rec.autos.simulators

Chris

In slate-ish way, I'll give the cynical spin. The Bud pole has a title
sponsor, so maybe be the folks at NASCAR get kick backs for every Bud gets
mentioned first. In that case, perhaps the funeral should be sponsored by
Jiffy Lube, that way it can get some coverage by the racing media... That's
pretty damn disgusting.

I came home from work and checked NASCAR.com for the pole results and saw
the Irwin headline down below.  My first impression was how bizarre it was
that Irwin's death wasn't the lead story, but yanking the whole site because
someone was killed?  I don't think so.  What's the point of that?

As for all the chatter about changing the track or that the track is
dangerous...out of the 40-50 cars that went around that track today during
that practice, only one crashed and killed someone.  If the track was deadly
or inherently dangerous, I think more than 2% of the drivers would have
crashed and been killed.

Racing is dangerous and people get killed.  Race drivers know it is
dangerous and decide to take that risk, anyway.  It is unfortunate when a
driver is killed, but it happens and always will.  The only way to
absolutely prevent being killed driving a race car is not to drive a race
car.  All the mandates and rules and changes in the world are not going to
stop race drivers from getting killed now and then.  It sucks, but it's a
risk associated with the practice of racing cars.

Now someone can tell me what a heartless jerk I am because I had the gall to
inject some reality into the maudlin kneejerk blather that will no doubt
follow this unfortunate event.

~daxe

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Cheers

Phil

Well I dont really agree with that NASCAR is dangerous. but 2 people dont need
to die at the same track in 2 months thats ridicoulous. Something needs to be
done. Lobonte broke his leg at daytona too.

I think it's a co-incidence. Has it occured to you that both of these
incidents happened during practice sessions where the cars were possibly not
set up correctly for the track and may have been overdriven?

If there is an inherent problem with the track, I think you would have heard
the drivers complaining about it en masse.  Remember a couple years ago when
all the drivers screamed about the entrance to the front straight at Texas
being too narrow?  They all said it was unnecessarily dangerous and they
pretty much got together and said they wouldn't be back unless it was fixed.
I haven't heard throngs of drivers complaining about the danger entering
turn 3 at NHIS.  Fans perceptions of the realtive safety of a track are
irrelevant.  If the drivers are not complaining about the safety, there's no
safety problem.

And 99% of the drivers in Winston Cup who go around the track are doing what
needs to be done:  Not crashing.  This is exactly what I mean!  Drivers will
probably be extra cautious and maybe come into turn #3 a couple mph lower
now so they don't crash.  There are corners or sections of most tracks that
are dangerous if you don't drive them correctly.  Do you think all tracks
should be homogenized to the point of making crashing impossible?  NHIS is a
very flat race track.  If the flatness is a problem, I guess that means they
will have to stop racing at Sears Point and the Glen and Pocono and Indy,
too, right?

What does Terry Labonte breaking his leg in Florida have to do with people
crashing in New Hampshire?  I suppose you are going to suggest that
something needs to be done about Daytona to prevent people spinning halfway
around after contact and hitting the wall with the drivers' side first?

~daxe

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 Two fatal crashes at the same spot within such a short period of time. I
don't think it takes rocket science to figure out there could be a problem
there. Can you name any other time in NASCAR history where something like
this has happened before?  It would take 2% of the drivers to die there
before you would consider this dangerous? How many more deaths there do we
need to see before you would change your mind about that? Maybe if it was a
spot where they would just spin out into the grass or something it wouldn't
be so critical. But the results of losing it  there are apparently resulting
in very *** crashes.  I would think they could take enough out of the
budget to try to remove the bump and scrub the track.

 Jim D.

 Jim D.

I'm inclined to agree. tragic as it is, motorsport will always have it's
casualties. I am led to understand that both recent accidents were as a
result of throttles sticking wide open. This lends me to believe that maybe
the cars should be under closer scrutiny right now.

MS

You don't just overdrive your car straight into a wall.

They could be considering NASCAR officals make the rule changes and they aren't
driving the cars.

It's the angle of impact that matters.  Look when Dave Marcis went head on into
the wall in T1 at Pocono a year ago.  He came out of it ok.  Ward Burton, Steve
Park, Ken Schrader, and more have flipped at Sears Point and came out just
fine.  That Busch crash at Watkins Glen definatly proved that softer, breakaway
walls work.

Racer X
Veteran Sim Racer
#4 Corvette C5-R in the GTIC
#24 Monte Carlo in the DORL
Victory Lane-
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/1423/

Eldred - who thinks both crashes were just unfortunate 'freak' accidents...
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Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
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Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

And a track doesn't cause you to fail to slow down.  I wasn't suggesting
that was the case, I was just floating the idea that there might be another
cause for the accidents other than the track.

NASCAR officials are in contact with the teams and drivers and can examine
the track.  A bunch of NASCAR fans watching races on TV have no substantive
basis for making pronouncements on what is wrong or how to fix it.

This is true, but the lack of banking has an impact on incidental
decelleration as a car approaches the wall and would also (obviously) allow
a car to enter a turn faster and possibly forgive more errors in handling.
The example of Bristol has been given.  A lot of people drive into the wall
there, but the car just doesn't have as much oomph by the time it gets
there.

I am not so sure that breakaway walls would work on the turns on ovals.
Cars brush the walls in and out of the corners a lot and something softer
than concrete might catch the cars and cause them to hang up or spin back
out onto the track, endangering countless others, as well. (Think he
magnetic walls of NasRev or the grass of SCGT)

I forget the track exactly, but Michael Waltrip hit a wall in a 'soft spot'
(I think it was a gate) and ended up hitting the edge of adjacent wall
pretty much head on.  It was a miracle that the decelleration didn't squirt
his brains out through his eye sockets.  Were he to have hit a solid wall
and bumped along it, that danger from sudden decelleration would have not
been a factor.

I am sure this whole thing will be examined closely and anything genuinely
beneficial will hopefully get done.  I hope people don't just scream and
yell that "something" has to be done and so somebody does "something" to
shut them up which might possibly cause even more problems.  Look at
safety-conscious F1 for a second and think about A. Senna.  All the gravel
traps and run offs and tire walls in the world didn't do squat for him.

~daxe

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The first thing I pictured with styrofoam retaining wall covers was
that 90% of the cautions we see today would become red flags while the
track personnel reassembled the wall and swept up the mess.

That was a truely amazing sight.  I suspect the energy dissapated by
the car shredding as it did (thankfully down the right side of it) is
what saved his life there.  There wasn't a piece of that car that was
the same shape or position it was in when it came off the truck that
morning.  Incredible...

People always will scream and yell that "something" must be done.  All
we can do is have better answers and explanations before they do.  As
everybody keeps saying, it's a dangerous sport and you can get killed
doing it.   That ain't ever gonna change unless we can repeal the laws
of physics...

Regards,
Brett C. Cammack
That's Racing! Motorsports
Pompano Beach, FL

Only cover the turns, not the straightaway walls.  Say a few hundered feet into
the turn and before the next straight.
Racer X
Veteran Sim Racer
#4 Corvette C5-R in the GTIC
#24 Monte Carlo in the DORL
Victory Lane-
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/1423/

agreed

I'd rather have red flags than dead drivers, but this is very true.

Hence my admonishment at the very start.  Folks need to face up to the fact
that you can't always do "something" to prevent an accident.

~daxe

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