Harvick calls out Daytona on lack of SAFER barriers

FLRacingFan

FLRacingFan

Team Owner
Joined
Feb 9, 2013
Messages
40,098
Points
1,033
Location
Florida
When will tracks cut this crap out?

Friday was Kevin and Delana Harvick's wedding anniversary, but domestic issues weren't the primary focus of Harvick's thoughts at Phoenix International Raceway. Safety was.

At the end of last week's Daytona 500, Harvick crashed and hit an inside wall that was not protected by a SAFER barrier, a high-speed impact that left Harvick bruised and sore. Friday at PIR, Harvick had some harsh words about the track, especially given its upcoming $400 million renovation.

"The tracks, for the most part, don't listen to really anything unless it's profitable for their shareholders," Harvick said prior to NASCAR Sprint Cup practice Friday at the 1-mile PIR track. "So, when you see somebody spending $400 million dollars on their track and they don't have soft walls around the inside, maybe they could spend $403 million to go ahead and finish the inside of the superspeedway there at Daytona."

Asked if he was still hurting from the wreck, Harvick said he was.

"Yeah, I was sore all week," Harvick said. "And, just today feel good enough to do what I need to do."

Harvick said there was nothing he could to avoid hitting the wall.

"The car didn't have any brakes or any steering, and the throttle was partially hung coming off the wall and going through the wet grass and then into no SAFER barrier at the end of pit road there," Harvick said. "So, it was a hard shot. It's a little bit frustrating because it really shouldn't even be a debate. I know they have data that shows where the most frequently hit spots are, but we wear all this safety equipment and do all the things that we do to these racetracks for that one freak incident to keep things from happening like happened back in 2001. So, it shouldn't even be a debate. It's just one of those things I guess that you just wait around for something else to happen and then they'll fix it."

http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/sto...aytona-track-after-hard-hit-in-the-500-022814
 
I'm surprised NASCAR hadn't made it mandatory that all walls at any race tracks in the Top Three Series' schedule have a SAFER barrier, less they lose their race date.
 
SpeedPagan said:
I'm surprised NASCAR hadn't made it mandatory that all walls at any race tracks in the Top Three Series' schedule have a SAFER barrier, less they lose their race date.
Click to expand...

I thought it already was.

When Gordon hit the inside wall at Las Vegas in 2008 I think it was he made a big deal out of it too and by the time they went back the next year, hello safer berriers on inside walls.

You would think they would have learned their lesson a long time ago but this keeps popping up every year.
 
Jeff Gordon has had some vicious hits by finding some unprotected concrete walls also. Let's all hope that they get this done everywhere sooner than later.
 
BobbyFord said:
Is it a cost issue? I mean, the reason that all walls aren't "safer" walls?
Click to expand...
ISC alone allotted $600 million for capital improvements from 2013-2017 with $400 million of that going towards the Daytona Rising project. Seems to me they could dish out some of that to put up softer walls in more places.

Brian said this to USA Today last year:

NASCAR CEO Brian France said before last weekend's Coca-Cola 600 there was "nothing that prevents us" from putting the barriers everywhere — except officials aren't convinced the barriers are needed.

"We look at this, we think we have them in all the right places, and if we don't, we'll make an improvement, like anything else," he said.

:rolleyes:
 
If I was in charge of NASCAR, I'd tell all the tracks that every square inch of the race track walls need the SAFER barrier, and they have one year to do it. If they don't get it done within a year, they lose their race date.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Brian said this to USA Today last year:

NASCAR CEO Brian France said before last weekend's Coca-Cola 600 there was "nothing that prevents us" from putting the barriers everywhere — except officials aren't convinced the barriers are needed.

"We look at this, we think we have them in all the right places, and if we don't, we'll make an improvement, like anything else," he said.

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That's like when mothers tell their kids they'll buy that something they want but never quite gets around to ever buying it.

Oh Brian..
 
reck said:
I thought it already was.

When Gordon hit the inside wall at Las Vegas in 2008 I think it was he made a big deal out of it too and by the time they went back the next year, hello safer berriers on inside walls.

You would think they would have learned their lesson a long time ago but this keeps popping up every year.
Click to expand...
He hit the unprotected outside wall at Charlotte in the 600 last year too. Haven't heard about it being fixed but he lobbied for it to be afterwards.
 
Does anyone know if Hamlin's injury at Fontana could've been avoided if he hit a SAFER barrier instead of the wall like he did?
 
SpeedPagan said:
Does anyone know if Hamlin's injury at Fontana could've been avoided if he hit a SAFER barrier instead of the wall like he did?
Click to expand...
Denny hit a TON. I was there. I'm sure a safer wall would have lessened the impact. It's crazy that all walls aren't safer walls but it's especially absurd that tracks like the 2 mile Auto Club Speedway and larger tracks where speeds exceed 200 mph do not have complete inner and outer safer barriers.
 
FLRacingFan said:
ISC alone allotted $600 million for capital improvements from 2013-2017 with $400 million of that going towards the Daytona Rising project. Seems to me they could dish out some of that to put up softer walls in more places.

Brian said this to USA Today last year:

NASCAR CEO Brian France said before last weekend's Coca-Cola 600 there was "nothing that prevents us" from putting the barriers everywhere — except officials aren't convinced the barriers are needed.

"We look at this, we think we have them in all the right places, and if we don't, we'll make an improvement, like anything else," he said.

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That was out of their personal business account, in other words back pocket money. They are loaded, but they spend it making it nice for the who's who's. Now, they got the gate problem fixed pronto and the Nationwides couldn't push this year when fans who can hire lawyers got hurt, but drivers don't have any rights to do that. So King Brian says "we aren't convinced that barriers are needed"..
 
Greg Moore was killed at California Speedway after suffering a head injury sustained during an impact with an inside wall. Although the exact area has been reconfigured, there is still no safer barrier where Moore crashed.
 
It is pretty difficult to watch and listen as NASCAR officials pontificate on their unswerving dedication to safety, pointing to the requirements they've placed on the car builders/teams to construct cars with crashworthiness as a high priority, then see them ignore a major deficit when it comes to ensuring driver safety on the track.

NASCAR's management can only hide from the hypocrisy of demanding all safety advancement come from the teams, while turning a blind eye to track owners penny pinching attitude towards driver safety. It used to be said... "What'll it take, does somebody have to die?" Well, drivers have died and NASCAR STILL hasn't made Safety Barriers mandatory!

If it's a matter of costs, I can't imagine any fan objecting to , say... a one dollar surcharge on tickets sold until the barriers are paid for. It's literally a matter of life and death for the competitors.

Just my 2 cents worth...
 
2014 Daytona 500 race purse was $19,784,864.00. Someone needs to make a decision on what's more important - money or driver safety.
 
honu said:
If it's a matter of costs, I can't imagine any fan objecting to , say... a one dollar surcharge on tickets sold until the barriers are paid for. It's literally a matter of life and death for the competitors.
Click to expand...

When you are doing a $400 MILLION dollar renovation and removing seats, I highly doubt they need to charge anymore for tickets. Tickets prices are high enough.
 
SpeedPagan said:
If I was in charge of NASCAR, I'd tell all the tracks that every square inch of the race track walls need the SAFER barrier, and they have one year to do it. If they don't get it done within a year, they lose their race date.
Click to expand...

That would be the end of the road courses. ;)
 
I rarely agree with Kevin Harvick, but he's spot on with this one. I would certainly hope that some of that massive renovation budget for Daytona will be allocated to putting SAFER barriers in the areas of the track where there are none. Hopefully the other tracks will follow suit as well. I don't want to see this be an issue where somebody has to die or get paralyzed before they do anything about it.
 
#17D500winner said:
Foam blocks would do for road courses

Click to expand...

I've seen this so many times and it is still hard to watch.

It's a disgrace to the sport to not have SAFER barriers all around. Surprised there has not been a driver strike after some of the vicious hits in the past 10 years where only partial barriers are at the track
 
SpeedPagan said:
I'm surprised NASCAR hadn't made it mandatory that all walls at any race tracks in the Top Three Series' schedule have a SAFER barrier, less they lose their race date.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the problem is Lesa France Kennedy is CEO of ISC, which owns Daytona, and also sits on the nascar inc board of directors. Any decision that affects ISC's bottom line has to get the OK from her. This is probably why we are stuck with double dates at ISC tracks that just aren't cutting it, and Lesa doesn't want to spend money developing new tracks in new markets.
 
Smoke14 said:
If that had been a concrete barrier there wouldn't be a six time...
Click to expand...

Hell no. Even todays car would have a tough time protecting the driver with that hit. Kez had a similar hit and was lucky to have just a trashed ankle.
 
FenderBumper said:
Perhaps the problem is Lesa France Kennedy is CEO of ISC, which owns Daytona, and also sits on the nascar inc board of directors. Any decision that affects ISC's bottom line has to get the OK from her. This is probably why we are stuck with double dates at ISC tracks that just aren't cutting it, and Lesa doesn't want to spend money developing new tracks in new markets.
Click to expand...

They need to develop more short tracks is what they need to do. Enough with the 1.5 mile cookie cutters!
 
SpeedPagan said:
They need to develop more short tracks is what they need to do. Enough with the 1.5 mile cookie cutters!
Click to expand...

Yep. nascar's idea of expansion was bigger tracks with more seats, instead of more shorter tracks with Bristol style seating in new markets.
 
Just like anything else it's all about the money. Harvick and Patrick were lucky, could have been worse. Would Denny's back injury been so severe if he had hit a safer barrier? There's is absolutely no reason for not having a SAFER barrier at every track, at every possible spot a race car could hit at speed. None,,except for money which nascar won't part with.
 
Yep, I saw Harv's comments on Jayski, and he told the truth.

BobbyFord said:
Greg Moore was killed at California Speedway after suffering a head injury sustained during an impact with an inside wall. Although the exact area has been reconfigured, there is still no safer barrier where Moore crashed.
Click to expand...
That is a disgrace, plain and simple, and there's no excuse for it. That crash took place almost 15 years ago.

Smoke14 said:
If that had been a concrete barrier there wouldn't be a six time...
Click to expand...
I actually hadn't seen that wreck before (at least, not that I can remember), and the mere thought of what you just said blows my mind.
 
Nascar really owns the ISC tracks, if they actually cared about safety, they would have them installed every where, but with nascar its all about profits

if safer barriers made them nascar money, they would be installed everywhere, but they would only be an expense to ISC
 
Well if they allowed advertisement to be painted on the SAFER walls I bet NASCAR would have every track covered by the time we get to Bristol.
 
I agree, there's no reason at a track like Daytona that the safier barricades aren't all the way around. I was at the NNS race on Saturday and was surprised that the end of pit road wasn't a SAFER wall. We've seen plenty of cars hit there so don't know what data they use to determine where it goes. Although common sense would suggest they're at 200 MPH all the way around the track so a SAFER barricade all the way around just seems obvious.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom