Reaction: No real surprises in report
By Tim Packman, Turner Sports Interactive
August 22, 2001
8:58 AM EDT (1258 GMT)
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- With the revelations of findings regarding the investigation into the death of fellow driver Dale Earnhardt, some of NASCAR’s drivers had their own views.
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Mark Martin
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Since the fatal accident on Feb. 18, NASCAR has communicated some findings to its competitors through private meetings and one-on-one conversations. The first time it was done on a large scale was during the Winston Cup and Busch Series events at Richmond in May.
Prior to the press conference in Atlanta on Tueday afternoon, NASCAR held a optional meeting for drivers and crew chiefs earlier in the day in Concord, N.C.
Here is what some of them had to say about the report.
"There were no real surprises in the report," said Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 Ford. "The impact of the accident was much greater than it looked to most people. I've been involved in enough accidents to know how violent they can be, even when they don't look that bad.
“I think the research done on the accident itself was very thorough and conclusive. The medical report was unsettling to me, I guess because it is just hard for me to understand that something like that could happen the way it did.
"I applaud NASCAR and the team of experts they assembled for their efforts. It was a very complex accident and there were many factors that contributed to Dale's death.
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Greg Zipadelli
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“I'm sure, based on this investigation, that some good will come out of it that will improve safety and research for every driver at any level of racing."
Greg Zippadelli is the crew chief for Tony Stewart’s No. 20 Pontiac. As much as he hopes safety always is improved, it still doesn’t change what happened in February.
“Obviously, we're always looking for something to make ourselves safer. So, if the report comes up with something that we're not doing or we don't know about or we can learn something from, we'll immediately add it to our program.
“Are our cars safe? I feel they're as safe as anybody's in the garage area. Safety is one thing we never, ever even think about skimping on. I don't care how much better it would be for our car, as far as going faster. Safety is paramount. We're always trying to make little changes here and there, to make the car safer.
“I don't think there will ever be any closure, as far as I'm concerned,” he said, regarding the sport losing Earnhardt. “We lost the greatest icon in motorsports. Somebody that, before I got here, I looked at and watched television every Sunday afternoon just to root for him.
“Then, when I finally got here and I got the chance to race against him and
talk to him on a personal level. It was pretty amazing to be able to meet
him, just to be able to talk to him and have him walk by all the time and talk to you.”
“Then to have him leave us is very disappointing, and I know everybody feels that way. I just hope we can all learn a lot from this and hopefully never have it happen again."
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Jeremy Mayfield
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Jeremy Mayfield thinks the report will bring closure, but in a different way.
"I think all any of the drivers have asked is for NASCAR to take a hard look at what happened and see what it would take to keep it from happening again,” said the driver of the No. 12 Ford. “From my standpoint, they started doing that right away. The report is just the culmination of all of that work.
"You hear all the time about what the FAA does after a plane goes down somewhere. The objective is to not just find out what happened, but to come up with ways to keep that same thing from happening again. NASCAR has done that. They’ve used experts in physics and medicine to determine what happened and how to stop it from happening again. They have spent a lot of time and effort to scientifically make those determinations.
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Kyle Petty
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"I guess there will always be those who are going to throw stones but in my mind, the matter of what happened is closed. The matter of how hard NASCAR and everyone in this sport is going to work to make it as safe as we can possibly make it is pretty evident.”
For Kyle Petty, the report may have had more of a personal interest than others. The driver of the No. 45 Dodge lost his son Adam in a practice crash at New Hampshire International Speedway last year. That was also where Kenny Irwin Jr. suffered a fatal crash soon after.
"What everyone saw today was the results of the investigation. I’m satisfied with the results, and I’m satisfied that NASCAR has done everything it could possibly do to determine what happened and in coming up with ways to keep it from happening again.”
"Even though the results were announced today, the drivers and teams have been seeing a lot of these results all season long. There have been plenty of times that someone from NASCAR would come through the garage asking and checking different things in the driver’s compartment, making suggestions and offering some new ideas.
“I guess the public heard some new things today, and maybe we heard a few new things too. But by and large, a lot of things NASCAR has learned since February have already been implemented. They didn’t make a big deal out of it, and neither did the teams.”
Jeff Burton has been instrumental in the development of a new seat in race cars. Although he says the implementation of such a seat is years away, he feels Tuesday’s report served its purpose.
“I think Tuesday was an example of an exhausted effort to figure out what happened and then to maybe, perhaps more importantly, figure out how to prevent this or another fatality from happening again, shows the willingness of NASCAR to do the right thing,” said the driver of the No. 99 Ford. “That has been questioned by a lot of people.
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Jeff Burton
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“I know the authorities of NASCAR have taken that very seriously. They want the competitors to understand and they want the fans, the media and everyone involved to understand that they do care about safety.
“I believe that Mike Helton and Gary Nelson, and everybody at NASCAR, wants it to be as safe as possible for every driver and to the fans alike. So, I think it shows the skeptics that they are serious about it.
“I think that's the strongest statement that it's made, more so than the result of the study."
Burton’s team owner, Jack Roush also shared his views of the investigation. In addition to owning Burton’s team, he also owns Martin’s, Matt Kenseth’s No. 17 Ford, Kurt Busch’s No. 97 Ford, Greg Biffle's No. 60 Ford in the BGN and two Craftsman Truck Series teams.
“As far as closure is concerned, over the years there have been, unfortunately, many drivers seriously injured and a number that have been killed,” Roush said. “Out of each of those tragedies, that has resulted from somebody trying to make a living doing the thing that they like to do, out of their death or their injury comes a bit of information or something that will benefit the folks that come down the road.
“Dale Earnhardt's accident is over. He was unfortunately killed.
“I had conversations today with a number of people within the teams about what had happened with the car and through the accident. There is no doubt in my mind that, by his death, we have accelerated the analysis and accelerated the improvements to the cars probably four years.
“That's part of his legacy. That the thing that he was doing when he was out there racing his car with great enthusiasm, which resulted in his death, will result in the prospects for survivability for additional drivers coming down the road.”
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