 |
NASCAR Busch Series driver Mike Harmon walked away from a frightening crash in which his car slammed into the wall at Bristol Motor Speedway and was subsequently hit by another car at a high rate of speed. Credit: Worth Canoy, VPS Motorimages
By Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive
February 7, 2003
10:40 AM EST (1540 GMT)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Though NASCAR was already planning a safety movement prior to Dale Earnhardt's death, losing the sport's icon to an on-track accident resulted in an unprecedented effort to assure competitor safety.
Thrust into an unforgiving media spotlight following the Feb. 18, 2001 Daytona 500, the sanctioning body was forced to respond. In the two years since, they've done so at their own pace, gradually implementing a series of safety innovations.
Not all have resulted directly from Earnhardt's accident, but the heightened emphasis on driver safety most certainly has.
 | ALSO | | | | | | | | |
|
|
"We've made great strides in safety since that time," NASCAR vice president for communications Jim Hunter told NASCAR.com Tuesday. "It's always been a top priority, but with (Earnhardt) being who he was in the sport -- seven-time champion and a celebrity on and off the track, and probably one of America's best-known sports figures -- it brought a ton of attention to it.
"The tendency is that, as you go along and don't have anything happen, people get comfortable. Now we've got the resources and people and the tools to do research and stay on top of things so we might be able to improve them."
All safety improvements are currently being studied extensively at NASCAR's state-of-the-art research and development center just north of Charlotte. In no particular order, they are as follows:
SAFER walls: The Steal and Foam Energy Reduction wall, commonly referred as "soft" walls due to their impact-absorbing nature, have been installed in portions of the 2.5-mile tracks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, and according to NASCAR reacted well during race incidents.
Development on the SAFER wall is ongoing, as NASCAR and a group of barrier experts at the University of Nebraska, led by Dr. Dean Sicking, explore the possibility of implementation at other tracks.
 | VIDEO CLIPS |  | Steve Park walks away from a terrible wreck at Pocono.
Play video |
|  | 'The Big One': How do drivers prepare themselves for the inevitable?
Play video |
| | | |
|
|
"The focus now has become developing a SAFER wall for the tracks where they run multiple kinds of cars, like Richmond," Hunter said. "Every track is different, and we've done testing on high-banked tracks. The next step will come when Sicking says it's ready for installation. Right now he says it's not ready. He doesn't have enough data."
Composite seats: These carbon-fiber seats are another concept designed to make the cockpits of cars safer. This has become a focus for NASCAR and its engineers. They're not yet mandated, but Hunter estimates at least half the Winston Cup field now uses these types of seats.
"The recommendation is that we focus on the cockpit of the car first to make things as safe as possible," Hunter said. "They've performed well in crash tests compared to other seats."
Incident data recorders: These data recorders, commonly referred to as "black boxes," are required on all cars in NASCAR's three national series. They are used to tabulate, among countless other things, the G-Force load drivers withstand upon impact.
| |
 |
| The wreckage of Harmon's car is towed from the track. Credit: Worth Canoy, VPS Motorimages |
In 2002, data recorders produced a wealth of information that NASCAR collected and built into an "incident database." This database, written specifically for stock car racing, provides an in-depth history of what drivers and cars experience during impacts. They also serve as a guide for further safety enhancements.
"For a long time it was just a given that the big tracks were where the high-impact, most serious crashes occurred," Hunter said. "Based on these data recorders, we've found out the two hardest hits last season came at Richmond, a short track. That's based on data provided from angle of impact, speed of the car."
For the record, those two accidents came on consecutive nights this past September. Derrike Cope hit the Turn 4 wall in the NASCAR Busch Series event, and Sterling Marlin hit the Turn 3 wall head-on in the Winston Cup race.
Computer modeling for crash simulation: The technical name of this project is LS-DYNA Model Development. In layman's terms, it's a computer simulation that can create on-track incidents and their effects on cars and drivers, which can be used for further study.
"That database allows Gary (Nelson, Winston Cup director) and his engineers the ability to re-create crashes on the computer model. It's such an advanced computer model, to a degree they're now seeing what happens to various pieces on the car, and what happens in the cockpit. That will, in the future, enable us to construct them so they'll be able to withstand higher impact.
"Five years from now, we'll probably be doing something that's not been thought of today. Based on computer simulation, who knows where this will go."
Energy absorption study: "Crushability", or the use of crushable materials in cars that would further cushion the driver during and after an impact, is being examined with help from the four manufacturers.
Driver safety update seminars: NASCAR has held four such seminars over the past two seasons to give drivers updates on safety-related equipment from industry experts. Driver participation has been vital. NASCAR plans to continue these seminars. The latest one was held during Daytona testing in January.
"These are very, very good," Hunter said. "We can bring in experts and the drivers can ask questions and be totally open. They can share information and queries and concerns without public scrutiny. We've had them at Indy, at Richmond. And we just did it during testing to let them know the latest on what we've learned."
Cockpit airflow: In response to increasing concerns about air quality in the cockpit, ways to maximize "fresh air" flow for drivers are being studied. Hunter discounted various reports that some teams already have such filters in place.
"There's all sorts of myths out there," he said. "Somebody said they had filters that took carbon monoxide out of the air. That's bologna."
Greenhouse: The oft-discussed "bigger car" cockpit design was tested last summer, and though not in the news so much anymore, the project continues. It also has been expanded to include possible roof-flap redesign and an overhead driver exit.
"We haven't forgotten about this," Hunter said. "We tested this extensively last year, and found out a lot of things, like, the bigger greenhouse the cars actually got faster. We had no idea that would happen."
Helmets in the pits: Over-the-wall pit crewmembers were required to wear helmets during competition.
Head and neck restraints: Drivers are required to wear an approved head and neck restraint device, either a HANS device or Hutches device. Hunter said that some teams have been improperly installing the Hutchens device, and NASCAR is working with them to assure proper installment.
According to Hunter, driver feedback has been extremely positive and invaluable in NASCAR's continued quest to achieve optimum safety in the post-Earnhardt era.
"Everyone in the garage knew Earnhardt as invincible," Hunter said. "His attitude and personality lulled everybody to sleep, and people thought he was indestructible.
"He was a tough guy, and people took it like, 'man, this happened to Earnhardt, and if it happened to him it can happen to me.' It's safe to say there's a much more formal approach to safety today than ever before."
|
|
