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Tethered practice No crashes, so new cables don't get work out
Posted: Thursday May 27, 1999 10:56 PM
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The Indy Racing League doesn't know how well its new wheel tethers will work in a crash. The drivers, naturally, hope they never find out. "It's probably the appropriate reaction to the things that have happened. But I don't want to be the first to test it," Buzz Calkins said after the final practice for Sunday's Indianapolis 500. The cars are now fitted with cables designed to keep the wheels and suspension parts from flying into the crowd during a wreck. Debris killed three fans and injured eight others at an IRL event in Concord, N.C., on May 1. The wheel tethers were used for the first time during the Carburetion Day practice Thursday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There were no crashes. "Anything we can do to make the fans safer, I'm all in favor of that," said Tony Stewart, who will race at Indy and in NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 in Concord on Sunday. After practice, IRL president Tony George sought to quell speculation of a possible end to the feud with CART, which has kept most of the top open-wheel drivers away from Indy since 1995. George met last week with Andrew Craig, CART's chief executive officer, but no deal was reached. "As long as we have different philosophies, we're never going to strike any kind of accord," George said. "I can't say I'm encouraged by anything we talked about." The IRL moved forward with its plans to improve safety beyond Sunday's race, announcing a change in engine rules beginning with the June 12 event at Texas Motor Speedway. Engines must operate at no more than 10,000 rpms after the Indy 500, a reduction from the current limit of 10,300. The change will reduce the cars' horsepower and should slow speeds by at least 5 mph. "After the incident at Charlotte, we need to try to contain the speeds as much as we can," said IRL executive director Leo Mehl. Roberto Guerrero knows all too well the dangers of flying debris. He was seriously injured in 1987 when a wheel hit his head in a wreck during fall testing at Indianapolis. He has mixed feelings about the tethers because the wheels could now bounce back and hit drivers during crashes. "It makes me a little wary, but at the same time, I know it's something that needs to be done," he said. "As it was, the spectators were too much at risk. We're paid to take a risk, they're not." The rival Championship Auto Racing Teams is using a similar safety system and NASCAR might soon do the same. Formula One began using the cables on wheels this season, before the deaths in North Carolina. "Manufacturers have done a tremendous job in examining the problem and coming up with the best solution," IRL driver Billy Boat said. "Whether the cable fails or not is probably not the issue. Regardless, it's still going to absorb energy, and it's going to slow that wheel if it does come disconnected from the car." In the past two weeks, Boat crashed twice during practice and a third time on a warmup lap before qualifications. In one of his crashes, a wheel broke loose and bounced high into the air but did not go over the 19-foot-8 catch fence. The cables connect the front and rear hubs and are attached to the farthest points from the driver on the car's frame. CART also tested its tethers for the first time Thursday in practice for the Motorola 300 at Madison, Ill., on Saturday. Three spectators also were killed in a CART race at Michigan last year. One spectator was struck by a tire and killed at Indianapolis in 1987. "You can't hurt people. Bottom line, you can't," said Mark Dismore, who also crashed during practice last week. "There's still a risk there, regardless, but we've got to do this. You're still going to see some things come detached, but they're not going to come detached at 230 mph." Sam Schmidt, Arie Luyendyk's teammate, was the fastest in Thursday's practice at 222.458 mph. "We certainly didn't go out there to have the fastest time of the day," Schmidt said. "It just so happened I had a clear lap and popped off a good one. The car was solid." The only starter who did not practice was Robby Gordon, who was in Madison practicing for the CART race. Greg Ray, his Menard teammate and a front-row starter between Luyendyk and Boat, was second-fastest at 221.822 mph in his own car and third-fastest at 221.790 in Gordon's car. Luyendyk, the two-time champion who will retire after Sunday's race, was the fourth-quickest at 221.380, followed by Hideshi Matsuda at 221.185, Tyce Carlson at 221.114 and Tony Stewart at 221.098. "Everybody did a pretty good job today," Schmidt said. "I didn't see any bonehead moves out there."
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