Safety stressed more following Earnhardt’s death
By Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive
August 19, 2001
3:09 PM EDT (1909 GMT)
CONCORD, N.C. -- In the six months since Dale Earnhardt’s tragic death, NASCAR and its teams have been more proactive than ever in the quest for providing the utmost in driver safety.
On Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET in a press conference at the downtown Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, the sanctioning body will release the results of its extensive investigation into Earnhardt’s fatal crash. Several safety-related rules alterations are expected to be included in the report, which itself will be the most comprehensive look at safety in NASCAR history.
During its 53 years of operation, NASCAR has made rules changes on the fly depending on the particular venue being raced and the circumstances at hand, such as the carburetor restrictor plates used at Daytona and Talladega.
These plates, which reduce airflow and fuel to the intake manifold and therefore lower speeds, have been in effect since 1988, one year after Bill Elliott qualified his Ford at a NASCAR record 212.809 mph at Talladega, the same race that Bobby Allison’s car lifted off the ground and nearly went into the grandstands.
It was time for change then, and it’s time for change now.
Speculation regarding what safety measures are included in Tuesday’s report has centered around crash data boxes, stricter enforcement and monitoring of safety belt installation and issues dealing with chassis rigidity and/or lack of crush resistance in the nose.
According to Winston Cup crew chief Jimmy Makar, chassis rigidity, or stiffness, has been a topic of concern for several years. But after several recent driver deaths in NASCAR, it is a topic of concern now more than ever.
"We've been working on strength or rigidness of a chassis for years and years and years,” said Makar, crew chief for Bobby Labonte’s No. 18 Pontiacs. “That's been an issue and a concern for people for many years as far as just the handling part of a race car is concerned.
“There are arguments either way as far as how stiff a chassis needs to be or how little flex needs to be in a chassis. In a perfect world, in the engineering world, ultimately infinitely stiff (chassis) is the way to go -- with no flex whatsoever. But, that doesn't necessarily transfer to the race track. It's not as simple as that.
“There are a lot of things that become involved when you start stiffening a chassis up. The driver starts feeling a lot of things that he typically doesn't feel that are masked over when you have flex in a chassis. Other parts of the car start taking more loads than we're used to seeing in the chassis, in the suspension parts and pieces and ball joints and tie rods and things of that nature, so there is a lot that goes on. It's just not a simple thing of stiffer or soft chassis."
As far as the actual construction of the car itself, Makar said that not much change has been made at this time, as teams hope to learn from NASCAR’s findings and incorporate the data from the investigation into the construction of their cars.
“We've not been able to prove to ourselves what changes would be good for the car,” Maker said. “We're still analyzing data and looking at different options. But until we test some things and become comfortable with them that we're making changes for the good and not just to make changes, we're not going to do anything in that area.”
The most prominent example of heightened safety awareness in NASCAR at this time lies in the realm of head and neck restraint. Three out of every four drivers reportedly now wears a HANS Device or Hutchens Device, the two most well publicized devices used to prevent a violent forward head whip, which results in basilar skull fractures such as those that reportedly killed Earnhardt.
Alongside the head and neck restraint systems, some drivers have traded five-point harnesses in favor of their more secure six-point brethren. Also, teams are using better care and awareness when installing safety belts.
Labonte’s feelings are that NASCAR Winston Cup machines have always been safe, but that much added emphasis has been placed on safety of late.
"I feel as though our cars were always safe, but I guess everyone, including us, stepped up our safety efforts following Dale's accident in February,” Labonte said. “We took a look at everything in and on the car. We made sure that anything within arms reach while I was sitting in that car had padding on it.
“We also worked on our seats a little bit and the netting around the drivers compartment. I visited with numerous people both in and out of the business to learn as much as I could about safety. We made a change on our seatbelts back in April or so and I think I learned more about seatbelts in about a 10-week period than I think I had learned in 10 years in the sport.”
According to Makar, a main focus of change thus far, at least with the No. 18 crew, has been exploring ways to prevent hung throttles, which reportedly contributed to the deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin at New Hampshire International Speedway last season.
"Probably the biggest thing we have done is continually work on a system that will prevent the throttles from hanging wide open,” Makar said. “And, if they do (hang open), we want to give the driver an opportunity to get the car slowed down to where he is not going to hit the wall at the angles that we're hitting right now.
“And, if he does hit at those angles, he doesn't have to be on the brakes and locking the front tires up. That creates a situation where you can't turn the car. That is the biggest area that we've been working in and giving him some options in there besides a button that we all got into last year on the steering column. That is really not practical. With the time it takes to realize what is going on and push a button, it’s already too late.
“You're going to hit the wall at that angle and it's going to be a severe impact. We've been working on that type of thing and have got a couple different things in the car to help that in case of several different types of failures.”
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