Tom wrote:
The only thing similar about those two crashes is that the car was launched back into the air.
Edwards' car was on its way back down to the ground but Newman's hit increased the car's speed and turned it back around and so the car began taking off again.
It was a completely freak circumstance and things like that simply CAN'T be taken into account when developing/modifying safety features at a track. There will ALWAYS be incidents where all safety features work or function and yet the incident unfolds in a way that over rides them.
Look at it this way. Rally cars fly through forests at 100mph. The WRC have made sure that all the WRC spec. cars are about the safest machines in motor racing. But if a car suffers a minor mishap that causes it to fly off the road suddenly, headlong into a tree at 100mph, killing both occupants, would it make sense to suddenly say "lower the speeds in the forests!" or "foam-pad all the tree trunks!"?
It wouldn't. You can make a motorsport as safe as you can, and that's all you can do. After that, it's up to the participants and spectators to take the risk that everything will happen as they're supposed to, and nothing out of the ordinary takes place.
This.