There was talk yesterday about some people being injured in a large-scale crash in a NASCAR race this week-end and it's not surprising when so many cars got into each other at the end of a straight.
The accident that didn't happen is the one you would have seen if Austin Dillon's car went through that fence.
There was mention of some spectators being injured and that's not surprising either but completely unbelievable is this crash didn't result in a front page story on the news with some incredibly gory body count.
The racing weight of car and driver is likely between a thousand and two thousand pounds. It's moving at well over one hundred mph and there's nothing more than the fence to stop it.
In NASCAR talk, they say 'he hit that fence a ton' and it's astounding that it stopped him as it looks like there were three primary poles plus some kind of miraculous netting between them. That was all to save the lives of an unknown number of spectators.
Somewhere an engineer got the arithmetic right as the boss had come back to him and said, say there, gearhead. I need a fence that can catch a NASCAR racing machine flying in mid-air at full speed. Build that, ok?
You can see from the video that he did build it.
The big story in this one isn't so much the people were hurt but rather the people who weren't. One of the worst crashes in racing history was when a car went into the viewing stands many years ago. This could have been just the same except for this incredible feat of engineering.
Whomever built that thing really ought to get some props. That was brilliant.
Update: likely that's Lotho in comments with accurate information on combined car / driver weight which would be about 3300 pounds and the car would have been going about 190 mph. That makes the save even more astounding as the car weighed almost twice as much as I was estimating.
He also suggests a second fence and maybe you don't think it's necessary ... but there were probably people who argued the type of crash you just saw could never happen.
6 comments:
car weight about 3300lb . speed in the tri oval about 190mph
Nascar needs to add a second fence
Because if the wreck is a little bigger and a second car goes airborne then hundreds will be killed making the Petty accident look mild
But Kudos to the design team They built a fence that allows fans to be within 10 feet of a 200 mph pack of 40 cars have a devasting wreck and all but a few minor fan injuries from flying debris
Now they know this design works under this extreme circumstance, your suggestion of a second fence may not be hard to sell as it looks the builders could have high confidence almost nothing could get through it.
You know who would be beaming after seeing that is Jackie Stewart. He has campaigned long and hard for track safety and I'm not sure many were doing that too much before he got into it. I think he owns a piece of this save but it was such a great save there's plenty to go around.
Ask Greg Moore about those fences never mind ,you can't. Those fences in non spectator areas are death traps.
I wasn't familiar with the accident and read about it. I thought maybe your comment implied a problem with the Daytona fence but I see it's with improperly-placed fences in general. In fact, I think one of Stewart's main problems was in various types of abutments around the pit wall, particularly the entrance.
not to make light of Moores crash but accidents like his or Swede Savages are the accidents the changed the safety of racing in general.
The fires of Bandini and Lauda helped change the desig. of fuel bladders.
Earnhardts crash changed the way walls are built
Not too mention the use of water barrier and other crushable walls greatly reduce the number of day to day traffic fatalities.
Racing is safer everyday because what was learned in high crashes at tracks And parents bury far less children each day because what has been learned.
I believe it was McDonald at Indy who was another killed in one of the really awful fire crashes and, as you say, these things changed a lot more than racing.
One that comes to mind is you have to work at it to get a flat tire in a car and I'm sure tremendous advances have come in how to keep them cooler at high speed.
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