When Derrike Cope’s Xfinity Series Chevrolet Camaro stock car exploded out of nowhere as the car was coasting on the straightaway near the “Bus Stop” kink at Watkins Glen on Saturday, everybody from the fans watching at home to Cope himself were baffled and asking the same question: “WTF just happened to that car?!” Out of nowhere, the front of the stocker just exploded, buckling metal, twisting bracing and releasing a dark smoke cloud. But there was no fire, no obvious answer to what happened, and no clue where to start looking, so NASCAR impounded the car and performed an at-track investigation with Sawyer, Xfinity Series director Wayne Auton and Goodyear Tire engineers, and yesterday released their findings: it was a simple tire explosion, one that normally would have just gone down had he been at speed. But wait…he was coasting at low speed when the tire popped, so how in the hell did the car end up looking like a pipe bomb went off underhood?
According to Elton Sawyer, NASCAR Vice President of Officiating and Technical Inspection, Cope’s right-front tire degraded from excess heat. During the race, about two laps before the incident occurred, Cope made contact with another car and managed to break the brake caliper where it attaches to the spindle. This created excess heat, which melted the beat on the tire’s inner sidewall. When the car came to a stop, the heat radiated to one spot on the tire and that’s where it exploded. Both Cope and Sawyer, both veterans of racing, have said that they have never seen anything like it in their experiences.
As crazy as that sounds, it does look as though the tyre goes bang ..JUST… I think, before anything else goes.
Still i’d prefer it was a hidden Nitrous bottle really as that would be far more entertaining!
Yup, it looked like a burnt bead blow out.. the black smoke is brake dust..
At speed the melting bead, deflates the tire, and you go to turn and it heads for the wall..
low speed,, the inner bead goes pop.. and no air blasting by the wheel opening or through the brake ducting.. so, you get a nice big BOOM..
WHOA ! That was flippin crazy
There’s a video about welding on rims that we were shown in safety training that appears to be what happened, if the caliper made a lot of heat when it broke it could trigger the chain reacton shown in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiLeji8bLOk