The Racing Safety Debate Is Back

Once the mourning stops, the debate over
safety will pick up. Already, though, the debate has renewed with several pieces
critical of NASCAR’s response to the deaths of drivers over the past ten months,
and the agendas are being pushed with renewed vigor.

There is a common denominator in these
pieces – that NASCAR should invest serious money into researching safer walls,
and should mandate the collar-mounted HANS helmet anchor that has become common,
but not universal, among NASCAR drivers. There is also bound to be demand that
NASCAR create a safety committee and become more "proactive" in safety
matters, in much the manner of F1 and CART.

The overlooked problem in such a debate is
that there is seemingly no serious dissenting voice. Certainly everyone is for
improvement in safety, but the calls for safer walls, the HANS collar, and so
forth have not been seriously examined.

Over and over NASCAR is condemned for not
being proactive in safety matters; Mike Helton is ridiculed for his statement
about how NASCAR will not make changes for the sake of making changes. Dr. Steve
Bohannon, Daytona’s director of medical services, is called "criminal"
by former IMSA champ Jim Downing, one of the co-creators of the HANS collar for
his comments that it is doubtful that the HANS would have made any difference in
Earnhardt’s crash.

Such stridency requires that the popular
recommendations for improving safety be examined with a more critical eye.

For one, Robert Hubbard, the primary
creator of the HANS, tacitly acknowledged on an ESPN round table discussion on
NASCAR safety, telecast the day after the Daytona 500, that his helmet collar
may indeed not have made any difference in Earnhardt’s crash. For another,
Bohannon offered a rational argument when he noted how the body’s internal
organs are floating in fluids and that even if the head, neck, and torso are
restrained the internal organs move upon impact.

Certainly test footage of the HANS in
action, shown in ever-greater frequency of late, does not show any meaningful
improvement in reducing whiplash. There is some, for sure, but it does not
appear that it is really enough to have made a difference. And Dr. Charles
Branch, Earnhardt’s doctor over the years, notes that the three forces that
contributed to Earnhardt’s death – downward force, forward whiplash, and
backward whiplash – were enough to overwhelm the collar.

There is also the fact that this
particular crash is hardly uncommon in racing, and in most cases drivers walk
away. It is the oldest mystery in racing – why some drivers die and others
emerge unharmed from the same kind of crash.

Then there is the controversy over
NASCAR’s supposed lack of proactivity in safety, and how F1, CART, and IRL have
safety committees. Overall, however, open wheel racing’s safety record is no
better than NASCAR’s, and the years 1996-9 not only involved an epidemic of
driver deaths, but also spectator deaths. How those bodies approach safety is
not necessarily the right way for NASCAR to do it.

As for proactivity on safety, there have
been two areas of genuine proactivity. There was the ignition kill switch
mandated at Indianapolis in 2000. The device’s first test came at Darlington,
with Bobby Labonte. Labonte slammed the wall with a stuck throttle – and the
failure of the kill switch led to the now-famous uproar and rumored strike
consideration among drivers that culminated in the restrictor plate experiment
at New Hampshire.

There is also the unreported mini-scandal
of NASCAR safety – roof flaps. Developed via an extraordinary alliance of
NASCAR, GM, Ford, and Roush Racing, roof flaps were designed to prevent cars
from tumbling. But since their implementation in Speedweeks 1994, counting
Winston Cup and Grand National racing and ARCA superspeedway events, there have
been MORE airborne tumbles than in those same classes in the seven years before
roof flaps were created.

What it all means is that NASCAR actually
has a point in its no-change-for-the-sake-of-change stand.

Then there is the matter of the walls.
"There’s got to be something other than concrete for these drivers to
hit," is the mantra behind the soft wall mania. Foam barriers at Watkins
Glen were credited with saving Jimmie Johnson’s life in 2000; largely overlooked
was that the guardrail behind the barriers was torn open, which directed the
impact away from the driver.

More advanced soft walls, such as a soft
wall system known as IPS, have been tested and Indianapolis has used one since
1999. There was also the circus-stunt test at Charlotte last year, and all of it
has shown less than reassuring results with the walls. There are two basics to
soft walls – from a baseline such as the Watkins Glen foam barriers or the
system Arie Luyendyk smashed into at IMS in 1998, they can be made harder, or
softer, and either way the purpose winds up being defeated. Certainly none of
these tests have shown soft walls to really be safer than concrete. And Dr.
Branch has noted that the injury spike a driver suffers can be exacerbated by
soft walls.

Amid the safety debate has been one area
completely overlooked – the chassis. Over a decade ago the chassis, while not
specifically designed to absorb impact, nonetheless did fold up and keep some of
the impact away from the driver. Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, teams
began stiffening their chassis, and it grew to where they are not as
"soft" as they once were.

NASCAR’s Featherlite Modified Series
suffered from a near-identical epidemic of driver deaths in the early 1990s. A
debate raged through the Mod Tour over what to do. Finally, chassis were
softened and the Mods have proven safer than Winston Cup cars at the one
speedway at which both classes hold prominence, New Hampshire.

"Safety is an issue that is part of
the motor racing industry. I find it disturbing that this is being
questioned," Dr. Branch notes. Indeed, but as we debate safety, we need
truly accurate information – and we should not be afraid to consider that maybe
leaving things alone, comparatively at least, is not necessarily
counterproductive. Some of these safety advocates may be pushing an agenda, and
agendas are not necessarily proper for the sport.