Seven More Crashes, Lead Changes, Etc.
As Talladega gets underway, some issues:
Sports Illustrated’s website commissioned
experts to analyze
six 2001 crashes and offer comments on their severity. The crashes involved
were at the Daytona 500, California 500, the Winston and Winston Open Sprint,
and the Chicagoland 400. Their analyses are informative and thus of great
interest.
There is, though, a theme here. The
experts note that Dale Earnhardt’s Daytona crash was not the most severe of the
six analyzed – the two most severe were Buckshot Jones’ Charlotte crash and Mike
Skinner’s Chicagoland crash – and of the six crashes, only Earnhardt’s involved
a driver not wearing a head restraint.
So, I wish to submit seven additional
crashes worth analysis. In every one of them, to the best of my knowledge no
head restraint was involved –
RICHARD PETTY
Race – 1986 Daytona 500
Crash Description – Right front impact in second turn
Spot on track – mid to top of banking
Head restraint – none
Distinguishing comment – no speed scrub; in-car video shows massive headwhip
Injuries – bell ringing and some neck stretch
Subsequent missed races – none
STANLEY SMITH, RICK MAST, RICHIE PETTY
Race – 1993 Diehard 500
Crash description – Right-head-on impacts in first turn wall
Spot on track – bottom to mid to top of track
Head restraints — SMITH – neck collar – MAST, PETTY – none
Distinguishing comment – impact angles virtually the same for all three; Jimmy
Horton clipped by Smith and tumbled over track wall, uninjured
Injuries —- SMITH – massive closed head injury – MAST, PETTY –
none
Subsequent missed races —- SMITH – well over one year – MAST, PETTY – none due
to injury
KEN SCHRADER
Race – 1998 Daytona 125s, first
event
Crash description – Head-on full speed impact tilted toward right front in Turn
One
Spot on track – bottom to top of banking
Head restraint – none
Distinguishing comment – zero speed scrub before impact
Injuries – sternum injury
Subsequent missed races – none
JEFF GORDON
Race – 1999 Texas 500
Crash Description – Right front impact exiting Turn Four
Spot on track – mid to top of track
Head restraint – none
Distinguishing comment – zero speed scrub; In-car shows Gordon wincing, almost
as though he were crying
Injuries – general soreness
Subsequent missed races – none
RUSTY WALLACE
Race – 1999 Pocono 500
Crash description – Right-head-on impact in first turn wall due to blown
tire
Spot on track – bottom turn entry to top of track
Head restraint – none
Distinguishing comment – Rusty described impact as hardest in his career
Injuries – none
Subsequent missed races – none
DAVE MARCIS
Race – 1999 Pocono 500
Crash description – Right front full-speed impact in Tunnel Turn wall
Spot on track – bottom to top of track
Head restraint – none
Distinguishing comment – no speed scrub; Marcis’ head nearly burst through
window netting and struck concrete wall; car twirled twice in midair before
landing on four wheels and coming to stop
Head restraint – none
Injuries – serious soreness, thorough shaking up; driver walked with some
assistance to ambulance
Subsequent missed races – one
BOBBY LABONTE
Race – practice for 2000 Southern
500
Crash description – head-on impact due to throttle sticking
Spot on track – bottom to top of track
Head restraint – author uncertain, believe none
Distinguishing comment – devices to prevent throttle sticking had been installed
earlier that season
Injuries – none
Subsequent missed races – none
I’d like these or similar experts to analyze
these crashes as well, particularly in light of that the drivers involved apparently
did not wear head restraints.
Lead changes used to be more common at
Talladega – so notes
the AP’s Mike Harris.
Harris notes that of the track’s first 41
races, 20 saw 40 or more lead changes and 12 saw 50 or more. The 2000 Winston
500 saw 49 lead changes, the most at the track since July 1989. According to
Harris, the difference is that drivers could use the slingshot move before
restrictor plates. He forgets that in 1971 and August 1973 Talladega ran
restrictor plates and had no trouble with slingshotting, as was the case in
1989.
He does note that the aero changes of
October 2000 produced more lead changes – something NASCAR ought to consider
given the much lower quality of competition away from the plate tracks.
Mike
Mulhern notes that Ford teams are the most upset over the aero rules, that
"virtually all drivers testing here in August agreed" that an
aero-clean configuration – the same configuration run in April 2000 – with a 60
degree spoiler angle was the right way to go, but that Chevrolet owners in
effect ganged up on NASCAR and said the aero rules needed to be kept.
Going back to April 2000 aero rules is
better? No rational person who remembers the cars with that aero-clean
configuration can assert that those rules were better. They could not race
because there was no draft to work with and the cars’ handling was lousy in
dirty air. The Grand National 300 at Talladega in April showed that the
aero-clean configuration is unraceable.
What makes the drivers’ assertion that the
old rules were better particularly dishonest is that the drivers themselves
recommended aero anchors to begin with. Now they want to take them off?
It boils down to lack of nerve and hunger.
They are less up to racing than they are to collecting the points, the money,
and going on. The most good that can happen is for the sport to put all the bad
out of its mind, get its collective nerve back, and race all out.