Cup Dega Finish

#51
#51
I think some people are overreacting about it. It WAS bad and it could happen again. But it was 22 years - 44 races at Dega from the time Allison hit the fence to the time Edwards hit it. Racing is dangerous - you'll never catch me down low at any track - even short tracks and dirt tracks. I've seen too many tires in dirt races flying over fences into crowds to sit low even there.

The fans should be safe and I would say fix it if there was a way to fix it. But its just part of it. My only solution is to box off the bottom 5-6 rows or rebuild them somehow where there's more room between the fence and the stands. That Edwards deal was a freak accident - the roof flaps were doing their job until Newman hit him and created a different turbulance around the car that sent it back up like a ping pong ball. Yes, it will probably happen again sometime but it was 22 years from Allison to Edwards. NASCAR will have to look into the yellow line rule deal. I think on the last lap if they can go under the line out of 4 that would keep guys from doing what Edwards done and coming across the nose of Keso. If the yellow line rules were out on the last lap then Edwards would have blocked, Keso would have went under him, and they would have drag raced door to door to the line.

This hasn't been talked about much but I've heard from very good sources about an IRL scare at Richmond several years ago. They were having a closed test session and one car launched over another car there and landed in about the 10th row of the grandstands. They smartly kept it under wraps but it is known that it did happen. I think they raised the fence due to this but IRL nor Richmond acknowledged that this ever happened.

Some people have been talking about trying to keep the cars from flipping due to the high speeds. A car can flip in many ways. Case in point just look at Joe Nemechek in the Nashville Nationwide race over Easter weekend. He got clipped in the right rear on the straight and went over quicker than a hiccup.

I really feel for the fans that were injured and I cannot imagine seeing something like that coming at me with only a fence between us. Just some food for thought - I saw there was an average of over 10 fan injures per night at baseball games due to foul balls. I know a foul ball and a flying racecar is much different but the chance for injury still remains. At Dega take out those first several rows of seats for safety and that should solve the problem. It would take a complete freak accident for a car to scale the fence and get into the stands. It might happen someday and it could happen at any track - I just hope it don't. But you'll never see this ol' boy sitting low because I know the risk and don't want to take the chance.
 
#52
#52
You may notice at IRL races the lower seats are not used for the way the Indy cars can fly. Even though it has been 22 years, it doesn't mean it will take 22 more years to happen again. I can say with near 100% certainty that a car flying into the stands at any track causing fatalities would mean the end of NASCAR with the possibility being proven by Edwards. Lawyers would have a field day.
 
#53
#53
rbroyles said:
I should have been more specific. I didn't mean make the track like those two, but that by lowering the banking, the speeds could be low enough to eliminate the plates, just as they do at the two 2.0 mile tracks. By using progressive banking they could keep the side by side racing, without the big packs.

There would be a ton of people unhappy that like the bunched up pack and seeing the big wrecks.
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I like the big packs on the plate tracks, but not because I like seeing the big wrecks. I think it's pretty cool that the cars all take the white flag, and there can be as many as 10-15 cars that have a legitimate shot at winning the race if they play their cards right.
 
#54
#54
rbroyles said:
You may notice at IRL races the lower seats are not used for the way the Indy cars can fly. Even though it has been 22 years, it doesn't mean it will take 22 more years to happen again. I can say with near 100% certainty that a car flying into the stands at any track causing fatalities would mean the end of NASCAR with the possibility being proven by Edwards. Lawyers would have a field day.
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I would never in a million years want to see something like that happen. But don't they have an "out" with that clause on the back of the ticket that says they aren't responsible? Just last year a young girl was killed in a Minor League Hockey game when the puck flew through the glass and hit her in the temple. Another child got brain damage from a missed soccer shot. Some guy got his eye knocked out by a bad tee shot from a player on the Nike Tour or whatever they call it about 2 years ago.

And I will correct myself about one thing. It hasn't been 22 years. It has only been 16 years.....

YouTube - Neil Bonnets 1993 Scary Talladega Flip

Neil Bonnett took a similar shot into the fence at Dega and I had forgot about it. The fence then done its job as well and they repaired it and was able to resume and finish the race.
 
#55
#55
I have a problem with the argument to not change things because similar situations happened two decades apart. That doesn't matter, because another Edwards style wreck could happen the very next time NASCAR goes to a plate track. Those kind of wrecks happen by chance. A car that wrecks and is positioned in the wrong place at the wrong time could have disastrous results. Edwards' wreck probably would not have been as severe had Ryan Newman not been where he was. Wrecks and there severity all have to do with positioning, speed, and chance. NASCAR is just lucky all three didn't happen at once in a perfect disaster that would have seen a driver and alot of fans perish.
 
#56
#56
You may be right - I'm not going to admit I'm always right. But wouldn't you agree that similar things "could" happen right now at Michigan, Atlanta, Texas, California, Pocono, Darlington? I mean a freak accident could happen.

Picture a group of 3 cars coming hard out of turn 4 onto the straight at Darlington. Its not a super fast track but it has decent speed. Now picture that the inside car is a bit in front of the outside car and gets a tap from the 3rd car in the right rear. The inside car veers up the track and then launches over the left front quarter panel of the car on the outside sending it straight up into the air and into the fencing. That could happen at nearly every NASCAR track.

My whole argument I guess is to say what can you really do? I am all for safety and if someone has a real solution I'd be all for it. All I am saying is that a similar situation of a car launching into the fence can happen anywhere and really don't have to have speed as the biggest factor. Its all about how they come together. You can use my argument from above and picture another car hitting the car that launches into the fence right as he bounds off of it - that in itself could send the car high enough in theory to clear about any fence. It doesn't just have to be Talladega or Daytona for something like this to happen.

I promise I'm not trying to argue with you all for the sake of arguing. Maybe I'm just a bit jumbled in my thought process.......
 
#57
#57
DownNDirty said:
I would never in a million years want to see something like that happen. But don't they have an "out" with that clause on the back of the ticket that says they aren't responsible? Just last year a young girl was killed in a Minor League Hockey game when the puck flew through the glass and hit her in the temple. Another child got brain damage from a missed soccer shot. Some guy got his eye knocked out by a bad tee shot from a player on the Nike Tour or whatever they call it about 2 years ago.

And I will correct myself about one thing. It hasn't been 22 years. It has only been 16 years.....

YouTube - Neil Bonnets 1993 Scary Talladega Flip

Neil Bonnett took a similar shot into the fence at Dega and I had forgot about it. The fence then done its job as well and they repaired it and was able to resume and finish the race.
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That clause helps limit their responsibility if reasonable care is taken by the track. Having had two incidents where disaster was narrowly avoided, a third one that resulted in multiple fatalities would give the plaintiffs attorney all the ammunition he needed to prove reasonable care was not taken. It would be prima facie that effective changes were not made to prevent the third incident.
 
#58
#58
DownNDirty said:
I would never in a million years want to see something like that happen. But don't they have an "out" with that clause on the back of the ticket that says they aren't responsible? Just last year a young girl was killed in a Minor League Hockey game when the puck flew through the glass and hit her in the temple. Another child got brain damage from a missed soccer shot. Some guy got his eye knocked out by a bad tee shot from a player on the Nike Tour or whatever they call it about 2 years ago.

And I will correct myself about one thing. It hasn't been 22 years. It has only been 16 years.....

YouTube - Neil Bonnets 1993 Scary Talladega Flip

Neil Bonnett took a similar shot into the fence at Dega and I had forgot about it. The fence then done its job as well and they repaired it and was able to resume and finish the race.
Click to expand...

Those clauses on the back of tickets would be laughed at by the courts. Broyles is right, even a half witted lawyer would shred it pieces.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#60
#60
I don't think NASCAR is going to tear down the banks so the only thing they can do is slow the cars back down some it looks like. But if they did tear down the banking and flatten it out they wouldn't have to worry about it. Not just because the speeds would be down but because they'd lose, I'd say, 75% of the fans that go to Talladega.
 
#61
#61
I don't think NASCAR is going to tear down the banks so the only thing they can do is slow the cars back down some it looks like. But if they did tear down the banking and flatten it out they wouldn't have to worry about it. Not just because the speeds would be down but because they'd lose, I'd say, 75% of the fans that go to Talladega.
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I think I saw somewhere that NASCAR already said they will not be changing the configuration of Talladega, so trying to slow the cars more looks like the only option they are willing to look at.
 
#62
#62
DownNDirty said:
This hasn't been talked about much but I've heard from very good sources about an IRL scare at Richmond several years ago. They were having a closed test session and one car launched over another car there and landed in about the 10th row of the grandstands. They smartly kept it under wraps but it is known that it did happen. I think they raised the fence due to this but IRL nor Richmond acknowledged that this ever happened.
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i find this hard to believe, especially these days with camera phones and the internet. it's pretty hard to cover something like this up, especially with all the people who would be at the race track for a test session. it's not like it was just one team and a few crew members.

i need to see some more proof that this happened.

Mario Andretti flipped a car at Indy several years ago and the news was all over it, and this was in mid April. it was even more remarkable since his car was sent airborne high enough to clear the fence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMeE9NAh60I
 
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#63
#63
Doozer I'll try to see if I can dig anything up. I don't just spout off nonsense. I know its a bit hard to believe but it was supposed to have happened at a closed test session. And I'm thinking that this happened in 04-05 or somewhere in there. I will try to find something on it.
 
#64
#64
DownNDirty said:
Doozer I'll try to see if I can dig anything up. I don't just spout off nonsense. I know its a bit hard to believe but it was supposed to have happened at a closed test session. And I'm thinking that this happened in 04-05 or somewhere in there. I will try to find something on it.
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i'm not saying it did or didn't happen. i'm just saying that in this day and age with the way news travels, i find it hard to believe it could be covered up.

it's possible that i could have missed it.
 
#65
#65
I've asked on a couple of other forums and they are saying Helio tangled with Tony Kannan and went up into the fencing but not over. Maybe the reports I read then were wrong. HERE is something though - not the entire car but a report about the fatal accident of Tony Renna at an Indy Tire Test session.......

First of all, I have to say that my sympathy and prayers go out to the family and friends of Tony Renna, who died tragically last Wednesday while testing tires at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Although he's gone, I'm certain that he won't be forgotten, and although there may be some solace in believing that he died doing what he loved best, it still doesn't help to fill the void left by the loss of the 26 year old rising star.

The recent crashes of Mario Andretti, Kenny Brack, and Tony Renna within the past year tend to lead one to believe that there's a major design flaw in the Indy race cars. When Andretti wrecked last May during a practice session for the Indy 500, his car slid sideways before going airborne into the fence. The same thing happened last week when Tony Renna lost his life testing tires is his first outing in Chip Ganassi Racing's No. 10 Target sponsored Toyota. Renna's car is reported to have slid sideways before going airborne into the fencing.

Having the cars smash into the fencing is bad business, not only for the drivers, but for the fans in the grandstands. When Kenny Brack's car hit the fence, it tore it up so bad that the race had to be shortened because it would have taken over two hours to repair it, and it wasn't feasible because there were only five laps remaining. Parts of Brack's car went through the fencing in an area void of spectators.

When Tony Renna's car hit the fence; it tore up the fencing even worse. At speeds nearing 218 miles per hour, Renna's car disintegrated much the same as Brack's car did. The gearbox went through the fence into the stands, along with some suspension parts, destroying the first tier of the grandstand in that area. If there had been fans sitting there, a multitude of them would have been killed instantly. The cockpit/safety cage with Renna still in it became ensnared in the fence and hung there, dangling until the safety crew lowered it down. Renna was killed by massive trauma to the head and chest as the cockpit raked through the fence.
 
#66
#66
TheSyxxSynse said:
I think I saw somewhere that NASCAR already said they will not be changing the configuration of Talladega, so trying to slow the cars more looks like the only option they are willing to look at.
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I would think slowing the cars down wouldn't seperate them. Slowing them down doesn't make them lift in the corners to allow seperation of the cars that handle better. I would prefer them to leave it like it is. I, as a fan enjoy watching it. They aren't going to make everybody happy no matter what they do.
 
#67
#67
DownNDirty said:
I've asked on a couple of other forums and they are saying Helio tangled with Tony Kannan and went up into the fencing but not over. Maybe the reports I read then were wrong. HERE is something though - not the entire car but a report about the fatal accident of Tony Renna at an Indy Tire Test session.......

First of all, I have to say that my sympathy and prayers go out to the family and friends of Tony Renna, who died tragically last Wednesday while testing tires at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Although he's gone, I'm certain that he won't be forgotten, and although there may be some solace in believing that he died doing what he loved best, it still doesn't help to fill the void left by the loss of the 26 year old rising star.

The recent crashes of Mario Andretti, Kenny Brack, and Tony Renna within the past year tend to lead one to believe that there's a major design flaw in the Indy race cars. When Andretti wrecked last May during a practice session for the Indy 500, his car slid sideways before going airborne into the fence. The same thing happened last week when Tony Renna lost his life testing tires is his first outing in Chip Ganassi Racing's No. 10 Target sponsored Toyota. Renna's car is reported to have slid sideways before going airborne into the fencing.

Having the cars smash into the fencing is bad business, not only for the drivers, but for the fans in the grandstands. When Kenny Brack's car hit the fence, it tore it up so bad that the race had to be shortened because it would have taken over two hours to repair it, and it wasn't feasible because there were only five laps remaining. Parts of Brack's car went through the fencing in an area void of spectators.

When Tony Renna's car hit the fence; it tore up the fencing even worse. At speeds nearing 218 miles per hour, Renna's car disintegrated much the same as Brack's car did. The gearbox went through the fence into the stands, along with some suspension parts, destroying the first tier of the grandstand in that area. If there had been fans sitting there, a multitude of them would have been killed instantly. The cockpit/safety cage with Renna still in it became ensnared in the fence and hung there, dangling until the safety crew lowered it down. Renna was killed by massive trauma to the head and chest as the cockpit raked through the fence.
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I realize that I have been very busy the past 2 weeks and haven't gotten home untill late every night but I must have really been under a rock. I haven't heard anything about the death of Tony Renna. I really hate to hear that.
 
#68
#68
jhen713 said:
I realize that I have been very busy the past 2 weeks and haven't gotten home untill late every night but I must have really been under a rock. I haven't heard anything about the death of Tony Renna. I really hate to hear that.
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he was killed in 2003.
 
#69
#69
he was killed in 2003.
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DND's post made it look like he died recently. I knew I hadn't heard anything either and thought that too until I looked up his Wikipedia page.

I can see how a car could wreck and go over the fence and into the stands alot easier in IRL than NASCAR. They travel faster and are much lighter, so if one goes airborn, it could be bad.
 
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#70
#70
Sorry, I didn't mean to mislead. I just copied the article over. I should have prefaced the fact that it happened in 2003.
 
#71
#71
DownNDirty said:
I don't think NASCAR is going to tear down the banks so the only thing they can do is slow the cars back down some it looks like. But if they did tear down the banking and flatten it out they wouldn't have to worry about it. Not just because the speeds would be down but because they'd lose, I'd say, 75% of the fans that go to Talladega.
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NASCAR could flatten the banking at Talladega and make them run pure stock cars right off the car lot and 'Dega still wouldn't come anywhere close to losing 75% of their fans.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#72
#72
volfanbill said:
NASCAR could flatten the banking at Talladega and make them run pure stock cars right off the car lot and 'Dega still wouldn't come anywhere close to losing 75% of their fans.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
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There are enough local Bammers who probably wouldn't ever notice the difference to fill 30 - 40% of the seats.
 
#74
#74
I think the best solution is to take out the first five or six rows on the frontstretch at both Talladega and Daytona. This would mean no change to the cars or tearing up a good racetrack. They should also put more of a curve at the top of the fence like I've noticed they have at Richmond tonight and add more fence bars in between the bars they have now.
 
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