[mr bruce]

Crashes better? Dam straight!. pick up a Nascar rulebook, or check out the SCCA Trans-am rules .There are specific rules for the angles of "kick-up", the frames are fabricated of reqtangular tubing , welded and diamond gusseted at the joints.These cars are built to crush in the front in a crash, better for the car to absorb the impact than a driver sliding foward on a bucket seat into the dash and beyond.Confident of the crash worthy ness of your straight rail chassis into a wall, front on, say 35mph ? You don't want to go there. I'll supply one of my Nascar spec frames for the test,will you? The point is, the ERA and SPF cars(and others) have this kick-up built into the frames, so they should absorb impacts better than the staight rail cars.