Safety Issues

[KC]

After learning of Adam Petty's death, some safety issues come to mind. NASCAR has done a lot over the years to make safety an issue in everyone's mind during the races. However, there are a few things we all see during races that I question.

1. Head and neck protection equipment. All of the drivers use the latest Snell rated helmets and the standards for helmet design are very high indeed. But, we see some drivers that still prefer an open face helmet design instead of the more typical full face designs. Dale Earnhardt Sr., I believe, still uses an old style open face helmet and goggles. This style obviously offers less facial protection than the full face styles used by most of the drivers. While it is his decision to wear this type of helmet I can't help but think that he places himself in more danger.

The drivers also do not use neck support collars as do almost all sprint car drivers and drag racing drivers to help support their necks. These also help to isolate the head in the event of an impact and prevent the helmet from introducing more torque on the neck than it can cope with. CART, IRL and F1 drivers use helmets that reach downward to their shoulders to help to cope with the stress of high speed cornering and sudden impacts. Lately, CART and F1 are seriously looking at introducing rules to enforce the use of the HANS (head and neck support) device to further protect drivers from neck related injuries. Kyle Petty tested the device but declined to use it in races because of its restrictive nature. Again it is his decision.

2. Shallow angle and flat side impacts. These type of impacts are the hardest to control and most difficult to reduce the stress and damage from. The cars have less area to absorb the blow on the side than on the front by their very nature and are commensurately over built to help protect the drivers. The side impact structures on a NASCAR machine are probably the strongest part of the car, but because they cannot compress very far, distribute more force on the driver during impact. I think that NASCAR has addressed the car design as far as it can be taken, but could take a lesson from psrint car racing. The USAC Stoops Freightliner Sprint Car event held at Winchester Speedway, a paved oval with hard walls, held last night saw the walls ringed with styrofoam blocks to help absorb the blow of striking the wall. It worked very well when one of the cars was hit and struck the wall head on resulting in minimal damage to the car and the driver being unhurt. Several companies have introduced compressible wall mounted material to help cushion an impact. This needs to be seriously looked into. Only NASCAR can force the track owners to seriously consider this as an option because of its cost.

What do the rest of you think?

[John B]

KC, you read my mind for a topic choice. I was wondering about the driver's placement within the car. Would moving him towards the center have any safety benefits, given that it might make it harder to get out quickly?

[Joe Fan]

I think NASCAR is by far the safest major motorsports series in the world. Anyone who seen Geoffrey Bodine's crash should be a believer. Anytime a driver hits a wall flush with the driver side of his/her car or hits a ton due to a stuck throttle, it is a big deal. These crashes look innocent but it the power of such a blow to transferred to the driver. I don't think there is much NASCAR can do to in the form of major safety improvements. Only incremental safety changes can be made. A death in NASCAR at a track that only sees speed of 150mph only reaffirms how dangerous all motorsports are.

[Crash Test]

How very true...
Also there would be a corolation between the number of competitors and number of accidents...how many cars would there be running in all of the different classes running on any given weekend? If there were that many F1 or Champ Cars going around there would be frequently more serious crashes..

[KC]

The only real risk with larger fields in CART/IRL/F1 would be the risk of open wheels.

I think that too many times in the past NASCAR, the drivers, and the fans have considered the risks too lightly because the cars are enclosed and heavy. Yet we see a relatively innocent impact, when compared to Bodine's and Rusty Wallace's Daytona crashes, result in the death of a driver. The drivers may have to be the ones to raise the safey bar a little higher.

Another item I overlooked when posting this thread was the apparent lack of full body Nomex coverage in NASCAR. Every other form of motorpsort requires the drivers to be covered head to toe in Nomex underwear along with the obligatory driving suit. I don't recall seeing any NASCAR driver ever removing a NOMEX balaclava after taking off his helmet. Is this something that NASCAR allows the drivers to police among themselves? I also cannot remember the last time a driver was seriously burned as well, but why push the luck?

[Heeltoe6]

The only driver I can remember wearing a fire-sock was Earnhardt for a few races after his moustache got singed in the first dega race in 98, but he stopped after a few races.

[Joe Fan]

I would be totally against using styrofoam barriers on ovals. They already use it on road courses but to me, it would create more of a problem than it is worth on a paved oval track. Think about it, everytime somebody hits the wall it would create a big mess for the crews to clean up thus delaying the race continually. Dirt oval tracks can get away this to some degree because of lower speeds and since they already race on an unpredictable dirt surface but on high speed paved ovals, it would not work. The track surface would have to be cleaned continually as styrofoam pieces blow around freely.

Petty's accident was just simple misfortune. NASCAR is the safest major motorsport in the world. However, if your throttle hangs up then you are going to receive a massive blow especially on a flat track which doesn't scrap off speed like a banked oval. I think somebody needs to invent a throttle linkage that can never get hung up on anything. Richie Evans lost his life in a modified car at Martinsville because of a stuck throttle. Martinsville is a slow 1/2 mile track so if someone could be killed there, then anybody could just about anywhere.

[This message has been edited by Joe Fan (edited 19 May 2000).]

[Redneck]

I agree with making the sport as safe as possible and certainly everything should be done to make it safe. We must learn from such tragic incidences in order to try and not repeat them. I just hope they don't go to far and start trying to slow them down again.

One thing that I have not liked is racing to the line after a yellow. In just about every other form of racing, they always revert to the order prior to the yellow. Often when they race to the line they end up racing through the crash site. That is a disaster waiting to happen.

[Crash Test]

Have to agree with that....but when will they fix it? When somebody else dies...