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Within the rules Drastic differences evident between racing series
By Mike Fish, CNNSI.com As its lawyers and outside experts fine-tune the investigative report into the accident that killed Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR officials have already hit the stump with talk of bold initiatives to make the sport safer than ever. But what about the Winston Cup rule book; can the racing crowd expect a significantly revised edition? "Hopefully, there will be some things learned in this investigation that we will able to put to use in the future," said Jim Hunter, a NASCAR vice president. "That would certainly include possible rule book revisions." If not, the predictions of NASCAR strolling blissfully into a new day of sound science and high technology might be anything more than the latest corporate spin. You would imagine a rule book to be the safety bible of a sport, keenly crafted to keep drivers from harm's way. Yet the Winston Cup rule book, as it reads now, tends to duck specific safety issues, and seems written more from the legal perspective of protecting NASCAR of any liability.
By comparisons, the 70-plus page guide lags badly behind the more exacting rule books published by three other major sanctioning bodies -- Formula One, CART and Indy Racing League. The recurring themes of the NASCAR rule book are such:
So, where has safety been on the radar screen? And how does NASCAR stack up with the competition? If you look to CART, it describes the safety of fans and participants as the "primary consideration in the interpretation" of its rule book and the supervision exercised by officials. In the NASCAR rule book, under the heading of safety, you'll find less than a page of type -- almost as much as you'll learn about intake manifolds. The forward doesn't mention safety, though describing close, side-by-side racing as a foundation of the sport. "When it comes to technology and safety, open-wheel racing and the governing bodies have embraced and mandated it," said Derrick Walker, a CART and IRL team owner and former Formula One chief mechanic. "NASCAR has not done that. That doesn't make them the worst guys in the world. But if you're talking about how the different bodies think, there is a huge difference in their approach to the safety issue. "Maybe because they're worried about litigation, but NASCAR does not take the position that you must do something. It says, 'We advise you that it might be a good idea.' Where in open-wheel formulas, once they've determined it is good to wear a crash helmet, they mandate that you wear a crash helmet or whatever. The open-wheel has done a lot more things proactive in the area of safety, particularly related to crash testing." NASCAR is almost alone in not requiring crash tests of its cars.
"It is in the [Formula One] rule book and the CART rule book," said Mark McArdle, technical director for PPI Motorsports in Winston Cup and formerly an engineer in open-wheel racing. "In essence, every car that races in Formula One undergoes a massive battery of tests for crash worthiness. "Formula One, in particular, has extremely stringent standards, virtually aircraft-level stuff for crash test worthiness. It publishes an exhaustive list of specifications that cars have to be built to match. ... No such testing regiment exists here [in Winston Cup]." McArdle is encouraged, though, by an emerging NASCAR mindset that is more open to change. Team owner Chip Ganassi, another who grew up in open-wheel racing, believes NASCAR also deserves credit for strong enforcement of the rules it has, along with a willingness to explain the intent of a rule when clarification is sought. But, for the most part, NASCAR is best described until now as following a hands-off, laissez-faire approach. "Our philosophy is that it is essential that the drivers, not NASCAR be able to make those final decisions once they’re in the cockpit," said Hunter, emphasizing the sanctioning body is deeply committed to safety. "I think the NASCAR rule book was designed to leave it up to them." Hunter said NASCAR, as it moves ahead, would be much more proactive in bringing in experts to advise drivers on key safety issues. Yet if you read its rule book literally today, someone like Jeff Gordon could squeeze into his stock car on Sunday afternoon in Docker shorts, polo shirt and a $70 off-the-shelf helmet from Kmart. His pit crew could light up a Winston as he refuels. And should he crash, there's no fretting clearance before his next race from a NASCAR doctor. None of this could even whimsically be contemplated within Formula One, CART or the IRL. Those sanctioning bodies have stringent requirements on everything from driver suits to helmets, and the placement and installation of safety restraint systems. That's hardly been the case in NASCAR. Some groups prohibit the wearing of hard contacts, dentures and jewelry. All require physical exams before each season, with eye exams mandatory in IRL and Formula One. "The other organizations are pro-active, safety conscious organizations," McArdle said. "NASCAR has had their head in the sand for 10 years because they thought they had the safest racecars in the world. And they did. Statistically, they did for a long time -- throughout the 1960s, 70s and first half of the 1980s. "The difference is those other organizations focused on making their race cars as safe or safer than a Winston Cup car. And somewhere in the late 80s passed them." The death of Earnhardt proved the wake up call for NASCAR, but everyone in the sport recognizes the inherent danger of racing. Bad things happen. Sometimes, even the most expansive rule book can't prevent the inevitable. "You can go to an extreme and say, 'Make every moving vehicle on the face of the planet safer,'" Ganassi said. "On the other hand, what happens is these motor sports go through periods when guys are getting hurt or worse. Out of that period come changes and regulations and safety. And it will happen again.
"There is not a person in this garage area or any other garage in any racing series that doesn't want things to be safer." And so now, like when the other forms of motor racing lost drivers, NASCAR is geared to throw oodles of technology at the problem. Whether it leads to changing the rule book remains to be seen, but some believe it is NASCAR's perceived minimal emphasis on technology that makes it so enormously popular with the masses. Described as a benevolent dictatorship under the France family, NASCAR understands that first and foremost it’s in the entertainment business. So, you keep the rules brief and tweak them when it benefits the show. "There are elements within all the other sanctioning bodies who honestly think they're in the technology business," McArdle said. "And you're not. We're competing day in and day out for the dollar that a father of two can spend to take his kids to a football game, a basketball game or Winston Cup race or Indy car race. "So, NASCAR says, 'We're going to reserve the right to change any darn thing that we want to if we feel that it is hurting the show.' It's in the rules. And that's a little tough to deal with when you first come into it, until you understand how the game is actually played. Which is, 'Don't make it look any different. Don't stink up the show and everything will be fine. And don't drive the cost out of sight for the guys who built the sport.' "At the same time, you have other challenges that have to be addressed. And one of those is safety." Presumably through the rule book, too.
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