Mark J. Andy wrote:
>I find it sad that folks feel free to completely believe some unknown
>motor sports writer without question, but can't seem to find a way to give
>the sanctioning body at least some benefit of the doubt.
I'm in partial agreement with that. Nonetheless, it's undeniable that F1 and
CART have made major strides in driver safety, while NASCAR - which not long
ago was statistically the "safest" major form of motorsports competition - has
clearly not done as well, based on a comparison of competition fatalities in
the last three years.
>Last I checked,
>the sanctioning body had a hell of a lot more at stake with the drivers in
>the series than a newspaper does.
Several of the statements in the article were simple facts: NASCAR has no
travelling medical team, whereas F1 and CART do (complete with mobile treatment
centers), the major car manufacturers and sponsors have been willing to fund
safety research in NASCAR for some time, but the sanctioning body hasn't
accepted the offers. NASCAR officials have been extremely close-mouthed about
their safety testing, whereas F1 and CART have been totally public with theirs.
Why is this?
>Remember, all this talk started because folks couldn't understand why
>Earnhardt died in what looked like a fairly innocent crash. If the lap
>belt failed before or during the crash, that would certainly explain it.
Yes. And, if the lap belt was not fully functional, none of the other stuff
matters at all. So this incident may be unrelated to other recent NASCAR
fatalities.
>Hopefully we can all just be patient while the investigation(s) figure out
>what really happened so that changes, if needed, address the real problem.
Regardless of the cause of this fatality, NASCAR needs to bring their safety
technology up to date. Hopefully, public pressure will help bring this about.
Jay
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