Big crash at Daytona

[DeputyDog]

Did you see the big one they had in Nationwide race? Engine and a tire ended up in the stands. I've said for a long time that it was just a matter of time before that type of racing killed someone. Last I heard there were at least 12 fans injured with 2 critical.

[Captain]

Heard it on the radio when I left the hunt club. Got home and cut on the speed channel and they have shown it over and over. Looks like a bad deal...
Prayers to all those injured, one of the two that are in critical condition is a child. Sad
Take Care, Captain

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner

[Thumper]

I've said for a long time that it was just a matter of time before that type of racing killed someone.

"... that type of racing??" To be honest, I have no clue what you're talking about there ... but whatever.

My heart goes out to all involved. A tragic accident for sure. :(

[BarryBobPosthole]

Was the product of GWC finishes at superspeedways. I don't think it needs to be changed but big wrecks in those situations are pretty typical. It was only a matter of timebefore it happened. Again, I don't think there's a damn thing that should, or could, be done about it.
Last I've seen is 28 injured, one very critical. I guess a wheel made it into the stands. A couple at least were in the upper level of the stands.
BKB

[DeputyDog]

I was talking about pack racing coupled with the "rubbin' is racin'" attitude.

[Thumper]

I couldn't imagine a "stock car" racing like an Indy car and not being able to touch without both cars disintegrating on the spot. (yawn!) This was a freak happening ... unfortunate, but it's racing .... there will always be inherent risks involved.

[DeputyDog]

This wasn't a freak happening. It's happened several times before, just not recently. The reason for the restrictor plates on the cars at Daytona and Talledega are because Bobby Allison went into the fence at Talledega in I think it was '87. They said that just slowing down the cars would stop that from happening.
Well, it's happened several times since then, and probably made the racing there even more dangerous. Look at how many of the "big ones" that have happened, and how many times a driver was just inches away from getting hit in a way that could have seriously hurt them or launched them into the fence and the fans.

After a tire flew into the stands in an Indy Car race in Charlotte in '99, Indycar mandated tethers to the rear wings and wheels to prevent it from happening again, and it hasn't since. They also raised the catch fences and increased the overhang to prevent debris from going over the fence.

No catch fence will completely stop a car or large parts of a car from coming through it.

The crash at Las Vegas Speedway in 2011 that killed Dan Wheldon in an Indy car was a "freak" thing. He got airborne and was turned so that he hit the fence with the top of his car, causing his head to hit a post, killing him. He probably wouldn't have been killed if he hit the fence with any other side of the car. He would have been seriously hurt, but probably not killed. If any number of things had been just a little bit different or hits moved by just a few inches, he wouldn't have been killed and may have walked away from the crash like all the other drivers involved. Funny how after that crash happened, a lot of NASCAR drivers commented that Indy Car shouldn't race on ovals especially the 1.5 mile tracks, and how there were too many cars on the track, etc... Now when it happens in their sport, they are all quiet.

My original statement on this was brought about by my belief that the stock car drivers feel invulnerable in their cars, because, no one has been seriously hurt in over 10 years, and that was because of basal skull fractures, not overall damage to the car itself. The HANS device has solved that problem, so it probably won't happen again and they know it.

Having that many cars together in a group that can't seperate from each other, coupled with the idea that it's ok to just push someone out of the way to get past them, and if you wreck them, that's ok too. Remember the statement from NASCAR, "Have at it boys!"? It's just a matter of time until either a fan or a driver gets killed by one of these big wrecks.

I remember a couple of years ago, a couple of drivers got into it and one of them deliberately wrecked the other one. I'm sorry I can't remember who it was. I said it then that if a driver deliberately wrecks another driver and it causes a death, they could be and should be criminally prosecuted. If I deliberately wreck someone on the street and they die, that's what would happen, why should it be any different on a racetrack?

My thought is that the only fix to this is to break up the pack racing. Reducing speeds won't do it.

I know that you're not an Indy Car fan, but this isn't about Indy Car vs NASCAR. One of the things that Indy Car decided after the Wheldon crash was that the tight pack racing where no one had any room to maneuver or the ability to seperate from each other on the track had to go, so they made some aero tweaks to the cars and eliminated it. The racing isn't single file, follow the leader like F1, but it's not just one big tangle of cars either. Their big push led by the drivers, was to make the cars harder to drive so that driver talent made more of a difference. I'm not saying that NASCAR drivers aren't talented, but having cars that you can drive just about flat out around a race track isn't that hard for anyone that's made it to that level. (See Danica's success in Indy Car, and why, I believe, she got out when she did, before the cars got harder to drive.) I know that tracks like Bristol, Martinsville, and some others aren't like this, but a lot of the 1.5 milers are, and with the plates, Daytona and Talledega are too. Making the cars harder to drive would seperate out the drivers with the real talent and the guts to drive them hard and fast from the rest of the pack, instead of making winners in the series biggest race the guy lucky enough to avoid the big one and get a push at the right time at the end of the race.

[Thumper]

Ummm, ok. I don't "dislike" Indy cars, I simply like stock car racing better. As for the rest of what you say, you sound like all the knee-jerks out there when there's a school shooting or something. Let's ban hi-cap mags and nasty looking black guns ... make only single shot, bolt actions legal, that'll fix it.

But back to racing, maybe we could throw up some speed limit signs and add a couple of school crossings to slow 'em down. Seriously, I think the roof flaps provided a GIANT leap to curb the problem of cars flying over the wall and into the local 7-11 parking lot, but sometimes you run into the "perfect storm" and safety efforts fly out the window. You can't plan for EVERY situation and sometimes you end up with a 3400 pound hunk of metal ending up somewhere it doesn't belong. Maybe we should close the bleachers and make the races pay-per-view only. Where do you want to draw the line?

I think we should simply agree to disagree on this one. The last thing I'd want on the track is a bunch of young, fearless, hot-dog drivers out there with ill-handling cars! They'd simply get it through their heads that EVERYONE'S car sucks big ones and won't steer ... so they'll be tip-toeing around the track trying to keep them going straight. Then it will simply boil down to who has the biggest cahones and decides to roll the dice to push the envelope.

[LJ3]

I think you guys should keep disagreeing. This is very interesting to me. Seriously. Jimmy, your response was weak, you can do better than that. You've had sex with, like, the entire Waltrip family, haven't you? shouldn't you have better info? And Deppity, don't be looking down on redneck racing, they don't like it :)

OK, back at it!

[BarryBobPosthole]

Jackie Stewart says all of these Daytona and Indy drivers are pussies. Deaths at Grand Prix races back in the day were common both for fans and racers. the stuff they do now is safe, relatively speaking. Hell, there's even WOMEN racing now.

BKB

[Chicken Dinner]

There was a race this weekend? Was it a big one?

[LJ3]

Jackie Stewart makes a valid point.

[quercus alba]

What's the difference between indy car and nascar? Wait a minute, I'm not interested. carry on with your conversation

[Niner]

Obviously there's an immediate need to implement and pass some far-reaching assault car legislation. No one NEEDS to be going that fast. Twenty horse power should be more than enough. :poke

OK.....sorry.....I couldn't help myself. :lmao:lmao:lmao

[BarryBobPosthole]

That'd be twenty swedish meatball power Niner.

BKB

[DeputyDog]

Jackie Stewart says all of these Daytona and Indy drivers are pussies. BKB

The funny thing about that is if you go back and look and any of the Indy 500 telecasts from the 70's that he was a part of, he was one of the biggest proponents of safety measures and really called for the speeds to be slowed down when they were flirting with the 200 MPH barrier because he said they were going too fast and it just wasn't safe.

Kribbs, I never said anything about slowing down the cars. I just said that it seemed to me that the cause of crashes like the one that happened is the fact that the cars are all bunched up and can't get away from each other. I'd think that making the cars harder to drive would be a good thing for the series, because it would mean that only the most talented and skilled drivers would participate. How hard is it to drive a car around a track if all you have to do is press the throttle to the floor and hit your marks for the turns. Seems to me that it makes it more dependent of the car than the driver to make it go fast and beat the other drivers. Shouldn't there be some kind to driver element involved in making race winners? This is not the call into question the talent of any of the drivers involved, but if you put one of the back of the pack drivers into one of the top teams cars, how would he finish. Would it depend on the car or the drivers talent?

Len, I'm not really putting it down, but I find it funny that when the Dan Wheldon crash happened in 2011 and several Indy Car drivers called for changes to the catch fence design to try to reduce the injuries caused when cars are launched into it, NASCAR said that it wasn't interested in assisting in the funding for any studies on fence design. Despite what Darrell Waltrip says, NASCAR only got on board with the SAFER barrier after Ernhardt was killed at Daytona even though Indy Car had originated the study and had funded it for 3 years.

My observation was that it seems that NASCAR will wait until there is a major tragedy before they address the safety issues. They didn't mandate the use of the HANS device until Ernhardt was killed, again even though open wheel racing had mandated it several years previously. If it had been in use, Ernhardt and Adam Petty more that likely would not have been killed in the wrecks that did kill them.

I guess as long as their fan base is happy and the series keeps making money hand over fist, things will stay the same.

[LJ3]

I was just ribbin ya, buddy. I agree that the racing machines SHOULD be very difficult to drive, and even harder to master and rise to the cream of the crop. Add overall safety in the mix and that's three variables that can be hard to find the right amount of each. Driver skill, machine capability and safety.

Since I don't watch much racing (I've never intentionally sat down to watch a car race of any kind), my opinion prolly shouldn't count for much. But I DO have the gene that makes me want to drive the wheels off of anything I get around and hey, if there's someone there with me, beating them is that much better. To me, that's pretty much how motor racing evolved.

I can appreciate the differences in Indy and NASCAR racing. I like the high speeds and what seems like finesses of Indy cars, and I like the pack racing vibe of NASCAR, too.

[Thumper]

We're race fans. Period. Why is it, everytime I have a conversation with a dyed-in-the-wool Indy fan, it always reminds me of a "gun hunter/bow hunter" conversation? In the racing world, Indy fans are the "elite" bow hunters of the world and NASCAR fans are the "beer guzzling" gun hunters. Can you understand that analogy?

Hey, we start our vacation in a couple hours. I'm out'ta here for a while anyway. Youse guys can carry it from here. ;)

[LJ3]

Well maybe if NASCAR wasn't a bunch of rednecks making 200mph left turns and knocking each other all over the track, and the Indy guys weren't a bunch of euro-pussies that are all are speaking in pretend accents....


nevermind :swordfight