mark kibort

Its utter BS, Ive been going door to door for long enough to know that close racing is fun, but we all know what a little tail tap at at that speed can do. It can kill someone, or at least destroy a 100k car on most any track at those speeds.
Not quite what P. Edwards did to Joey Hand at MidOhio, but when you are that close, you got to know the concequences of your actions. I just think most of these guys just dont care because they dont need to . I think bigger penaties should be handed out to blantant or careless rear end corner taps for position. But, if that is what makes good TV ratings, then, I guess its just Gladiators out there.

Chads996

Couldn't agree more. I agree the the Hand/Edwards deal was not as severe, but it sure could have been.

C.

mark kibort

We all probably thought of the Joey hand crash at the same time we saw this clip. a little different as they were coming out of some slight turns and joey did slightly fade toward Paul, but Paul could have avoided contact in my opinion. This Nascar incident is off the chart, expecially on a track where the inside of the track is so unprotected. Ill take a ski jump over a 150-0 stop any day.
Very very sad!

edit: just watched the Utube video again. Paul could have easily backed out. he tapped Joey in the rear corner while he was actually still behind him, not along side. That is just reckless driving, because any moron racer in the world can get on someones bumper and hit someone like that. getting close and not touching is what skill is in my book.

Potomac-Greg

"Stupid" is Grand Am enticing viewers by airing a commercial showing JC France running over to another helmeted driver and pummeling him. I saw that live a few years ago, and it was roundly criticized at the time; but it now serves as a highlight for the series!

Very sad about the Mexican NASCAR guy. Disasters like that are usually the result of 2 or 3 failures/errors. The other driver started it, the barriers were horribly placed, and the water barrels were a joke.

srf506

I haven't seen a car come apart like that since Michael Waltrip's wreck at Bristol where he hit the track gate and the end of the wall head-on. He survived, how I'll never know, unfortunately this driver didn't. I agree penalties should be stiffened if you unnecessarily send a driver out of control. At Le Mans this year an Aston Mortin P1 driver was excluded from the race because he closed down on a driver that was just passed and booted him into the wall at pit-in.

gums

I can't recall an impact like that since Jim Hickman at Indy, although he was unassisted.
Just awful.

srf506

For all of you knowledgeable Mid-Ohio folks out there is that the section of the track known as "madness" where Hand has his wreck?

Larry Herman

No, that is the back straight. Madness is is the fall-away downhill left (2 corners later).


And as usual in racing incidents, it is sometimes tough to see exactly what happened. My take on the Edwards/Hand wreck is that Paul had a run on Joey and was going down the inside where the road kinks, and Joey came over on him. If you look at the video, it appears that Paul is in the grass on the right, just like he explained. Unless you can get clear overhead shots, it can be tough to make the determination.

If you saw the Bourdais/Kovaleinen crash yesterday, you can clearly see where Bourdais, catching HK went right, and HK moved right to block him. Bourdais then swung back left, and HK moved left just enough for Bourdais to catch his rear wheel at a significant speed differential. The head-on shot shwos this clearly but the announcers blamed it on Bourdais. Like I said, it can be tough to make the right call sometimes.

pcar964

Agreed 100%

I never said grand am racing was any better - in fact nascar is the model grand am is mimicking to attract fans. "Racing" fans like big crashes, hyped-up "drama" between drivers, and the like. Frankly all racing has become so over-hyped I don't really enjoy watching it anymore, especially on Speed channel etc. But Nascar is the worst of it, and caters to the lowest common denominator fan. End result: lowest common denominator "racing."

multi21

I agree. Heikki did a double move which is not allowed, but they glossed over that (the announcers that is).

I feel sorry for this driver and his family, but I put full blame on this incident squarely on the shoulders of NA$$CAR.

Although the track is in Mexico, it's their series and they are responsible for the safety of track set up. No different than F1 going to a different track in a different country every 2 weeks.

The culture of NASCAR encourages the Dale Sr. type mentality of push your way to the front no matter who you wreck. It's sad, but fitting that he lived by the sword and literally died by it as well.

But nothing really has changed since he died aside from mandatory HANS. The cars are safer, but you can still punt the guy in the lead if your running 2nd to get the checker. CHECKER OR WRECKER is what they say.

The guy that went across the finish line on his roof at 170 mph was very luck last year to not be killed or seriously injured.

These NASCAR drivers are very skilled at what they do and for the most part appear to be good guys, but why they don't stand up for cleaner, safer racing (ala Jackie Stewart) is beyond me.

As someone said, NASCAR caters to the lowest common demominator and that's who your going to have on the track a few years from now when these kids emulate their "heros".

stuttgart46

I haven't been a fan of Edwards since that race.

trackjunky

I saw this crash moments after it was posted on YouTube. I watched it thinking it was something else, but I couldn't get the visuals out of my head.

I chose not to post it partly because this gentleman died. I would ask that you remove the video from the first post, and only discuss the incident. I'll take the flames and the abuse, but there is no reason to see someone die.

No offense of any kind meant or implied.

I agree with most, what the hell was up with that track design? Designers and organizers have to look at what could possibly go wrong and learn from accidents at other tracks. If this happened in the US the lawyers would be all over this one.

Any thoughts on the cage/chassis design with respect to how it held up to the impact?

JackOlsen

Pretty upsetting to see that the concrete was fixed in place. Why even bother with the barrels of water? Had anyone done the math, there?

Really unfortunate. To get NASA sanctioning for an event, shouldn't a facility have to demonstrate some basic safety in its design?

jgrant

Please don't take this the wrong way, but how does one discuss those items without actually having seen the video?

I don't see a problem with showing the video, I just have issues with people that come in and make tasteless NASCAR jokes, etc. Now I like a good joke more than most, but when something tragic like this happens and someone loses their life, a certain level of respect and reverence should be shown.

But maybe that's just me.


With respect to the crash, I'm amazed that that particular wall layout/config was allowed. When the car hit, my eyes/brain instinctively followed what I assumed would be the path of the car, only to find that, well, it didn't go there. It just stopped. It just looked unnatural, and I knew right away that it wasn't going to end well.

This might even be a case where the cage/etc did it's job all too well, and didn't absorb enough of the impact to spread out the deceleration. But to my layman's eyes, it looks like there was no getting out of that impact, regardless of cage, etc. There was just too much energy that had to be dissipated too quickly for the human body to handle.

I know I would not want to be one of the first responders. It looks like they were having problems even finding him, never mind helping him.

ew928

Kill someone on track.
Face vehicular manslaughter charges.

Let's see how much stupid rubbin' that discourages.



I hear Mexican jails are very unpleasant place to be.