horchoha wrote:
Guess I must be old, I think a bit differently. Before I built my first 7, The Chevette one, 10 years ago, I built an airplane, and I took flying lessons. The most heart stopping event in my lifetime was taking that flight in my airplane for the first time and asking myself "you built it, would you trust your life in it?" And the simple answer to that was " I took no shortcuts, I've built it to the best of my ability, and it's built by the according to engineering specs." Well that was a few haircuts ago and I'm still here.
What I'm getting at is "you're building it, build it right so you can trust your life in it"
Just want to clarify my comment a little bit. I don't mean to imply that I wouldn't trust my own car or that I specifically made choices, like missed welds, using compromised steel, putting in a cardboard floor, etc., that I thought were unsafe. Moreso along the lines of:
-This should probably have a full cage, but if it ever comes to that I'm likely in serious trouble anyway;
-I should probably wear a helmet at all times while driving this, but if it ever comes to that I'm likely in serious trouble anyway;
-Seeing the gas tank is in the back, protected by a few relatively thin bars, when compared to a F350 going 30 mph, of 16 gauge tube, this should probably have a fuel cell, but if it ever comes to that I'm likely in serious trouble anyway; and,
-Yea, these aren't $3K a piece carbon fiber buckets, but if it comes to me worrying about them shattering and getting pierced with a shard, I'm likely in serious trouble anyway.
Stuff like that. Kind of along the lines of what MV8 said, "The safest car is never driven.", I have made compromises.