door bar assembly, but only if the gusset material was in the range of .080" thick, similar to the minimum welded mounting plate thickness. An assembly with such gussets would have provided appropriate g-force attenuation, which is what we want to happen. The "taco" gussets shown with bell mouth lightening holes are not sufficient IMO, since the material thickness is not suitable for the forces involved in what happened to RH's car.