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

I have a better idea. We could tear down everything around the track. Walls, Stands, Trees, Lights, the bridge, whatever. Make a big oval with traffic cones that has 100 feet of runoff in every direction. The fans can sit on the other side of the road and use binoculars. That way the track is 100% safe. I'm sure the drivers who make their living racing would be fine with the WoO cancelling one of its highest paying races to allow WG to make these changes. 

Yes. WoO will race at WG next weekend unless it rains. What happened at BAPS is one of the most tragic things I've ever witnessed and I'm sure it will lead to some changes. However I dont think they will cancel the rest of the season to make them. You will never make sprint car racing 100% safe. Jason Johnson knew that, Greg Hodnett knew that and so does every other driver. I think there would be outrage from every driver if WG canned the National Open to make changes to the track, and I bet if the Outlaws decided to not run it WG would still have some version of the race anyway that might pay less but would still draw a good car count.

EASY!!! THose who wanna race, can race, Those that don;t want to, THEN DON"T, This is still America. I seen double file restarts cause alot of wrecks, no one wants that to stop, 

    This might require an episode of mythbusters. I poked around on the old internets.... The track record looks to be 16.14 seconds. Using Google Maps measuring about 2/3 of the way up the track, it measure at about 2839 feet- .538 miles. That works out to right at 120 mph average speed.

     The car would be going faster on the straights and slower in the corners- maybe 130 & 110 mph? Since Williams Grove is famous for being a paperclip with such long straights and tight corners, I'd wonder if those numbers aren't more like 140 and 100 mph? I think it's safe to assume that the fastest speeds would be right about at the bridge.

     Once a car is flipping, the speed obviously goes down. But if the car strts flipping just before the bridge, I think it would still be going right at about track speed- possibly somewhere between 120 and 140 mph. So I'd say it's conceivable that the car is still going 120 mph if it hits the bridge.

     Anybody have Adam and Jamie on speed dial? They could do a Myth Busters episode on the bridge and then kick off a fundraiser to replace it with a tunnel.

      How high above the racing surface is the bottom of the bridge? And who put the bridge there and why? Is this an old horse racing track?

     I do. I'm not a fan of double file restarts.

In the case of fans their "fear" that you refer to is that they're possibly going to witness something like this themselves.  Some fans will evaluate what happened and some may stop going to the races due to that fear.  They fear for example that they'll have to explain to the young child sitting next to them what they just witnessed.  They fear that they'll be sitting in the same section of stands as the racers family and have to witness their reaction.  Some will accept what happened and some will make the decision that this type of entertainment and the potential for something bad happening isn't for them.  Neither should be critcized for their personal decision.  People who don't want to watch bad things aren't the enemy, they have their reasons and I can respect that.

A tale of two families at Thanksgiving dinner comes to mind.  One family ran Supermodifieds and Sprint Cars during the 60's and 70's at times calling on a future SCHOF driver to fill the seat.  The other family practically grew up at the track until a brother-in-law was fatally injured in a frontstretch crash.  Members of the former family that ran Supers and Sprints huddle together after dinner and plan road trips to Knoxville.  The other side of the family sits across the table and diverts the subject to something besides racing.  My son and I are the ones planning racing trips and my wife's aunt across the table lost her brother-in-law in a 360 at Husets and stopped going to races. 

Everyone has to make their own personal decision if they'll continue going to races when things like this happen.  In my case I've been going since 1960 and have been fortunate that I have never witnessed anything like this.  I don't know how I'd react but I do know that as I approach 70 Sprint Car racing seems more like a young man's game and the desire to temp fate isn't as strong as it once was.  Now I look more at the families and think to myself that most of these drivers are working people so they can't really afford to get hurt.  I wonder if they carry any kind of supplemental insurance to be better protected from financial ruin if something should go wrong.  In other words, my opinions of the sport are tempered by age and some of the old cliche's that always come up when the unthinkable happened don't settle my soul the way they did when I was 30. 

It's an individual decision.

Stan Meissner

Just want to offer my thoughts... I was at Knoxville quite a few years ago on a practice night. Mark Wilson was coming out of turn 4 full throttle and had his steering break,I dont remember him even having time to back off the throttle before he hit the outside wall. Now he didn't hit any opening or bad spot?, but he to lost his life. I'm not to sure where I'm trying to go with this but maybe steering issues are just as big of a problem as track openings? 

Thanks for the info. I've been to Williams Grove a bunch of times but luckily I've never been there when someone hit the bridge and I hope they don't hit it either. It's so upsetting to see things like this happen. 

I have been thinking about this with a sick feeling in my stomach since Thursday ,I was not at Baps Thursday and dont want to see a replay .I have been at the tracck three times to witness a tragedy and hope i never do again.

40 some years ago Billy Wertz was lost at Selinsgrove and I was at the Grove when Daryl Gohn backed into the wall  both looked like a wreck and the worst happened.

I was at Bridgeport when Jason Leffler lost his life right in front of me that night I new right away it was bad the thing is accidents happen no saftey improvements  to the cars or tracks can change Gods will.

RIP GREG YOU WILL BE MISSED FOREVER 27,22,39,12

Thanks for making Pa. your home.

I don't think anyone suggested that we could possibly make racing 100% safe or that Greg, Jason and every other driver out there doesn't know the risks they take every time they strap in. All anyone is talking about are the obvious hazards that are very fixable and can make a bad situation much worse should a car find their way into one of the aforementioned hazards which is exactly what happened with Jason and Greg. When a food manufacturer has good reason to believe that one of their products were contaminated with e-coli, do they just let it go and hope for the best? Hell no. That's what we do in sprint car racing with a lot of things including what is being discussed in these threads. If that manufacturer knows for a fact that one of their products is infected with e-coli, they absolutely take it seriously and do all they can to prevent any further illness and they recall any product that was possibly contaminated. That's where we are at the moment. Now do we do what the food companies do and try to do anything we can within reason to prevent another contamination or do we just keep doing what we have been doing until the next one arises? I know which one I choose.

Exactly very well said. i agree 1000%

Not critizing anyone.

I was at Knoxville when Steve King accident happened in I think 2006 and don't ever care to see anything like that again.

I was also at Knoxville in 2008 when Jeff Shepard wrecked and was hit by many cars.  Watching that accident I thought if Jeff makes it out of this he will be on lucky guy and he was very lucky.

I was not at Baps and am glad I wasn't.  I have a son that is 12 and he didn't take the passing of Greg well.  That is my job as a parent to help him through this even though I am hurting just as much as he is.  I have to be his parent and help him in any way I can.  This will not stop me from going to the races it only makes me want to go and show our support of a great man and champion...Greg hodnett.  Do you think Greg wouldn't want us to enjoy spint car racing? 

We were watching on dirtvision the night Jason Johnson had his accident up at Beaver Dam.....it all happened so fast and it was horrible.

I had a friend that I stopped in every Friday to see on my way home from work...I used to work half days on Fridays.  He was a driver turned owner and he passed away in 2009.  It had nothing to do with a racing accident....everytime I was at the races the only thing I could think of was him.   After he passed, I couldn't go to the races very often after that for a few years.   I still went but slowed down a lot.  I still see his wife and daughter a lot at the race track when I go. 

Now my son likes the races and it gives us time to spend together.   His two favorites are Greg Hodnett and Donny Schatz...he also likes David Gravel a little too. 

I will gaurantee you this.  Bad things will happen in everyones life....it is what you do with those bad things that make you the person you are.  This can either brake you or make you a stronger person to lead your family into the future.

No one likes to talk about death, but it is part of living.  People are going to die in your life that you love very much no matter what age you are....death has no age limit and that really sucks sometimes.  Sometimes these deaths are very sudden just like in racing.

With this last accident Thursday night,  we watched Eldora on dirtvision last night and we are going to watch Lernerville tonight.  This is part of the healing process for us.  Doing what we love to do watching sprint racing.  It was great that the top two drivers were from PA!!

I can't wait for the National Open at Williamsgrove next weekend.  That will also be part of the healing process.  That may sound stupid to some but it works for my family.  Face your fears and it will make you stronger in the long run.

Let's go Sprint Car Racing!

Knoxville - Best Track In the USA!
Eldora - 2nd Best Track in the USA!

All these people jumping on with "fix this, fix that, make the cars stronger, change the track,".... on and on. Most people are probably like me, and werent there to see what happened with their own two eyes. No details needed from those who were, and thank God finally something happened without some sick video.. but did he hit the opening and flip, causing something to hit him in the cockpit? did he hit the opening and come to an abrupt stop? there are so many parts to this that probably most people have no idea what even happened other than he made contact with the wall opening, yet everyone seems to have a solution.

He hit the opening and he hit it damn hard. I'm not gonna go into detail because I was told information that doesn't need to be spread around but he didn't have a chance. My friend was seated at the very end at the main grandstand and was watching Hodnett at the time and saw it all. The wall needs fixed and that's exactly what they will do I'm sure. 

I said this in another post and I'll say it again. Is racing really anymore dangerous than getting in a automobile and heading down the highway? I would bet that statisticly racing is no more dangerous than driving an automobile number of people and number of times raced in relation to number of people killed versus same thing with driving an automobile number of people driving number of times driving versus number people killed. Racing has a preconceived notion of being dangerous and it is but so are alot of other things that aren't conceived of being dangerous.  I race but there is no way I would get on a motorcycle and ride down the highway. You won' see me on one on a public road. There are people that won't step on a plan and fly 2 hours because they are scared they will drive 10 hours because of it. And statistically planes are safer than automobiles. Just something to think about.

I would guess that by number of people who drive daily  (millions) & number of people who race sprint cars (maybe a thousand or so?), percenatge of deaths is MUCH higher in racing

Plus, people spend countless hours on the road.Total time spent actually racing on any given nite by each driver is probably under an hour

1.3 million automobile deaths every year. 3,287 per day.Sound dangerous? And there is alot more people racing and doing alot of it than you think.

Sprint cars have 1 minite of TTs 4 minutes in a heat and less than 10 in a feature. I have no time or desire to research the numbers but that is only about 30 minutes a weeknd for A WOO guy.

Wonder what their ratio is between minutes at 120 mph with a helmet to minutes at 60 mph in a hauler

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

Of course its dangerous, but I still think the percentage, per driver/hour, is much less on the highway

Not even close! More like 40,000 per year. Google it.

This isn’t perfect analysis but heres some stats.

According to bill v’s great website, 856 drivers have raced a 410 this year, 2 have been killed. That’s 1 in 423.

There are 222 million licensed drivers in the US and about 40,000 die per year. If one out of every 423 licensed drivers died per year, that would mean over 500k deaths per year. So I’d say it’s a fair bit more dangerous not even considerint other factors.