HANS Performance Products released a question-and-answer transcript on Tuesday with Jim Downing, co-founder of HPP, dealing with a number of safety issues surrounding the death of Dale Earnhardt in a last lap wreck in the 2001 Daytona 500.
Here are some of the most relevant questions.
Q: If Dale Earnhardt Sr. had been wearing a HANS Device during his crash at Daytona in 2001, would that have prevented a fatal injury?
Downing: "We have learned over the years at HANS Performance Products that re-constructing accidents is an extremely difficult and complex chore. We rely on the professional experience of others and in this case there were different opinions by experts about the cause of the fatal injuries. With that in mind, I believe that when Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s car hit the wall and the belts from his safety harness were loaded by the impact that a HANS Device would have kept his head back. That likely would have produced a better outcome under the different scenarios that have been proposed by experts. This is what it seems like to me, but we don't really know for sure."
Q: People may not be aware that the fatal crash of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna in 1994 also influenced the development of the HANS Device. How did that come about?
“The Senna crash started a really serious re-evaluation of safety in Formula 1 much as what happened later in American racing in 2001. This crash led to cooperation with Daimler Benz to get the HANS Device to fit into an F1 car and more independent testing which also confirmed that it worked. Through that development, we were able to reduce the size of the HANS Device and get a better fit for drivers in all types of cars, including stock cars.
"The HANS Device would have been recognized as a safety breakthrough without the catalyst of the unfortunate crashes of Senna and Earnhardt Sr. It just would have taken longer. In America, the legacy of Earnhardt Sr. includes not only the HANS Device, but soft walls, better seats and cockpit safety and the ‘Car of Tomorrow.’ Even now when I think of Dale Earnhardt Sr. I think of safety instead of the macho driving style he was known for."
Q: The high-speed crashes get a lot of attention, but isn't it accurate that low-speed crashes can also cause serious or fatal head and neck injuries?
“There's a misconception that almost everyone has, that you're safe at 30 or 40 miles per hour. Earnhardt Sr.’s actual change of velocity caused by hitting the wall was 43 or 44 mph. To many observers it looked like a fairly routine wreck and they never expected the outcome. This happens on a regular basis on the street or in racing. A car’s speed may not be very high but if it stops suddenly you can be in real trouble.
"It’s not how fast you go, but how quickly you stop. Trying to get that message across to short track racers and drag racers has been especially difficult. A short track driver can easily get turned into the wall by another car. If a drag racer has a mechanical problem and turns into the retaining wall, the vehicle can come to a very sudden stop. Both circle track and drag racing are relatively underserved when it comes to frontal head restraints."
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The King is ready to move past football
Richard "The King" Petty is ready for some racing.
After all the problems the Richard Petty Motorsports organization went through at the end of the 2010 season, you might think Petty would like some time off. Not so, with a more streamlined RPM run by new ownership, Petty is ready to return to the track.
“For the last three or four months it’s been football, football, football, so now that football is almost over, we’ve got you all out here to carry the ball forward into next season. I think everybody here and everybody I’ve talked to is really looking forward to a new season," Petty said.
"It’s been a couple of months since we’ve raced and racers want to race all the time, so with your help to get the spectators and the fans and help us please those people, all of our sponsors that have helped us all this time, you do your job and we’ll try to do our job and work together and make all of this a lot bigger operation."
Petty said the financial problems were a great distraction at the end of 2010 but he looks forward to a fresh start.
"You’ve got to give our crew a lot of credit the last five or six races because they didn’t know if they were gonna have a job when they came in the next week or not, but they stepped it up – the drivers stepped it up and the whole crew stepped it up and we ended up with a pretty good season," he said.
"Our sponsors stayed with us all the way through the winter and came back this spring and we’re getting ready for the new season. It was really good to have all of those people say, ‘OK, guys. Stay in there and keep digging and we’re gonna be ready for the next year.’ "
After all the problems the Richard Petty Motorsports organization went through at the end of the 2010 season, you might think Petty would like some time off. Not so, with a more streamlined RPM run by new ownership, Petty is ready to return to the track.
“For the last three or four months it’s been football, football, football, so now that football is almost over, we’ve got you all out here to carry the ball forward into next season. I think everybody here and everybody I’ve talked to is really looking forward to a new season," Petty said.
"It’s been a couple of months since we’ve raced and racers want to race all the time, so with your help to get the spectators and the fans and help us please those people, all of our sponsors that have helped us all this time, you do your job and we’ll try to do our job and work together and make all of this a lot bigger operation."
Petty said the financial problems were a great distraction at the end of 2010 but he looks forward to a fresh start.
"You’ve got to give our crew a lot of credit the last five or six races because they didn’t know if they were gonna have a job when they came in the next week or not, but they stepped it up – the drivers stepped it up and the whole crew stepped it up and we ended up with a pretty good season," he said.
"Our sponsors stayed with us all the way through the winter and came back this spring and we’re getting ready for the new season. It was really good to have all of those people say, ‘OK, guys. Stay in there and keep digging and we’re gonna be ready for the next year.’ "
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tony Stewart said what ????
I heard it, but to be honest it's still hard for me to believe who said it.
Soon after NASCAR Chairman Brian France's announcement of the sport's new scoring system there was a driver on Speed praising the change and concluded his commentary with this: "I don't think there should be too much emphasis on winning."
First of all, I think such a statement is just silly. Sports is ONLY about winning. Even in NASCAR I've always heard the adage, "Second is the first loser."
But what was most disconcerting was who said this. It was Tony Stewart.
Are you kidding me? Tony Stewart, the same driver who throughout his career we've heard nothing but comments about how much he wants to win?
Tony Stewart, the same driver who has blown off multiple media interviews after races when he came up short because "He's just upset because he wants to win so much"?
This is the same Tony Stewart who said on Aug. 11, 2010, in an interview with Forbes.com, "For me, racing is not about the money, it's about winning."
Is this how bad things have gotten? A driver who has been championed throughout his NASCAR career for his passion for winning and had some of his questionable antics defended by those around him for holding that same passion, now suddenly believes winning isn't all that big a deal after all.
Who knew? That's fine. I guess he'll just have to come up with a new excuse the next time finishing second ticks him off. Can't wait to see what it is.
Soon after NASCAR Chairman Brian France's announcement of the sport's new scoring system there was a driver on Speed praising the change and concluded his commentary with this: "I don't think there should be too much emphasis on winning."
First of all, I think such a statement is just silly. Sports is ONLY about winning. Even in NASCAR I've always heard the adage, "Second is the first loser."
But what was most disconcerting was who said this. It was Tony Stewart.
Are you kidding me? Tony Stewart, the same driver who throughout his career we've heard nothing but comments about how much he wants to win?
Tony Stewart, the same driver who has blown off multiple media interviews after races when he came up short because "He's just upset because he wants to win so much"?
This is the same Tony Stewart who said on Aug. 11, 2010, in an interview with Forbes.com, "For me, racing is not about the money, it's about winning."
Is this how bad things have gotten? A driver who has been championed throughout his NASCAR career for his passion for winning and had some of his questionable antics defended by those around him for holding that same passion, now suddenly believes winning isn't all that big a deal after all.
Who knew? That's fine. I guess he'll just have to come up with a new excuse the next time finishing second ticks him off. Can't wait to see what it is.
If no accident in 2001, what would Dale Earnhardt have done?
There has been a lot of discussion so far this week at various stops on the Sprint NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway regarding the approaching 10-year anniversary of the death of the late Dale Earnhardt, who died on Feb. 18, 2001, in a last-lap wreck in the Daytona 500.
Throughout the stops we have met and spoke with many drivers and crew chiefs and team executives who worked with Earnhardt about a variety of issues. One I found interesting on Tuesday was a conversation with Ty Norris, who is now with Michael Waltrip Racing, but also was formerly executive vice president Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Earnhardt was 49 years old when he died and conversation turned to whether Earnhardt had ever talked of retirement plans.
"He had a good three in him left as a driver for sure, maybe more," Norris said. "We hoped that he had a lot more years left because we knew he would be a miserable SOB outside of the race car.
"He'd come in the office all the day and be bitching all the time and we'd be like, 'God Almighty, I hope he races forever.'"
Norris said he asked Earnhardt "at least a 100 times" about whether he wanted to drive a Cup series car from his DEI organization and Earnhardt always responded, "You guys can't afford me."
"Dale said he would never do that to Richard (Childress). He would never leave Richard Childress."
Earnhardt won six of his seven Cup championships while driving for Childress, who continues to this day as one of NASCAR's most successful car owners.
Throughout the stops we have met and spoke with many drivers and crew chiefs and team executives who worked with Earnhardt about a variety of issues. One I found interesting on Tuesday was a conversation with Ty Norris, who is now with Michael Waltrip Racing, but also was formerly executive vice president Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Earnhardt was 49 years old when he died and conversation turned to whether Earnhardt had ever talked of retirement plans.
"He had a good three in him left as a driver for sure, maybe more," Norris said. "We hoped that he had a lot more years left because we knew he would be a miserable SOB outside of the race car.
"He'd come in the office all the day and be bitching all the time and we'd be like, 'God Almighty, I hope he races forever.'"
Norris said he asked Earnhardt "at least a 100 times" about whether he wanted to drive a Cup series car from his DEI organization and Earnhardt always responded, "You guys can't afford me."
"Dale said he would never do that to Richard (Childress). He would never leave Richard Childress."
Earnhardt won six of his seven Cup championships while driving for Childress, who continues to this day as one of NASCAR's most successful car owners.
Monday, January 24, 2011
NASCAR's Felix Sabates: Unplugged
Felix Sabates, part owner of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, is never a loss for words, even if they sometimes get him in hot water. Sabates was on hand Monday for the first stop of the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway and he had plenty to say on a variety of topics.
On his relationship with the late Dale Earnhardt: We had a pretty good relationship away from the race track. Dale was a man’s man. For him, a race car was something that had four wheels and you had to drive it and how you drove it was up to you not up to somebody else. He is probably saying today, ‘These cars drive by themselves.’ Which they don’t because you still have to have the guy pushing the gas. He would have had a hard time adjusting to all these new things that we have now.
On team owner Chip Ganassi: Chip is very quiet and very easy going, but don’t take that the wrong way. When he has to, he has to, but his style of management is completely different from my style of management and his obviously works better than mine did because he’s winning. Chip is hands on. He’s on the phone everyday with everybody from the drivers to the crew chiefs to me and the man only knows one thing and that’s racing. He might watch a football game every now and then, but his whole life is around a race car. He’s very well respected. He’s not feared, he’s respected. A lot of people are feared. I think Jack Roush is feared by his people. Chip is not feared, but they respect him.
On the difference he sees in driver Jamie McMurray: I can see a huge difference and I think mainly, when Jamie (McMurray) drove for us before, I don’t think we were the race team that we are today to begin with. I think those four years that he spent away from us – people change a lot and Jamie was probably one of the most changed person that I have ever seen in my life. He’s a completely different person. Jamie became an old guy this year. He was always a kid. People looked at him as a young kid and he wasn’t a young kid anymore.
His thoughts on a proposed change by NASCAR to alter how it distributes points in races: I think is great to change it because the system we have right now, I will never figure it out. If there is one of you guys that tells me that you understand the points system, you’re crazy and you’re lying. The new points system that they are talking about – the 1 to 43 –
I think is great, but I think that they need to give the four worst races of the year and throw them away. So only count, for the Chase, only count 22 of 26 races. That would change the whole dynamics of the Chase.
On his relationship with the late Dale Earnhardt: We had a pretty good relationship away from the race track. Dale was a man’s man. For him, a race car was something that had four wheels and you had to drive it and how you drove it was up to you not up to somebody else. He is probably saying today, ‘These cars drive by themselves.’ Which they don’t because you still have to have the guy pushing the gas. He would have had a hard time adjusting to all these new things that we have now.
On team owner Chip Ganassi: Chip is very quiet and very easy going, but don’t take that the wrong way. When he has to, he has to, but his style of management is completely different from my style of management and his obviously works better than mine did because he’s winning. Chip is hands on. He’s on the phone everyday with everybody from the drivers to the crew chiefs to me and the man only knows one thing and that’s racing. He might watch a football game every now and then, but his whole life is around a race car. He’s very well respected. He’s not feared, he’s respected. A lot of people are feared. I think Jack Roush is feared by his people. Chip is not feared, but they respect him.
On the difference he sees in driver Jamie McMurray: I can see a huge difference and I think mainly, when Jamie (McMurray) drove for us before, I don’t think we were the race team that we are today to begin with. I think those four years that he spent away from us – people change a lot and Jamie was probably one of the most changed person that I have ever seen in my life. He’s a completely different person. Jamie became an old guy this year. He was always a kid. People looked at him as a young kid and he wasn’t a young kid anymore.
His thoughts on a proposed change by NASCAR to alter how it distributes points in races: I think is great to change it because the system we have right now, I will never figure it out. If there is one of you guys that tells me that you understand the points system, you’re crazy and you’re lying. The new points system that they are talking about – the 1 to 43 –
I think is great, but I think that they need to give the four worst races of the year and throw them away. So only count, for the Chase, only count 22 of 26 races. That would change the whole dynamics of the Chase.
Ryan Newman talks about being a dad
Ryan Newman was asked Monday about how conversations among Sprint Cup Series drivers have been changning with so many of them becoming new fathers. Newman's wife, Krissie, gave birth to the couple's first child, Brooklyn, in November.
Q. The motorcoach lot has changed quite a bit. Do the other drivers talk about this whole kids (thing) and what you’re going through? Because your lifestyle is very unique compared to anyone else in the world with the travel and the motorcoaches and everything. Do you share stuff and talk about the kids when you’re hanging out?
Newman: We have, more recently. Just like testing last week, (I) talked to Jimmie (Johnson) about it. He’s further ahead, so I can learn from him. Jamie McMurray and myself were about the same time going through the same thing, so we can compare what’s right and wrong and women and kids and everything else.
I guess, ultimately, you might see some more trailers behind golf carts in the motorcoach lot. That’s about it. We are just adapting to it. It’s a big change for us and I think it’s weird if you look back at the history of the sport. I’ve heard the stories of the Pettys and all that stuff back in the day. It’s like it skipped two or three generations, it seemed, and now there’s a big influx of mass production of kids, it seems.
There are guys who are doubling up quicker than we ever thought. So it’s different, for sure. It changes the conversation from set-ups to baby cribs and things like that.”
Q. The motorcoach lot has changed quite a bit. Do the other drivers talk about this whole kids (thing) and what you’re going through? Because your lifestyle is very unique compared to anyone else in the world with the travel and the motorcoaches and everything. Do you share stuff and talk about the kids when you’re hanging out?
Newman: We have, more recently. Just like testing last week, (I) talked to Jimmie (Johnson) about it. He’s further ahead, so I can learn from him. Jamie McMurray and myself were about the same time going through the same thing, so we can compare what’s right and wrong and women and kids and everything else.
I guess, ultimately, you might see some more trailers behind golf carts in the motorcoach lot. That’s about it. We are just adapting to it. It’s a big change for us and I think it’s weird if you look back at the history of the sport. I’ve heard the stories of the Pettys and all that stuff back in the day. It’s like it skipped two or three generations, it seemed, and now there’s a big influx of mass production of kids, it seems.
There are guys who are doubling up quicker than we ever thought. So it’s different, for sure. It changes the conversation from set-ups to baby cribs and things like that.”
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Cars at Daytona test are slowing down
Perhaps the cars were going a bit fast at the December Goodyear tire test after all.
Several NASCAR drivers and teams confirmed Thursday they have been informed the sanctioning body has decided to reduce the size of the holes in the restrictor plate used in next week's Sprint Cup Series test at Daytona International Speedway from 30/32nds of an inch to 29/32nds of an inch.
The change will likely reduce speeds - which reached nearly 200 mph at the December test - around 5 mph in the draft.
“When we tested during the Goodyear tire test at Daytona, I could see the speeds of two cars that got together being high,” said Bobby Labonte, who drives for JTG Daugherty this season. “When you get to actually racing, things always go a little faster.
"I think making the restrictor plate smaller is a deal where NASCAR was foreseeing that speeds would be really high."
All Cup teams will participate in next week's test, which begins Jan. 20. Only 18 teams were involved in the December test.
The tests are being held because of the repaving of the speedway.
"I think now, we can expect to see the cars a lot closer together and more in one pack versus two, three or four. It’s going to make for some great racing for sure," said Pat Tryson, crew chief for Martin Truex Jr.
"I expect to see more three, maybe four-wide racing at Daytona which is exactly what we saw at Talladega Superspeedway."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)