Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Not critizing anyone.

I was at Knoxville when Steve King accident happened in I think 2006 and don't ever care to see anything like that again.

I was also at Knoxville in 2008 when Jeff Shepard wrecked and was hit by many cars.  Watching that accident I thought if Jeff makes it out of this he will be on lucky guy and he was very lucky.

I was not at Baps and am glad I wasn't.  I have a son that is 12 and he didn't take the passing of Greg well.  That is my job as a parent to help him through this even though I am hurting just as much as he is.  I have to be his parent and help him in any way I can.  This will not stop me from going to the races it only makes me want to go and show our support of a great man and champion...Greg hodnett.  Do you think Greg wouldn't want us to enjoy spint car racing? 

We were watching on dirtvision the night Jason Johnson had his accident up at Beaver Dam.....it all happened so fast and it was horrible.

I had a friend that I stopped in every Friday to see on my way home from work...I used to work half days on Fridays.  He was a driver turned owner and he passed away in 2009.  It had nothing to do with a racing accident....everytime I was at the races the only thing I could think of was him.   After he passed, I couldn't go to the races very often after that for a few years.   I still went but slowed down a lot.  I still see his wife and daughter a lot at the race track when I go. 

Now my son likes the races and it gives us time to spend together.   His two favorites are Greg Hodnett and Donny Schatz...he also likes David Gravel a little too. 

I will gaurantee you this.  Bad things will happen in everyones life....it is what you do with those bad things that make you the person you are.  This can either brake you or make you a stronger person to lead your family into the future.

No one likes to talk about death, but it is part of living.  People are going to die in your life that you love very much no matter what age you are....death has no age limit and that really sucks sometimes.  Sometimes these deaths are very sudden just like in racing.

With this last accident Thursday night,  we watched Eldora on dirtvision last night and we are going to watch Lernerville tonight.  This is part of the healing process for us.  Doing what we love to do watching sprint racing.  It was great that the top two drivers were from PA!!

I can't wait for the National Open at Williamsgrove next weekend.  That will also be part of the healing process.  That may sound stupid to some but it works for my family.  Face your fears and it will make you stronger in the long run.

I said this in another post and I'll say it again. Is racing really anymore dangerous than getting in a automobile and heading down the highway? I would bet that statisticly racing is no more dangerous than driving an automobile number of people and number of times raced in relation to number of people killed versus same thing with driving an automobile number of people driving number of times driving versus number people killed. Racing has a preconceived notion of being dangerous and it is but so are alot of other things that aren't conceived of being dangerous.  I race but there is no way I would get on a motorcycle and ride down the highway. You won' see me on one on a public road. There are people that won't step on a plan and fly 2 hours because they are scared they will drive 10 hours because of it. And statistically planes are safer than automobiles. Just something to think about.

This isn’t perfect analysis but heres some stats.

According to bill v’s great website, 856 drivers have raced a 410 this year, 2 have been killed. That’s 1 in 423.

There are 222 million licensed drivers in the US and about 40,000 die per year. If one out of every 423 licensed drivers died per year, that would mean over 500k deaths per year. So I’d say it’s a fair bit more dangerous not even considerint other factors.

     The answer to your question is no. Racing is more dangerous than driving a car down the road. Your compsrison is like  comparing apples and washing machines.

     In 2017 approximately 40,100 people died in traffic accidents in America. That was spread over 4,580,725,100,000 total passnger miles in 2017. That works out to one fatality for every 114,232,546 passenger miles. To compare that to sprint car racing in any meaningful way is just unrealistic.

   In the end, we owe it to the competitors, their families, and the fans to continue figuring out how to make racing less dangerous.