2008 NASCAR running thread

It is wrong to say that NASCAR is responsible for the development of the SAFER barrier. It also is wrong to say NASCAR had no role in it. The history, briefly, is that Indianapolis developed a deal called the PEDS barrier in about 1997-98. They had it on an inside wall at the entrance to pit road and it got nailed in an IROC race. The stuff from inside the barrier went flying all over the track and, had it been a larger field, might have caused more wrecks.
So at that point Tony George and the IRL folks began working with Dr. Dean Sicking and his team at the University of Nebraska's Midwest Roadside Safety Facility to improve on the PEDS. George and the IRL funded the initial research and as the folks at Nebraska began arriving at some things that showed promise NASCAR had a three fatalities (Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin Jr. and Tony Roper) in 2000 that all had a lot to do with crashes into unprotected barriers. It was along about this time that NASCAR began working with and supporting the work being done by Dr. Sicking's team.
Because Indy had provided the initial impetus for this, the first version of the SAFER devised was fairly track-specific to Indy. While the general principle of rolled steel bars backed by foam energy-absorbing panels was the core idea, it was clear from the start that each installation was going to have to be a custom job. So Indy was always in line to have the SAFER first.
Then, in February 2001, Dale Earnhardt died in Daytona. It's impossible to completely explain to people who weren't around NASCAR before and after that event how much it changed the sport's entire attitude. In January 2001 on the preseason media tour, I personally talked to several drivers about safety issues. Some were already working with the HANS (head and neck support) device and looking at their seats and belts trying to make them better. But a lot of the guys wouldn't talk about safety. The guys who took leadership positions on safety, like Jeff Burton and Randy LaJoie and others, were called nasty names behind their backs by the guys who simply refused to acknowledge the sport's dangers. It was a lot of macho BS, a lot of just plain denial and just some stupidity. Some drivers told me they'd never wear a HANS because they were more frightened of not being able to escape a fire than they were of maybe breaking their necks.
Then, Earnhardt died.
From that moment, literally, the folks making the HANS couldn't get them made fast enough for drivers who wanted them. NASCAR finally required them late that summer, but by that time there were only two or three guys not wearing it. Safety went from being a taboo subject to a focus. NASCAR had already stopped saying that safety was up to each track and each team, but Earnhardt's death allowed the people inside the sport who thought it should be a priority to finally make that happen within that corporate culture. It was absolutely a complete change in attitudes.
It is absolutely fair to criticize NASCAR for waiting until after Earnhardt's death to put a real focus behind its safety efforts. But it's not fair to say NASCAR wasn't interested in safety before that. NASCAR didn't ignore issues raised by the three deaths in 2000. Kill switches were devised for the steering wheels so a driver with a stuck throttle had a way to kill the power in his engine. They were working on better fire-supressing systems. They were working with GM on data recorders they trusted. And they were helping Dr. Sicking with money and other support in the SAFER project. But Tony George and the IRL were ahead of NASCAR in making that effort a focus and should get credit for that.

 

About time for a debris caution isn't it?

 

Why, yes. Yes, it is.

Funny you should mention that.

 

Backflip time.

 

Go Carl, go Carl, go Carl, go....

 

Is The Carl's oil tank cover still in place?

 

Especially when that "other racing series" launched his career ... Tony Stewart.

 

I wonder if anyone will ask Roush that question?

 

Great post, David.

If memory serves, Tony Stewart was one of the last holdouts on the HANS device, pissing and moaning about it well into the 2001 season.

 

Yeah, he was. Wore that nylon-strap thingy around his chest the whole year until NASCAR changed the rulebook to say "Wear the HANS device or race somewhere else."

Maybe I'll try to call his Sirius show this week and ask him if his opinion's changed in light of the McDowell wreck.