I remember many of these deaths.

I don't care what people say about danger adding excitement. I enjoy NASCAR much more without the deaths and terrible injuries.

It's still dangerous enough. A hard T-bone to the drivers door will probably still be fatal.

I don't know what stock series it was in, but I saw a video of a car backed into a wall at a road course and just sitting there. It was at turn exit, and the driver had a perfect view of the car that slammed into his door and killed him. Sad, for sure.
 
It's a tribute to the level of safety now present in all forms of motorsports that Dan Wheldon's untimely death was considered such an anomoly!

This, of course, does not include the two-wheeled motorsports, the hydro classes or the aeronautical series...
 
robbybee said:
It's a tribute to the level of safety now present in all forms of motorsports that Dan Wheldon's untimely death was considered such an anomoly!

This, of course, does not include the two-wheeled motorsports, the hydro classes or the aeronautical series...
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It's time for hans devices on motorcycles, splitters on the hydro class and them aeronautical guys need to get rid of those damn wings!
 
Amazing how many lives Daytona has really taken over the years. Never knew how many there really were.
 
That MacTavish one is partlicularly brutal.:(
 
I try to avoid them. The brutal MacTavish crash I thankfully have been able to dodge. But I have seen many still photos, the guy was a national champion, and beat out competition like Ralph Earnhardt for the title.

That's the Don MacTavish I want to remember.


ABCs wide world of sports over aired the awful wreck. I heard about a guy in a pool hall afterwards, that overheard some one else disrespecting Donnie and his awful fate. The racing dude who heard him, punched him out for being disrespectful, that was righteous.


Swede Savage's Indy crash was awful. Swede was leading the 500, I think at the time. I remember another driver following him who said that Swede was loose a few laps earlier, and it just finally got away from him.
During Swede's spectacular fiery flips a crew member or track worker was running to the scene, and he was run over and killed by a responding vehicle headed to the scene. Two instant tragedies.



Gordon Smiley's wreck the worse I ever saw. While qualifying he lost the ground effects, the car snapped and pounded the wall head first. There was no mistake you knew Gordon was dead immediately. Some folks have some grotesque related things on google.


Please if you must, only post the Smiley links, and not the actual displayed images, I don't have what it takes to look.
 
That Smiley crash was unbelievable......instantaneous. :(

but then I saw this Mike Harmon crash...I remember watching this ......and no matter what weber says about safety and the guys in the garage he's alive mostly coz of luck...

[*youtube]3KmV0kmIATI[/youtube*]

maybe not....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KmV0kmIATI
 
Clutch said:
I saw this Mike Harmon crash...I remember watching this ......and no matter what weber says about safety and the guys in the garage he's alive mostly coz of luck...
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Same Track, same turn, same gate, 1990. You'd think that they'd have learned from this crash @ Bristol. Fortunately it was the same result as what you posted Clutch.....

Two brief video's of Michael Waltrip's Bristol gate crash.....



 
Question have they removed that gate a Bristol?
 
The Bristol gate is still there. That is how they get in and out of the track with the haulers. The only tunnel that exists at the track is for pedestrian travel only.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
The Bristol gate is still there. That is how they get in and out of the track with the haulers. The only tunnel that exists at the track is for pedestrian travel only.
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Yes, it is still there. If I remember correctly, when Michael hit it it wasn't completely shut. I also think Bristol installed a deflector of sorts to the leading edge. I think the new gate opens from the other side also.
 
Smoke14 said:
Yes, it is still there. If I remember correctly, when Michael hit it it wasn't completely shut. I also think Bristol installed a deflector of sorts to the leading edge.
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And what was the story in 2002? The safer barrier covers the area of turn 2 exit, so it must have been moved to a safer location on a straight. Even turn entry would be a better spot than turn exit.

Edit: It looks like it's in the same place. Maybe the safer barrier acts like a deflector.
 
Both Bristol & Dover use cross-over gates. It was an issue when they were installing the safer barriers. I have pictures of the trucks entering the track from a few years ago. I'll see if I can find them so that I can post a picture.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
Both Bristol & Dover use cross-over gates. It was an issue when they were installing the safer barriers. I have pictures of the trucks entering the track from a few years ago. I'll see if I can find them so that I can post a picture.
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Difference is Dovers 2 gates are more on the straightway, though the one on the backstretch is close to the exit of 2
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
Both Bristol & Dover use cross-over gates. It was an issue when they were installing the safer barriers. I have pictures of the trucks entering the track from a few years ago. I'll see if I can find them so that I can post a picture.
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It would be great if you have pics of both tracks as they are now.
 
wilson89 said:
Where was Blaise Alexanders accident?
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ARCA race, it was just showing NASCAR I think, also just ones with known video which is why there is no Adam Petty or Kenny Irwin I assume.
 
That was hard to watch. But you know what? They died doing what they love. And in 2010 over 32,000 people in the USA died in automobile accidents on public roadways, so I would say NASCAR is pretty safe.
 
After posting last night, I remembered that Swede Savage didn't die instantly, and that he actually lived for over a month after the wreck.


David Earl "Swede" Savage, Jr. (August 26, 1946 - July 2, 1973)


The following in italics is from Wikipedia



A young crew member for Savage's Patrick Racing teammate Graham McRae, Armando Teran, ran out across the pit lane in an effort to come to Savage's aid and was struck by a fire truck rushing up pit road at 60 mph (opposite the normal direction of travel) to the crash. Teran was killed instantly.

Savage joked with medical personnel after the wreck, and was expected to live when taken to Methodist Hospital Medical Center and for some time thereafter. However, he died in the hospital 33 days after the accident. It is widely reported that Savage died of kidney failure from infection, but Dr. Steve Olvey, Savage's attending physician at Indy (and later CART's Director of Medical Affairs), claimed in his book Rapid Response that the real cause of death was complications related to contaminated plasma. Olvey claimed that Savage contracted hepatitis B from a transfusion, causing his liver to fail.

He was interred in the Mt. View Cemetery in his hometown of San Bernardino, California. Married with a six-year-old daughter, his widow Sheryl was expecting their second child at the time of his death.


Some other points [snips] from wikapedia:



-He had been the fastest driver for much of practice.

-During the race, Savage held the lead from laps 43-54,

-Savage emerged from his stop with 70 gallons (nearly 500 lb.) of additional fuel and a new (cold) right rear tire.


On lap 58 Savage, just behind Unser, who was about to make a pit stop of his own, and pushing hard in anticipation of a coming rainstorm, lost control as he exited turn four. The right half of his rear wing had come loose, causing his car to twitch back and forth, then slid across to the inside of the track at nearly top speed, hitting the angled inside wall nearly head-on. The force of the impact, with the car carrying a full load of fuel, caused the car to explode in a 60-foot-high plume of flame. Savage, still strapped in his seat, was thrown back across the circuit. He came to rest adjacent to the outer retaining wall, fully conscious and completely exposed while he lay in a pool of flaming methanol fuel. Longtime Indy 500 spectators who witnessed the crash called it the most spectacular single-car accident in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

At the time of the crash, numerous drivers were complaining over their radios about oil on the track
 
KingGlamis said:
That was hard to watch. But you know what? They died doing what they love. And in 2010 over 32,000 people in the USA died in automobile accidents on public roadways, so I would say NASCAR is pretty safe.
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This is absolutely true. I did not watch one the things posted in this thread, but had seen enough before to know I didn't want to watch. But I do take comfort knowing that each one of these, like you said, died doing what the loved.
 
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