NASCAR: Making Driver Safety a Top Priority in NASCAR

By Noah Davis

UsFANS.com Senior Writer

In 10 days NASCAR returns to the same track where Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin met with their untimely fatal tragedies. Rookie Matt Kenseth will tell you that the joy of his first season has been tempered by the safety concerns their passings bring. September 17th's race at Loudon, New Hampshire will be watched by millions, with more caring about safety than the result.

"It kind of brings everything into perspective that what we do is dangerous," Kenseth told reporters Wednesday. "I mean, I'd always considered the danger, but when so many years go by and nothing happens, you kind of lose sight of it and you feel real secure and that everything's cool. Now it's on your mind a lot more."

As it should be.

A chorus of drivers, led by notables Jeff Gordon and Dale Jarrett, has made impassioned statements of their wariness in returning to the same New Hampshire track where both deaths occurred. They have asked for padded walls to be placed around the track.

The track hasn’t complied, and NASCAR maintains that stuck throttles were the cause of both accidents, and neither the track itself nor its configuration is to blame.

Kenseth wondered aloud why the track hasn’t taken measures of its own. "...at racetracks like Loudon and Homestead (FL) where you're so far away from the wall and don't use the high groove, I think they could do something to make the walls absorb a head-on impact."

The questions underscore a major lacking in NASCAR. Championship Auto Racing Teams and the Indy Racing League maintain something NASCAR doesn't have and sorely needs: a dedicated, evolving safety program with an eye on the realities of speed.

Despite its incredible affluence, Winston Cup racing seems to be miles behind the other two major sanctioning bodies when it comes to safety.

Worthy of note are these comparisons:

MEDICAL PRESENCE

Since its fifth year of existence in 1984, CART has had a full-time safety team. Today it numbers 20, and they go to every race with CART-owned safety equipment.

Since it was formed in 1996, the IRL has fielded a full-time safety squad of 17, which has its own trucks and equipment.

NASCAR has been around for 52 years. It has no in-house safety team, preferring to rely on each of the individual tracks to provide a crew and doctors. It often seems to take an inordinate amount of time to reach the crash site, compared to the response of CART and IRL staffs. Part of this problem is that for some inane reason, NASCAR still races back to the finish line on a yellow flag.

When a driver crashes response time is crucial, so the safety team can save the driver’s life or possibly prevent further injury with the way the driver is treated and removed from the car. If the same skilled people are the ones doing the same job every weekend, it greatly enhances a driver's chances.

Not that NASCAR has hurt anybody because of negligence at the scene of an accident. The fact remains, however, an injured NASCAR driver may or may not have rescuers with the proper level of expertise.

NASCAR has stated that it routinely looks at having its own safety team but feels that having the local emergency services and local doctors is the best policy.

COCKPIT PROTECTION

Indy and champ cars utilize composite seats that are fit to the physical dimensions of each driver. NASCAR uses aluminum seats and doesn't allow composite seats like the one rookie Scott Pruett tried to use at the beginning of this season.

"NASCAR sees composites as a dangerous thing because they don't know how to use it and they feel more comfortable with aluminum because they have more experience," said Dr. Brock Walker, who has revolutionized seat and cockpit safety in IRL and CART cars during the past six years.

"But it's not about material; it's about knowledge and the depth of experience of the people building it. And don't tell me in a billion-dollar industry like NASCAR that you can't find some money and the time to spend on composites."

A sudden stop is a race driver's worst enemy. A stock car compounds the damage as the driver sits upright and gets bludgeoned because the cars don't come apart and dissipate energy like Indy or champ cars.

The HANS (head-and-neck system) device was first taken to NASCAR in the mid-1990s by its founders, Dr. Robert Hubbard and Jim Downing. It was bulky and permanently attached to drivers’ helmets so they resisted using it.

The system has evolved into a more practical helper, though, thanks to development by General Motors, Daimler Chrysler and Ford.

Michael Andretti, Christian Fittipaldi and Norberto Fontana have used it this season in CART. It was credited with helping Fittipaldi survive an impact of 100 Gs at Chicago this season with only a mild concussion.

CART has voted to make the HANS device mandatory (on ovals) for all drivers in 2001.

And though GM and Ford both told their NASCAR drivers they would pay for the HANS, so far only Brett Bodine has worn one in competition (in a Busch race at Nazareth, Pa.).

TELEMETRY

Nor does NASCAR allow telemetry, except in testing. Telemetry is crucial to figuring out how and why crashes occur, and could accurately portray a better picture of what happened in Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin’s cars.

Indy cars aren't bulletproof by any means, but CART and the IRL make safety a full-time crusade. Matt Kenseth is among the growing number of drivers wondering NASCAR isn’t doing the same.

Article courtesy of UsFANS.com