A crash at Daytona that I seen in person that was just like the one that killed Dale

[Joe Fan]

My memory is better than I thought and my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. I was at the 1997 Pepsi 400 at Daytona which turned out to be John Andretti's first Winston Cup win. For all those who have a copy of this race, the last lap contains a very similar crash to the one that killed Earnhardt, except it is going into turn three instead of in the middle of turns three and four. This race had a six mile faster qualifying speed from my memory (189 something to 183 something) and speeds going into turn three are faster at that the point of the track, than where Earnhardt crashed. Just substitute Ward Burton for Dale Earnhardt and Dick Trickle for Ken Schrader. I bet somebody has a copy of this race, Lee?

At any rate, Ward Burton was shook up and suffered some minor injuries but lived. He stated that this was the hardest impact he had ever faced. For those who are interested, read about it at: http://members.aol.com/Ward22Fan/wcs_797b.htm

[Jay]

What I was wondering, was, if it really was like any other accident, as you say, why were his injuries so severe that absolutely no safety device would have prevented it?

It was a hard hit, but if it was something that people have lived through before, surely something went wrong here that can be corrected. Maybe with HANS?

I have heard reports from different sources that HANS would have done nothing, and conversly that it would have saved Dale Earnhardt, Kenny Irwin,the young Petty that was killed and Tony Roper.

[Joe Fan]

Looking at the replay, it appears that maybe Dick Trickle's car pushing into Ward's, may have lessened the blow of Ward car into the wall but it doesn't really seem much different to me. It still was essentially the same type of hit and should have been just as hard.

I have heard rumors that maybe Dale had experienced upper body restraint system failure because his steering wheel was pushed way in. Definately something seems strange here from my perspective since I witnessed the crash above in person. Could Dale have unbuckled some of his restraints at the red flag and forgot to rebuckle them?

[Joe Fan]

I have had a chance to really analyze the two crashes more indepth and it seems that Ward hit more flush into the wall than Earnhardt. Earnhardt hit a bit more at an angle from what I can see. It is really hard to see this unless you do a super slow mo. I guess the rigidity of the front right corner is what killed Earnhardt and I suspected that this was some of the problem with Roper's crash. Ward hit a little more flush, therefore the the front clip was able to absorb energy.
[Edited by Joe Fan on 21st February 2001]

[Valve Bounce]

If you go to the other thread, you will see that there is another crash almost identical to Dale's - that of car #36 which crashed alongside Dale. If you still have the tape and go to someone with a SHARP VCR that has freeze frame, you will be able to compare the two crashes as well as see the lack of crumple of Dale's car. As I said there, the key to any investigation is to find out why the driver of car #36 avoided these injuries.