I hate to be hard and callous but a driver's safety is ultimately his
responsibility and his alone. Our sanctioning body, the SCCA, has tech
inspections but I would be a fool to believe that I should rely on them for
my own safety.
I have heard many times that the NASCAR drivers often loosen their belts
during yellows and that they sometimes forget to snug them when the course
goes green. Is NASCAR responsible for this? I think not. Similarly if a belt
is installed incorrectly by a car builder it's the driver's responsibility
not NASCAR's to catch it and correct it.
I believe that the cavalier attitude toward safety that we see in NASCAR is
promulgated by the drivers. It's their lives on the line if they want to be
macho shitheads more power to them.
Regards,
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Foster <pfoster@tampabay.rr.com>
To: team.net <autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2001 12:20 PM
Subject: I Think It is Time We Must Do Something
> A heck of a lot of people must be kicking themselves right now for not
> pursuing the correct installation of seat belts. If Jeff Burton was indeed
> correct and DE was one of the people who did have them incorrectly mounted
I
> believe a travesty has occurred. NASCAR had plenty of time to read the
story
> on Monday and make sure they were checked before the next Sunday. I feel
> really sad because someone apparently died due to ignorance and stupidity.
> It is the sanctioning body's job to ensure the cages are the proper
> thicknesses and the belts are properly installed particularly after the
> problem was brought to their attention either directly or indirectly.
>
> I feel it is time for the hiding of safety related matters to come to an
end
> in motorsports. The sanctioning bodies for the most part think of these
> matters as dirty laundry that must be closely spin controlled. The main
> argument for doing so is due to litigation concerns. But as a participant
I
> feel I need to have access to this information to make the proper
> safety-related decisions. That includes how much or what safety equipment
I
> need and even which car I may decide to buy next. Unfortunately, the
> sanctioning bodies may never give us direct access to their incident
reports
> much less put them online for us to peruse.
>
> As an example of how much value there can be in having such information
> online, check out http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Accident.htm and take a
look
> at one of the preliminary reports. The NTSB tracks each and every aircraft
> incident. They already have one filed for an incident that occurred on
> Wednesday! But that is mandated by Congress and I seriously doubt our
> congressmen will insist the sanctioning bodies disclose this data to us.
>
> To this end I am pursuing the creation of a web site to track racing
> incidents, particularly those that involve amateur drivers. Due to legal
> consideration we will probably not be able to provide direct access to the
> raw data, but once the data is verified either by multiple submissions or
by
> the potential integrity of the submitter (race official or first hand
> witness versus anonymous submission) it will be entered into a relational
> database. You will then be able to query the database to determine such
> things as how many Formula Mazda cars lost their roll hoops over the past
3
> years (actually a bunch from what I've heard through the grapevine...), or
> determine how many incidents with formula cars resulted in injuries versus
> GT cars. Unfortunately, the names of the drivers will probably not be in
the
> database due to legal considerations.
>
> If you have an interest in participating in this project I would
appreciate
> hearing from you. I don't see any way of making any money from such a site
> so it will depend entirely on the direct involvement of people who want to
> see something like this succeed. A number of wheeltowheel participants
have
> already shown an interest but we probably need more people to pull it off.
> This naturally includes attorneys, web designers, server administrators,
> programmers, accident investigators and the like, but if you have an
> interest in participating I am sure we can probably find some way for you
to
> help.
>
> Comments?
>
> Paul Foster
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