NASCAR Still Has Ways to Go on Safety

When Dale Earnhardt died on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 it essentially set off a race to make the sport as safe as it possibly could be as quickly as possible. NASCAR has come an incredibly long way since that tragic day with the mandating of the HANS device for all drivers, SAFER barriers and a much safer car. You could say that Earnhardt’s death set off a safety initiative that essentially makes the result of his death just as important as his legendary Hall of Fame career.

Yet, as safe as NASCAR has become … I’ve said myself on multiple occasions that the days of NASCAR drivers dying from wrecks may be a thing of the past … there are still moments that pop up every now and then that remind me that NASCAR shouldn’t stop efforts to make the tracks and racing safer.

Last season proved that Pocono had severe safety issues in each of the tracks two races. In the spring race at the track close quarters racing on the final lap saw Kasey Kahne’s #9 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford dart to the infield grass in a boneheaded attempt to pass his blocking teammate A.J. Allmendinger in the #43 Ford. The grass, as it so often does with cars, sent Kahne out of control and in front of oncoming traffic that included the #16 Roush-Fenway Racing Ford of Greg Biffle, #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Mark Martin and the #56 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. Upon hitting the nose of Martin’s #5 car Kahne’s car was sent airborne and almost cleared the short outside wall that would have sent him tumbling into the trees that line the outside of Pocono Raceway.

Upon coming back down from his short flight Kahne’s wrecked car sat in front of more oncoming traffic and took out more contenders like the #24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Jeff Gordon, the #6 Roush-Fenway Racing Ford of David Ragan, the #19 Richard Petty Motorsport Ford of Elliott Sadler and more.

Kahne’s ill-decision that led to him almost sailing out of Pocono proved that the track’s walls were far too low if a car could almost find its way out of the track. As a result of this accident and the backlash from the wall being too low, after all NASCAR only seems to fix things when they have been proven to be dangerous, Pocono installed a high catch fence around the track. You can see this new catch fence in the video below of Jeff Gordon’s 2011 spring win at Pocono, if you look really closely at the outside wall.

The late summer race last season at Pocono proved once again that the track had some serious safety issues that needed to be looked into when Elliott Sadler recorded the hardest hit in NASCAR history, since the sport started keeping impact record of hits. Sadler’s wreck was the result of either losing control or being tapped from behind and spun out (there’s really no good video footage of the start of his accident) behind a wreck involving the #2 Penske Racing Dodge of Kurt Busch and the #33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Clint Bowyer ahead of him on the track after Jimmie Johnson in the #48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet wrecked Busch. Sadler ended up hitting the wall at an uneven angle which caused the most severe impact recorded in NASCAR history and destroyed the car so badly that the entire engine came out of the car and sat on the track in close proximity to his mangled Ford. Footage of Sadler’s horrific wreck can be seen below, but is very brief as the camera was following the initial wreck involving Busch.

Uneven walls or openings in the walls at some tracks are responsible for many of the ugliest and scariest crashes in NASCAR. Sadler showed a second weakness in Pocono’s safety in 2010 and the track made $3 million worth of safety changes before the 2011 season that included a SAFER barrier where Sadler hit to lessen the impact in the event of future wrecks.

Pocono Raceway can still do more when it comes to safety though as you can see from this 2011 ARCA series wreck involving Buster Graham that happened less than two weeks ago.

Now this incident involving Graham’s #59 Dodge might not look serious, but it could have and honestly should have been much, much worse. You see, it had down poured the day before when this race was initially supposed to be held and the race was pushed back to the next morning. Because of all the rain the infield grass was still wet and enabled Graham’s car to pick up so much speed that it actually ramped or jumped over the wall and onto a little piece of the track inside the infield. Graham was incredibly lucky that his car did indeed jump over that wall, because not only is that not a SAFER barrier, but it also is directly in front of a piece of land that unevenly juts out into the infield grass. I shudder to think about what would have happened to Graham had he not gotten a little luck from the drenched grass. I have a terrible feeling that he’d at least have made a trip to the local hospital or even worse, as ARCA cars aren’t quite a safe as NASCAR cars.

Safety issues are something that shouldn’t come up very often at all in NASCAR, but here they have popped up again after Monday’s race (rain pushed the Sprint Cup race back a day) at the road course in Watkins Glen, N.Y.

There were two absolutely terrifying wrecks at Watkins Glen on Monday, a single car wreck involving the #11 Gibbs Racing Toyota of Denny Hamlin and a multiple car incident involving the #6 Ford of David Ragan and the #00 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota of David Reutimann. The multiple car wreck involving Ragan and Reutimann on the final lap of the race will probably look worse to the casual fan, because it’s scarier looking, but Hamlin’s wreck was just as hard, if not harder.

With 25 laps remaining in the race on Monday Hamlin’s Toyota blew a tire that reportedly cut the brake line and sent Hamlin into a tire barrier at a much higher speed than it would have had Hamlin had brakes. Now these tire barriers are supposed to act similar in style to the SAFER barriers by deflecting some of the impact of the hit, but as you can see in the video below, Hamlin just so happened to hit the tire barrier right in a spot where it was held up by a concrete base. Therefore, Hamlin’s impact wasn’t really deflected that much, as I’m sure you can tell by the drastic shortening of his car’s nose.

Watkins Glen should probably look into adding a SAFER barrier to that section of the track, and around the entire track (only certain areas of the course have the SAFER barriers). They should also do away with the concrete base behind the tire barrier and guardrail as that essentially did the majority of the damage in Hamlin’s accident.

Hamlin’s wreck was no doubt serious business, but it might pale in comparison to the biggest problem that Watkins Glen has right now and it is a problem that has seemingly popped up multiple times over the last few years.

The problem, once again, is the uneven wall angles. The uneven wall angles on the guardrails, coupled with the deflecting tire barriers, at Watkins Glen have led to so much carnage over the last few years that it can no longer be ignored, and frankly the fact that it’s been ignored this long is extremely disturbing.

In the 2008 Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen, the #00 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota of Michael McDowell and the #38 Robert Yates Racing Ford of David Gilliland were battling hard for ground when McDowell forced Gilliland into a tire barrier that sent him back onto the track in front of oncoming traffic that led to the horrific wreck, you can see below, that severely damaged not only Gilliland’s car but also those of Bobby Labonte (#43), Dave Blaney (#22), Sam Hornish Jr. (#77), Max Papis (#70), Joe Nemechek (#78), Ryan Newman (#12) and Reed Sorensen (#41). All of the drivers were unharmed, but Labonte had to be taken to a local hospital for further evaluation.

The very next year in 2009 the same exact thing happened when the #9 Kasey Kahne forced the #77 of Sam Hornish Jr. off the track and into a tire barrier, which sent Hornish out into the oncoming traffic of Jeff Gordon’s #24 and Jeff Burton’s #31 Richard Childress Chevrolet thoroughly destroying all three cars.

But, just in case that’s not enough to drive the point home it happened once again in the 2010 Nationwide Series race at the Glen when Jason Leffler’s #38 car gets out of control hits the bad wall angle and is basically thrown back out onto the track in front of almost the entire field, causing an 11 car pileup.

The worst of any of these bad angle wrecks at Watkins Glen, though, came on the final lap of Monday’s race when Boris Said in the Phoenix Racing #51 Chevrolet got into Ragan’s #6 Ford sending it into a bad angle on the left side of the track which shot it back in front of Reutimann’s #00 Toyota effectively sending it into a bad angle on the right side of the track. Reutimann’s impact with the wall was so horrendous that it lifted his Toyota airborne and he was simply along for the ride from there. Both Ragan and Reutimann’s cars were junked and both drivers were extremely lucky to walk away. In post race interviews both Ragan and Reutimann agreed that the track should have SAFER barriers in the locations where they each hit.

There is absolutely no reason at all for tracks like Pocono or Watkins Glen to really have these safety issues in the first place in 2010 and 2011. Every single track on the NASCAR circuit should be mandated to have SAFER barriers on every single wall whether it’s an outside wall or inside wall, no matter what. Driver safety should be the most important thing on NASCAR’s mind and Watkins Glen now is something that must be fixed before the series returns in 2012, above is four consecutive years of horrendous accidents for the same reason.

Jeff Burton said it best on Twitter following the race on Monday at his Twitter handle @RCR31JeffBurton: “We need 2 look at the wall angles, and make some changes. All tracks have spent a fortune on softer walls. We need to keep working.”

NASCAR always needs to keep working on safety, it’s come a long way since Earnhardt’s death, but recent events seem to suggest there is still a little ways to go.