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Don't want to point out the obvious here...

But we've got tracks which are very very safe considering the racing that occurs on them.

We've got cars which are astoundingly safe; fair to say we've all seen accidents over the past few years that, over a decade ago, we would have been expecting fatalities in (Michael McDowell...that Busch series crash last year where a car absolutely drilled the inside wall on the back straight etc).

It's clear that there are some talented and intelligent individuals working behind the scenes to make the tracks and cars safe.

So...we need to tackle the cars going airborn. It surely cannot be written off as an inevitability of the speed and design of the car. There must be something that can be done to prevent cars taking off, from getting air underneath them and allowing the pressure lifting them up to exceed the pressure keeping them down.

After everything that's been accomplished in Nascar in terms of safety, it doesn't seem like that big an ask.

What do you guys think?

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Ban nudging. (Well that's what my wife said when she saw the crash)

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I don't see a problem. You got a car coming into the catchfence at 180MPH and most of it is kept either on track or at the fence itself. Just make the grandstands like at Kentucky and then it would be okay for me.



NASCAR is a very safe sport, I've been out watching BF3 and had to run for my life coz only a guardrail and a 20 year old wood fence were standing between me and the formula cars.

As far as your concern of cars going airborne, it rarely happens these days. They only go upside down when they go sideways really quick (like the ARCA crash at Talladega) or when they are hit going sideways (like yesterday and Earl at Talladega). It was a freak accident and part of the game, still a sad situation though.

I think the catchfence did a damn good job. The crossing gates need to go. It was just a perfect series of events lining up to create this.

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One thing I've noticed from the coverage by media outlets other than SPEED is that they never mention the weaker crossover portion of the fence that Larson hit. Ignoring the flying tire, Larson hitting any other portion of the catchfence probably would have kept those larger parts on the track.

Non-NASCAR people are just going to assume that the fence didn't do it's job at all. And who knows how much of a PR nightmare that can turn into.

Marty Smith tweeted a pic of the repaired fence... The gate is gone. Solid fence now. Good call.

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I think that maybe a secondary fence about 15-20ft back off the main fence and 15-20ft higher with larger holes in the fence for viewing would be good. It would help PR in that people will all be like look the did do something about it, yet it wont affect viewing the race all that much as well.

The fence did it's job. That's all there is to that. Improvements can be made, but the catch fencing isn't really an issue. I agree with moving the stands back, but remember that debris made it all the way to the 2nd deck. It can be clearly seen on the replays along with the images of the medics in the upper deck attending the injured. So, while the number of injured may have been less, there still would have most likely been injuries.

Now, as for the car getting airborne, I might bitch about NASCAR a lot, but they really have done all they can to keep them on the ground. You can't engineer out unpredictability. Larson wasn't going anywhere until he got hit simultaneously in the front and rear (got hit harder in the rear) which caused such a quick and violent rotation that the car was literally thrown into the air. Game over after that.

The real solution is to break up the packs and give the drivers some throttle response so they don't have to hold it to the floor. I liked the Hinton article. They'll never do it, and maybe they shouldn't, but more horsepower, less downforce will make the cars harder to drive and spread them out. This would work well at Daytona where handling is always a premium even with the restrictor plates. Talladega is another animal all together.

If money were no object, then reducing the banking in the corners to 14 and 16 at Daytona and Talladega and removing the restrictor plates would eliminate the real reason there was a crash at all. Richard Childress (or maybe Junior Johnson but I think it was Childress) told that same thing to NASCAR over 20 years ago. Clearly they didn't do it and they won't.

At the end of the day, given what we have to work with, what we've got is about as good as it can get. The cars are the safest race cars on the planet. The tracks are about as good as they can be with the SAFER barriers and catch fences. I won't say there can't be improvement, there always can be. I just don't know where it's going to come from.

That photo of Kentucky looks like a decent idea. I'm not sure it would have solved the wheel flying into the crowd though? I think a second fence, just behind the first one would be one solution. I just hate being a spectator behind too much fencing. Anyone who has been to Oulton Park/Knockhill/Snetterton, and compares the viewing to Silverstone or Donington, will know what I mean. Can we improve the current fencing? Probably. Look how much better it is from when Davey Allison or Geoff Bodine hit. NASCAR does tend to be one of the leaders in safety advances, and I'm sure they'll continue to improve the fencing.

On the subject of the cars, wasn't there a recent Daytona 500 where they were struggling to go flat through the corners as the tyres wore out? I'm sure I remember them being pretty spread out.

Surely making the fence a bit higher would help things to start off with? Might have stopped the tyre getting over the fence.

I think the tyre went through a hole. You can see it in the slow mo

Lots of things have already been said in this thread but I will add this:

All of this talk about wheel tethers in the media is nonsense. Some nascar 'expert' on espn radio last night said the main area of focus should be wheel tethers. Look at Larson's car after the wreck. Where was the wheel supposed to be tethered to??? As far as I'm concerned, all bets are off when the car hits the fence. No tether would've kept that wheel on. Hell, the whole assembly was in the crowd, most likely including the tether.

Racing will never be 100% safe. NASCAR can't come out and say that, but it is the truth. I hope they don't rush to judgment and make stupid decisions. As noted above, debris reached the 2nd level. That will always be a possibility. Please don't overreact, NASCAR.

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The most obvious fix is to take all the race cars to the scrapyard. Then use that money to buy the drivers fancy computers and iRacing subscriptions.

Problem fixed.

No.

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What? Do you think that might be to boring for some people?

I was responding to Claustrophobic' s post. Sorry about that. Your idea sounds way better in comparison.

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How about two rows of catchfencing atleast in front of the grandstands, separated from each other by a few feet? The first one will do whatever the current one does but then you've got a totally intact fence to absorb what's left.

How about getting rid of Danica Patrick?

Wrong topic

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