Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I too was in attendance that night, ironically never seen the crushed roof on the car at the Dingus only heard about it a week later and photos on here, I believe your correct, it was Nate Mosers incident, ill never forget was it Tasker, or Rager Phillips? last year that performed the axle grind on the turn #1 wall but fell back into the ballpark , wow I thought hat was amazing , Johnson, clearing the chain link in the 3&4 turn thats gotta be what, 30 yards? what a helpless feeling, glad all were ok, could be alot worse outcome..

I was sitting i the backstretch stands on one of the qualifying nights of the 04 nationals when Paul McMahon (sp?) climbed a RR at the end of the backstretch on lap 1 of his heat and went outta the park in turn 3....he actually kinda landed on top of the fence then went on over...think he had to sit out for awhile and recover from that one...can't remember if it was a leg or back injury but it was a nasty lookin wreck regardless.

Loose is when you hit the wall with the rear of the
car, tight is when you hit the wall with the front of
the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall and
torque is how far you move the wall.

Paul didn't flip over the fence... although he was probably high enough to. He landed hard (on the track) and broke his tailbone.

Yeah, McMahon was in the park. Did Jerry Richert Jr. also take the 81 over the fence? Can't remember for sure.

In the non-wing days in the early 80's I can remember Altoona's Con Edwards tipping it over the fence a couple of times in time trials, but that was back when the fence in 3&4 was only two guard rails high.

Wow, I didn't realize Jay Opperman's crash was on the back stretch like that Larry. That was just before my time.

Eric Arnold
Social Media Manager & Track Historian
Knoxville Raceway

Loose is when you hit the wall with the rear of the
car, tight is when you hit the wall with the front of
the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall and
torque is how far you move the wall.

I think it was 1984 Jerry Stone took it out of the turn 3-4 wall in a 100" wing champ car.

Let's not forget another that, although he stayed in the park, had one of the scarier ones that I've seen. That's Chad Huston in a 305 during the Late Model Nationals in 2008 when he rode up the right rear of Casey Friedricksen at the start of the feature on Saturday night and had the biggest fireball I've seen and tore down one of the billboards. I've never seen a video of that one. Is there one?

After reading a piece by John Sawyer in Open Wheel, I was always under the impression that Jay Opperman got over a wheel at the end of the backstretch and flipped over the fence in turn 3 (as EA noted, wasn't near as high as today's fence). My assumption was that it was probably somewhere around the spot that Austin cleared the fence last week. That was before my time, so I could be wrong! At any rate, sounded like Jay had a lot of promise... another one taken way too early...

I was sitting in section UU for that one myself, couldnt believe it! Pretty sur he cracked his tail bone.

I'll never forget seeing Dwight Snodgrass go over the backstretch fence in the 80's (prior to backstretch grandstand). His car got caught on a pole and hung in the air.

As I recall, back in the early 80's (or maybe the 70's), someone landed inside one of the quanset huts on the backstretch (and the quanset hut was full of corn that was being stored there).

Cars I remember going out of the park for sure...

Jimmy Evans in the Motter 71m

Mark Toews in the 5t

Jerry Richert Jr. in the 45

Brad Foster in the 00

Nate Mosher only lost his front bumper and a little tiny bit of frame that hit Shelly K.'s car in the Dingus parking lot (the axle stayed within the confines of the track). As I recall, they said the parts that hit her car only weighed 4-5 lbs, but it dropped from over 100 feet in the air (it went out WAYY above the light poles and was still climbing when I lost track of it in the dark that night).

IMO, it's time to add some more fencing to the turns and raise the billboards up higher (or make them stronger and part of the fence).

Had Austin Johnson's wreck happened in turn #1, he would have landed on the highway (or possibly on a car traveling down the highway).

There is one big difference between the billboards in 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 ... the billboards in 1 & 2 are directly above the top of the fence. Several cars have whacked the billboards in 1 & 2 over the years and flopped back down on the track... most memorably Andy Hillenburg in A-main hotlaps in '94 (the Hooters billboard paid the price). The billboards in 3 & 4 are set back about 4 or 5 feet from the fence (optical illusion from the stands/infield) - which makes it more amazing that Austin Johnson launched far enough and high enough to go through them! In a perfect world, they would have a catch fence like Iowa Speedway with the SAFER barrier reaching 5-8 feet in height. As the cars keep getting faster, they need to be more on the leading edge of safety. My guess is that they won't do anything unless something bad happens - which sucks.

Taller fencing and tethers has been a concern of mine since I saw Paul McMahon's front axle go flying thru the air and land next to the skate pit at the Nationals one year. He was in the U2 car that year. And this was before Mosher's crash. It's a matter of time before someone in the stands gets hurt (or worse) or a car ends up out on highway 14 in traffic. I've talked to John McCoy about this a couple of times over the years and Knoxville has looked into them. Tethers for the axles and fuel cell are fairly cheap but no one wants to mess with them because it takes longer to change out parts that way. And it would be nice to have a wire fence that curves/hangs out over the track similar to Iowa Speedway and most NASCAR tracks, and you could add that as an extension on to the current fence. But worst of all is how stiff that fence is in the corners. Those rail road ties are buried 10 feet deep and have zero give to them. Would be nice to come up with some kind of safer barrier for Knoxville. Look at this crash from Ricky Montgomery in 2009 and go to 1:13 in the video, it's brutal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqQxBeysz0g

Eric Arnold
Social Media Manager & Track Historian
Knoxville Raceway

I don't think Pittman has been hurt at Knoxville (or anywhere (seriously), to my knowledge). It was definitely McMahan driving the 11H that broke his tailbone in that crash. Sprint Car & Midget ran a great shot of him in flight on their contents page in the issue that recapped the Nationals that year. It was a bad break (and a bad pun), as he had just banked 200 pts for quicktime earlier in the night.