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

At some point we have to start paying attention to these crashes. We need to look at the cars and the incidents themselves. The injuries of the driver must be made known. We are never going to make this sport safer unless the details of severe crashes are made public. Cars and tracks aren't going to get safer if we don't know how people are being injured.

When a firefighter dies in the line of duty, a thorough investigation is completed and made public. Its called a NIOSH report. These reports have made the fire service much safer over the years. Lessons learned from the deaths of firefighters have saved the lives of hundreds of other firefighters. This transparency is needed in sprint car racing. We can't keep burying our heads in the sand. [ You should google search firefighter NIOSH reports ]

The tubing needs to be thicker. The cages need to be bigger. Tracks can have a much safer design. The technology for airbags built into the cockpit exists. Paramedic level ambulances should be at every track. Its time to quit accepting these deaths as a part of our sport. We can fix this.

Ben T

"If you're gonna run the bottom, you might as well get 
a real job."

"If you're gonna run the bottom, you might as well get 
a real job."

there is never a good time to discuss problems with a driver, his safety, and a incident , I was repairing a front axle tonight when my wife brought the laptop to the shop door and told me the news, she showed me a photo, I stopped looked at the floor for a moment, told her now isn't a good time for this, and went back to work, recent stories of fellow sprint drivers went thro my head, some more personal than others, thank god, my crew was visiting tonight to take the edge off the moment by discussing not so important humourous events in our recent daily activities, I knew I would come to this forum tonight and find some remourse for our friend, I didn't know him, but, I feel like I know all the deceased drivers somehow? , because, they shared my same passion, I felt terrible being nosey shortly after Steve King was killed, BUT I wasn't doing it to be nosey, I simply wanted to understand how to prevent this from happening to myself. I made nessessary changes and looked over my equipment almost immediately after learning some important issues some racers might not find,or simply overlook, theres just too much going on sometimes, taking the time in the shop to prepare yourself is worth its weight in gold, I contacted Kings family a month or two after his incident for a avenue to direct my intrest so I could tell myself its ok,i apologized and tried to let them have their peace with me,i contacted them and put the ball in their court to discuss or not to discuss with me, I found more information from some of his equipment suppliers, some had better information than others, all of it was taken into consideration. im not trying to be rued I reminded myself, im trying to be preventative to this type of tragedy that could be possibly avoided, I found some relief from the family, I make donations to their funds when I can, and keep my ears open to any racing incidents that we could learn something from, this is a terrible subject , a very touchy and personal one sometimes, but, for the sake of OUR racers it needs discussion , how to do it tastefully is never easy, unfortunately , it becomes a secret topic and overlooked discussion, when racing is good it becomes secondary until something like this happens again, its very worthy to be discussed of anybodys loved one.. My prayers are to everyone involved family friends,track personel.fellow drivers, the list goes on and on, my thoughts are with you in this difficult time that makes absolutely no sence, God Bless..

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A healthy diet of dirt in my nachos and beer.

I have thought about this some this week. I went to the Burlington WoO race last Friday and watched a car go up the pit entrance and crash into the barriers at the Tech area. Track layout is to blame for this incident and they got lucky nobody got hurt.

I have read the post about the axle at Knoxville and a lady getting hurt. If that happens in August you have big problems and a lot of people hurt or possibly killed.

Speed - I know everybody likes how fast a sprinter is and that is some of the draw. It might be time to take a serious look at slowing them down. NHRA implemented rules years ago to slow them down and shortened the track. Although I have noticed the speeds are getting back up where the were before.

Car/Driver Safety - I look at the cockpit on these cars and always think you would have to be nuts to drive these things. A lot of things have gotten better and safer (seats, restraints, hans) but they still look unsafe as hell too me. It is racing and going faster is always the objective and that is what the focus is always on, not safety.

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A healthy diet of dirt in my nachos and beer.

I am hoping that a high profile dirt track somewhere in the country calls up the U of Nebraska-Lincoln and starts talking about extending their research into the local short track market.

Sprint Cars Do It On Dirt!

it is just so sad when w lose one of our own. it is apparent to me that the safety factors in sprint car racing need to be addressed, if not now, when would that be? how many more need to die?

RIP Jason

Ascot was the greatest of all time..

West Capital wasn't half bad either..

Life is good...

In my opinion, if were gonna slow the cars down, might as well have everyone switch over to 360s and stop running the 410 all together. Probably save some money and increase car counts.

Its a good thing nascar and Indy didn't have this attitude.(safer walls, hans device, COT car, new style indy cars ect...) Something needs to be done to slow these cars down on big tracks! 140mph avg is insane. These tragedies cannot be for nothing and say they knew when the strapped in what can happen! Drivers today think ,well it wont happen to me! I don't have the answers but someone with the knowledge might. God be with jason's family and friends.It was a true pleasure to watch you race!

For starters, I think a 5/8 mile track is too big for a sprint car. Speeds reportedly were 160 mph on the straights.

A