NASCAR shouldn't touch Talladega | montgomeryadvertiser.com
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20090427/SPORTS/904270331/1002

TALLADEGA -- As the video of Carl Edwards' car slamming into the catch
fence along the front stretch grandstands continued to play over and over
Sunday afternoon on the monitors in the Talladega Superspeedway media
center, unlikely race winner Brad Keselowski was posed an odd question.
Is Talladega safe?
Keselowski provided the only reasonable answer he could, saying that he
isn't the one to define safe.
Allow me to help: No.
It's not safe. It has never been safe. It's never going to be safe.
Don't get me wrong, track officials and NASCAR have done all they can to
limit the likelihood of fan injury or death, but they haven't been able to
prevent it.
If you were expecting them to, you're not very bright.
--
Crusader-who agrees with this author!

Crusader wrote:
Agreed! I love Daytona and Dega just the way they are.

This kind of attitude was prevalent in Formula 1 in the 60's. Everyone
knew that racing was a dangerous sport, so when drivers got seriously
injured or killed, they just kept moving on, even though there were
simple things done that could have helped prevent that death or
injury.

When you have nearly 43 2-ton cars going around a track at 200 mph,
it's never going to be completely safe.The question, then not, is if
Talladega is safe, but if it is too unsafe to race there.

I vote that it is.
Talladega and Daytona were built in an earlier era for different cars,
and even then many deemed them dangerous. Fast forward to the past
couple of decades, and you see more danger and death. Bobby Allison
tearing the fence down. Neil Bonnett bouncing around at Talladega back
in 1993. Geoff Bodine flying into the catch fence and shredding his
truck in 2000.

The catch fence stopped the cars from going into the stands, these
times.

After watching Talladega the other day, would you take you and your
family to the race and sit in the first couple rows of seats? I
wouldn't.

"!" <IllustriousPotentate (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote



I probably wouldn't, but that does not mean it is inordinately unsafe to
race there. It means it is dangerous to sit yards away from cars moving 200
mph.


--
"If you're not a race driver, stay the hell home. Don't come here and
grumble about going too fast. Get the hell out of the race car if you've got
feathers on your legs or butt. Put a kerosene rag around your ankles so the
ants won't climb up and eat that candy ass."
- Dale Earnhardt

On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:12:27 -0700 (PDT), "!"
<IllustriousPotentate (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

That's exactly the attitude that will self-police this problem. If
enough folks refuse to take those (crappy to begin with) first few
rows of seats, then the tracks will eventually eliminate them. That's
the logical fix to this problem - get rid of the rows as far back from
the front as debris flew to on Sunday, then take out an extra 10 or so
rows for good meaure.

The only ones that got hurt, besides Geoff hisself, when Goeffrey
Bodine knocked down the fence at Daytona a decade or so age, were in
the first few rows...Bodine survived (tho there is a Bondine bar built
into every NCWTS truck now to prevent tire-ride-over issues on side
impact collisions).

The only ones that got injured on Sunday, imagine that, were in the
first few rows. Notice a pattern?

The front rows at a NASCAR event, in direct contrast to stick and ball
sports, are often the cheapest seats in the house - you can't see much
of the track from them. Get rid of them - build higher up. Bristol has
proven that not only possible, but quite profitable as well.

The drivers suit up every week knowing that it may be their last race
- but we should give the fans more of a cushion of safety IMO. Without
screwing anymore with the cars or tracks...

In article "!" <IllustriousPotentate (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

No.... because the seats suck.

! wrote:
I wouldn't set in those seats, period. They suck! You need to be as high
as possible at Dega and Daytona in able to see the entire track.

On Apr 28, 8:52*pm, SimRacer <simracer6... (AT) yahoo (DOT) comSPAM> wrote:
Very well put, though I'm doubtful self-policing by itself is
effective enough to really change anything. There's always been a
trend in NASCAR to wait until after something bad happens at least
once to correct the problem.The openings on the inside wall come to
mind. Steve Grissom had a really bad crash at the old Atlanta layout
into one of the openings, then there was Jeff Fuller's bad crash at
Kentucky into an opening, then finally, Jeff Gordon had a bad one at
Las Vegas, and they worked on making those safer. Same with head and
neck restraints, same with paving the infields off Turns 2 and 4 at
the faster speedways.

It worries me that they'll do the same thing here. The catchfence held
up, so it'll get put on the back burner. Odds are it will hold up the
next time a car hits it. However, on n.com, there's an editorial by
Duane Cross where he repeatedly responds to any and all conjecture and
criticism with "The catch fence did its job and Carl Edwards' car did
not fly into the crowd along the frontstretch." That's true, of
course, but it's that kind of dismissal of concern that causes
problems down the road. "Don't worry, it'll be okay" doesn't make
people safer, taking action on it does.

"SimRacer" <simracer68NO (AT) yahoo (DOT) comSPAM> wrote


Excellent POV Sim--self policing just like JBurton did with KyBusch on-track.

Kewl u mentioned Geoffrey Bodeene in CTS. I've been working up to a
fact-based response to 'The Alarmists of Dangerous Dega' & only misremembered
GBod's death-defying, catchfence flying performance by 5 years!
Caint believe the 1st Truck Race at Daytona was in 2000!!

I responded to a few regular N writers asking them: how many times
since Bobby Allison's 1987 Dega Catchfence has any 'nascar' gotten into any
catchfence? I'm still waiting for their replies
Other than GBod, i don't recall any! U? Maybe Neil Bonnett'93?
Spooky that Neil died at a '94 Daytona practice in a James Finch car

Another anti-alarmist pov could be: How many N drivers have suffered
injuries to prevent them from running the next race since the advent of
HANS & SAFER? NONE?
CRU

"Crusader" <cru357 (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net> wrote in
news:75rdd9F19kbc8U1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net:

Bear in mind here that we're not really concerned with driver
safety in the current discussion. We're concerned about the
safety of the fans.

John