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Thanks, but no thanks NASCAR was offered safety help, but refused
Updated: Friday March 09, 2001 9:54 PM
By Mike Fish, CNNSI.com HAMPTON, Ga. -- As NASCAR wrestles with safety issues in the wake of Dale Earnhardt's death, the sanctioning body is under criticism for not taking previous warnings more seriously from the world's oldest and largest society of safety experts. The American Society of Safety Engineers, in a Jan. 8 letter to NASCAR president Mike Helton, expressed concern about three racing deaths in 2000 and urged NASCAR to implement stronger safety measures to prevent future fatalities. Specifically, Samuel Gualardo, president of the 32,000-member group, urged increased research and implementation of soft walls; stuck throttles and utilizing crash boxes and the data collected, which is done by CART and the IRL, in order to increase safety. Gualardo also offered his group's expertise in efforts to form a safety committee, which has not materialized within NASCAR. Helton responded with what ASSE officials describe as a "terse" two-paragraph letter, and one they perceived as a rebuff of their overtures. NASCAR's repeated position on safety is that its door is always open to drivers and crew members, since they're comfortable with the expertise they already have in the garage area. "Well, they haven't done it," said Diane Hurns, an ASSE spokesperson. "Why couldn't they have done something as simple as mandate a [head-and-neck restraint] for drivers?" Helton, though, said he couldn't recall any specific recommendations made by ASSE. He reiterated his often-voiced belief that NASCAR is doing all it can, while again downplaying the value of outside assistance.
"In general, it's easy for folks from the outside to take a look and say, 'Hey, you can do a little better than you're doing,'" Helton said. "A lot of that comes from the lack of knowledge they have about what we do." The ASSE board of directors has met since Earnhardt's death at the Daytona 500, and Hurns expects the group to forward additional safety recommendations to NASCAR as early as this week. "I really do believe it would be in their best interest to develop a consortium of safety experts to assist them," said Carmen Daecher, an accident reconstruction expert and an ASSE board member. "They [NASCAR] obviously know the dynamics of the sport, but the actual physics is where safety people or scientists could be a great asset. If I could talk to Mike Helton, I'd urge him to bring in people like that. Not to tell them what to do, but to offer input. "The name of all this, how these people die, is physics. It's a science we deal with every day in accident re-creation. You're talking speeds of 180 and 200 miles an hour, and forces way beyond human means. You've got to find ways to reduce the force at impact when cars hit something that doesn't move. I wouldn't think in terms of ways to inhibit the sport, but ways to make it friendlier for a driver in an accident." What makes NASCAR unique from other major sports is that it remains, to some degree, a family-run business under the late Bill France Sr. They control NASCAR along with a major interest in a corporation that owns 11 race tracks. There is not a union or association to protect the drivers' interest.
Daecher acknowledged the inherent conflicts of such an arrangement could play into NASCAR's desire to ward off outsiders. "They can't afford to do that -- not with four deaths in nine months," he said. "I hate to diminish death, but four deaths on the roadways is nothing. But this is four in a controlled environment. "They need to think how to prevent a fifth person from dying. What are they doing to make sure it doesn't happen again?" A start would be mandating that drivers wear a head-and-neck device, Daechler said. Helton said NASCAR isn't ready to dictate to drivers on the issue, leaving it an individual decision. The three drivers killed last year -- Tony Roper, Kenny Irwin and Adam Petty -- sustained basal skull fractures, and leading safety experts believe a head-and-neck restraint device could possibly have prevented the fatalities. This violent, head whipping may also have lead to the injury that took Earnhardt's life. "Don't they mandate on the number of RPMs and a lot of other things?" Daechler said. "Why not this?" Daechler and other ASSE officials applaud NASCAR for pioneering safety improvements such as vehicle roll cages and fire retardant suits, yet question why it hasn't acted in a more expedient fashion to what they believe is now the killer injury -- the basal skull fracture. Such an injury is caused by a violent whiplash that hurtles the head forward with such force that blood vessels at the base of the skull tear apart. "Cars have been made so they disassemble pretty quickly, so it doesn't come back and crush you in your seat," Daechler said. "You don't see drivers crushed to death. What you find, unless there are burns involved, is the head snap and crack. Our skulls can't take the force. If that is the case, even the best belt restraint systems they're using now aren't enough. "Simple analysis says you have to reduce the forward force of the head, with a safety restraint keeping the head immobile." Despite the concerns of outside experts and some within the sport, Helton isn't buying that the head-and-neck injury is NASCAR's biggest safety issue. "Well, I don't claim that is an accurate assessment," he said. "If the possibility of it exists, certainly we'll have to address it. It's an on-going process to make the sport as safe as possible for everybody -- drivers, the fans, everybody."
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