Week 25 RacinDeals
STEWART MAKES SENSE: I’ve done my share of criticizing of Tony Stewart
because of his actions on the track after races (and his action in a post race
interview Saturday night doesn’t help). But in regards to wearing a
head restraint (or not wearing one), he makes a lot of sense. "We
know how it will work in a forward impact, but we don’t know about a side impact
or an angled impact. I just don’t think it’s the answer to all the problems and
until I know more about it, I’m not going to use one."
It’s mind boggling that there are people out there who think Stewart or any
other driver shouldn’t have a choice; it’s his head after all.
But now I read that he’s going to test the
Hutchins system, just to shut everyone up. Hey Tony, you do what you feel is
safe.
POOLE’S SIDE: Wow, finally someone
in the mainstream motor sports press is making some sense. David
Poole gives us one of the most reasoned columns I’ve seen on this whole
safety mess. I definitely recommend reading this if you haven’t already.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Poole.
TALLADEGA TESTING: Ok, so there was a funky test at Talladega. Day
one is for testing NASCAR ideas, and day two is for testing the teams’ ideas.
Ostensibly, the reason for the test is to figure out a way to get rid of the
packs of cars.
Assuming that they even need to do that (which I don’t), why not add weight
to the cars? They weigh 3400 pounds now, why not bump it up to 4000? And reduce
the engine displacement at the same time. I’m not a physicist, but to me it
would seem like that would slow them down.
A RACING MYTH: You often hear a driver say something like "we got caught
up in someone else’s wreck because we were back in the pack," meaning that
had they been up front with the "good" drivers, they wouldn’t have
wrecked.
One of the drivers from the Busch race Friday night said much the same thing.
It’s almost a cliché now. I wonder what Ron Hornaday ,Steve Park, and Matt
Kenseth said when
they wrecked when Hornaday was going for the lead? That’s not supposed to happen
with "good" drivers; that only happens with rookies or "bad"
drivers deep in the field.
JEFF GREEN: "If he wants to win races like that, that’s fine. But that’s
not how Jeff Green does it – I’ll finish second before I do that," said
Jeff Green about his sometimes current and future teammate, Kevin Harvick.
That’s getting to be a broken record with Green. He said it when Casey Atwood
passed him to win his first win, and I guess it’s handy to fall back on.
But really, Jeff, you need to go back and check the tape. You knocked one car
(Steve Park?) out of the way to get to second place.
Get off your high horse and start racing.
THE BELT MAKER: I normally don’t
put much stock in stories (about racing or about the real world) that cite anonymous
sources. My take is that the writer could be lazy and just making up the quotes
to support his opinion about the topic he’s writing about.
However, Godwin
Kelly, while citing a source "in the safety industry" makes a good
point: If Bill Simpson knew Dale Earnhardt was using his products incorrectly,
why did he keep selling them to him? If Earnhardt’s safety was so important, why
not say "Dale, I’ve told you over and over you’re installing my belts
wrong. Until you modify the way you install your safety belts, you’ll have to
get them from another source."
But then Kelly, via this anonymous source,
takes a hit at NASCAR. "NASCAR has ignored repeated pleas from the
safety industry to standardize seat belt mounting placements," this
"source" says. Well, duh. Is NASCAR supposed to say that each belt
will be mounted at such and such a place, x inches from this post and y inches
from that post? So Michael Waltrip at over 6 feet and Mark Martin at maybe 5 and
a half feet have to both fit into the same belt system?
BELT MOUNTING: Saturday I took a
stroll through the pits at Nashville Speedway USA. I initially wanted to see how
many drivers were wearing some type of head and neck restraint device. Out
of about 100 cars, I probably got to observe the drivers in 60 of them. About 20
of those were wearing open-faced helmets. Of the drivers I saw who were wearing
full-faced helmets, three were wearing a neck collar and one was wearing an
actual HANS device.
But after I looked at the headgear, I
started looking at the backs of the seats to see how the belts were mounted. In
every case (I looked at maybe 20 cars), the shoulder harnesses came up from
beneath a bar behind the seat, through a little bracket on that bar, and then
through slots in the back of the seat. Some drivers had cut their own
slots higher than what had come pre-cut in the seat.
And then I had an interesting thought:
what if a shoulder harness came through the seat below the driver’s shoulders?
In a wreck, that would almost certainly cause the driver’s back to be
compressed. If the belts were mounted higher than the shoulders, then the
compression wouldn’t take place.
To me, that proves that NASCAR has no way
of mandating seat belt installation methods or placement…It has to be
customized for each driver.
TNT: Kudos to TNT’s pre-race show
Saturday night. When I found out who won the race, I wasn’t going to watch the
tape. But then I was told that I needed to watch at least the pre-race show. TNT
did a great job of giving us the different viewpoints regarding the Earnhardt
investigation. Sadly, Bill Simpson’s paranoia shows up in every statement he
makes. It would be better for him and his legacy if he would just quietly go
away; the more he talks, the more his credibility comes in doubt.
TO THE EGRESS: What NASCAR needs to
check now that everyone seems to be on this head and neck restraint bandwagon is
the drivers’ egress out of the right hand side of the car while they’re wearing
those things. That should be timed
and if a driver can’t get out within the time limit, then they fix it or they
don’t qualify.
BRING BACK THE THREE: There are
reports that Richard Childress may start running a Number 3 car again next year.
Good for him. I’m glad all this nonsense about retiring the number has finally
blown over and sanity is making its presence known.
UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR NOMINEE:
"I think Jason [Leffler] probably was in a situation maybe a little sooner
than he should have been." – Chip Ganassi