Safety at the Track? Oh?

I am one of those who watches NASCAR racing to see crew coordination during pit stops. That is a fascinating 14 seconds!

In 1996 while announcing the airshow at what used to be NAS Miramar, I was invited to go on the JATO ride on "Fat Albert", the Blue Angels C-130 Hercules. That was five and a half minutes of superb crew coordination, and as a pilot I appreciated their work.

I watched both the Saturday and Sunday races at Talladega, Alabama, this past weekend. On Sunday with maybe a quarter mile to go to the finish, there occurred a spectacular accident which sent Carl Edwards' #99 car into the air and into the safety fence which separates spectators from the track. As the crash was replayed and replayed, pieces of automobile could plainly be seen flying into the grandstand. It wasn't until the FOX TV coverage had signed off that we heard there had been seven spectator injuries plus one other "medical issue" not directly related to parts of car striking someone.

In the airshow industry there are rules providing safety margins between spectators and performers. The most common is the 500-foot separation between performance line and the spectator line. If a pilot crosses that "deadline" he (she) risks being cited for unsafe operation and suspension of airman's privileges.

Personally, I like to be as close as I can be to the flying action, if I am not announcing the show. It's the same thing with being a railfan, a fan of railroading. Yes, I watch and photograph trains. I want to be as close to the thundering locomotives and trains as I can be, even standing at the base of the rock ballast on which tracks are set to be eye-level with the rails. I want to feel the deisel power, hear the air, smell the brakeshoe smoke. THAT is excitement. I tend to ignore the fact that a piece of ballast may be picked up by the rushing wind and hurled at me, that a piece of equipment could fall off a passing car, or that there might be an actual derailment which could render me immediately past tense. There is a danger, but I choose to ignore it.

I never ignore the danger at an airshow. I am always aware of it, but the legal 500-foot "deadline" keeps me an appreciable distance from the performers. Jets, like the F-16 or the F/A-18 E/F, are kept out at 1,500 feet when performing any aerobatics. And no aerobatic energy can be directed toward the spectators. If something falls off a plane (and historically, it has happened) it should not imperil me or any of the people watching the show.

So how come NASCAR doesn't have this kind of regulation, one that would move the cars out (or the grandstands back) to give more separation? I may have answered my own question earlier; NASCAR fans want to smell the exhaust and the rubber and feel the pounding of passing power on their chests. But, as with monster truck shows, about which I opined in an earlier BLOG entry, there really should be something other than a fence to separate spectators from a ton and half of metal flying through the air at 180 mph.

Unfortunately, reality dictates that the tracks are not going to be rebuilt to move grandstands further away, and the race course will not be shortened. New tracks, when they are built, should have more spectator safeguards included. Perhaps depressing the track an additional 10 feet below the grandstands, or raising the safety fence and making it double or triple thick might help. The problem there becomes that it will affect the spectators' views. Some design engineer, somewhere, must have an idea.

Driver Carl Edwards, who was seconds away from winning the Aaron's 499, says he saw the fence going by while he was airborne and hoped he wasn't going into the crowd. When the #99 car stopped rolling and bouncing on the track, when he was sure he would not be hit by another car, Edwards climbed out of what was left of his car and jogged across the finish line to complete the race. Later, when he learned of the injuries in the stands, he is quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "We'll race like this until we kill somebody. Then [NASCAR] will change it."

I sincerely hope something is changed before a spectator or anyone dies.