Broken seat belt did NOT kill Dale!

[Fiorentina 1]

The verdict is in!

http://orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-...ws%2Dheadlines

I fully belived the broken seat belt (if there actually was one) had nothing to do with his death. If it did, Nascar would have done more testing with Bill Simpson on those kind of seat belts. According to Simpson, he HAS NEVER heard anything from Nascar regarding the broken seat belt. He know as much as you and I know....That is way too weird for me.

[knott24]

I Think and have since the wreck that they cut the belt wene they were working on dale.And nascar was to quick to point the finger.I really believe the hons device would of saved his life...But i also believe that wene the man up stairs says its your time no matter what your doing hes gonna take you..The way i look at it is dale died doing what he loves how many of us our gonna get to do that..But dale was and allways will be nascar.....

[Joe Fan]

I wouldn't necessarily say that the verdict is in just yet. These individuals who looked at the photos are just physicians. Do they have a background in physics, have they ever studied crash dynamics? I think they are just giving an opinion from a medical point of view that doesn't necessarily incorporate all the variables in the equation.

However, I will say that I have doubts that the broken seat belt played a big role in his death but at the same time, I had seen Ward Burton take a similar hit as Dale's in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona in 1997. And at a higher speed. Ward walked away with just rib injuries. So, what was the difference between the two crashes? This is why I want a physics expert to evaluate this crash thoroughly before coming to a conclusion.

[Emfa]

The Earnhardt saga continues. So said the headline at ESPN.com. Why must this be such a saga? I just wish the press would back off and leave Teresa and the kids alone so that they can put this behind them. There are now stories that the Orlando paper, a university website and a county coroner are going to appeal the decision to seal the autopsy photos. Aaaarrrgggghhhh A flaming pox on them all.

And the final verdict? That is a long way off - NASCAR has said that they don't expect the final report from an investigation until August.

I would be the first to support an investigation that will help better understand the cause of Dale's death if it will do something to improve the level of safety in the sport that we all love, but it won't help having all the sensationalism that we have to put up with.

[knott24]

Dear Joe Fan you really seem to know your nascar.Im really learning alot from your knowledge..I really injoy reading your reply.Im new at this computer stuff but really injoy it and me and my wife love nascar....As a kid my dad was allways a dedicated fan of big E and i would remember thinking how boring to watch cars go around and around.For the last four years its become my life it gets in your blood.I take off work early every friday to watch quilifying and on sunday nothing could keep me away from the tv.And then dads calls every sunday after the race and we talk it over..Even saturdays i find my self watching busch...

[Lee]

I think that Knott24 may have summed it up best, saying that when the Man upstairs decides it's time for you to come home, your going home. I don't believe the broken belt can be valid. In all likelyhood, the rescue workers did cut the belt extracting him from the car. However, as Joe Fan said, the verdict is not necessarly in. There is no way, for certain, to say that he would have survived if he were wearing a HANS device, nor would there be any way to guarentee that he would have survived if the car were built with more crushable areas, and less ridged chassis in it. The cars of the 60s were allot bigger, and had allot of crushability in the front, and were allot less ridged. That did not save Don MacTavish from a similar type of accident at Daytona, in 1968, and, as Joe Fan pointed out, Ward Burton walked away from a similar type of crash with only minor injuries, he was not wearing a HANS device! Talking to former driver, Richard Brooks, about MacTavish's accident, he said that what killed MacTavish (and I would dare say Earnhardt, as well, along with the basil skull fracture) was the sudden, practically instant stop. The instant deacceleration. He said that the body just can't take that kind of force. It literaly turns your insides, your vital organs, into jelly. Of course, on my part that is pure speculation, but the point I'm trying to make is that I doubt less ridged chassis, crush zones, HANS devices, or anything else would have saved Dale Earnhardt's life. The exact angle that he hit, the speed he was going at the time, and the G-forces were what combined to kill him, just as it did Don MacTavish, in 1968. The man upstairs decided that it was time for Dale to come home.

[Raoul Duke]

Sorry, but I just don't understand how The Man Upstairs could have wanted this for Dale(or for any driver). Dale still had a few good years of racing left in him(maybe he could have gotten that 8th championship). And even after he retired, he still would have had a long and healthy life for him to enjoy with his family, friends, etc, etc. I just fail to understand how the Man Upstairs would want to take that away from him, and all those that were close to him. In my opinion, it was just a freak accident, nothing more. The Man Uspairs had nothing to do with it.

[knott24]

I just don't agree with you RAOUL DUKE! When it is your time to go the man upstairs is going to take you.He is not going to wait tell you get that eight championship.Way that works if you have done what he put you on this earth to do and he is ready for you.HE WILL TAKE YOU! Why do you think he was killed at his favored track and just almost the same place as is best friend? Dont you beleave that's the way earnheart would won't to go!Some people dont even get to live a good life like he did.He was a lucky man! I think he knew something was going to happen because any other time he would of been going for the win!I have never seen earnheart not go for the win!Thanks lee for agree with me.I do beleave when its your turn its your turn and you will be taken and it dont matter what you are doing.And at lease dale went doing what he love doing and god made sure of that.

[Raoul Duke]

He is doing what God put him on this earth to do?.
Don't you think that God would have let him enjoy much more success, and then afterwards, let him enjoy life with his wife and children and friends. Do you believe that God would want to inflict such pain on all the people who loved and cared for him?. Do you believe that he would want to deprive so much people from so much joy?, I think not!.
Ok, I agree that it isn't like him to not race for the win, especially when it is so close by. But he had 2 of his cars(DEI) leading the race, I think he was trying to protect his son and Micheal from letting anybody get by them.

[Joe Fan]

Knott24, thanks for your nice comments. If you like reading my posts, perhaps you will like the biography that I am writing on the late great Grand Prix driver, Masten Gregory. He wasn't a NASCAR driver but he was a real character and an American pioneer. To learn more about his career, go to the homepage that my wife and I have created to honor his career: www.geocities.com/mastoidfan/mg.html

I don't have an exact date of when it will be published and on the market beause I am just finishing up chapter two of a eight-nine chapter book. However, I expect that it should be on the market towards the end of 2003 or early part of 2004.

Raoul, my belief in God is that heaven is a beautiful place where you can be with the loved ones who have passed on. I believe in heaven that you will have this eternal glowing feeling inside, kind of like the feeling you get when you are at a big race in person, just a split second before they throw the green flag. Heaven is a much better place. In heaven, there is no murdurs, crime, pain, suffering, bad people, etc. With this in mind, I think the sooner you go to heaven the better. It may not seem so from our perspective, but it does from theirs.

I also think God wants us to learn from this incidents. I think Dale's death teaches us to appreciate what we have on earth, and in this case it was Dale's talent and personality. Whether you loved Dale or hated him, he sure made races interesting. And hate is supposedly another form of love anyway. It also states somewhere in the bible that God is a jealous God so how do you think he feels when so many worshipped Dale Earnhardt? In the end, this isn't easy for us to understand but God must have had a reason to take Dale when he did. As a friend of mine told me recently, don't put a question mark where God has put a period.

[PRAMBIN]

I read in the newspaper the day before yesterday, that the independent findings were different from Nascars version of the seat belt broke. The trauma to the base of the neck due to the head flying forward past the point the neck muscles were able to sustain were cited as the likely cause, and additionally there were bruises around the stomach which indicates that the belt functioned at impact. The report was a little short of stating that the Hans Device would have saved a life, but not by much. This is a personal opinion and not to be construed as a absolute truth.