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The ‘Car of Today’
as a SAFER Measure: Incredibly Impressive
April 9, 2008
Debbi Willis - SCR
As week after week has rolled
by this season, the jury had still been out as far as I was concerned on the Car of Today (COT), that car NASCAR had mandated
as the standard for every race this season. Few teams had found successes with it last year and more often than not, it was
like a crapshoot as to whether it would cooperate with either the crew chief or driver or the track for that matter! Yes,
I understand its “leveled the playing field,” “put more driver response back in the driver’s hands”
and supposedly, it was “more cost effective” for the teams. Still, all those concepts were not reason enough
for me to really accept this new-fangled car that didn’t look like any race car I was used to watching. Underneath all
the “change,” to me it was just another change NASCAR was dictating and it didn’t make much sense! I just
couldn’t find anything to get excited about this new creature NASCAR insisted the teams learn to live with.
At least that was the
case until this past Friday afternoon, (April 4th). During the Sprint Cup qualifying Michael McDowell put the COT to the ultimate
test as he had what could have been a potentially fatal crash. While watching his qualifying run and hearing him tell his
team how “really tight” it was, Darrell Waltrip’s keen eye caught the car’s “turkey trot up
the track” move that would be indicative of something amiss just moments before his horrible wreck. Replays show
that car slamming head on into the safer barrier wall at full speed, bouncing off and slamming into it with the rear end only
to hit it again with front end and then finish with a nine-time tumbling barrel roll down the track before it landed upright. Amazingly,
Michael McDowell climbed out of that car and walked to the ambulance, waving he was ok to the crowd! One could hear the collective
sigh of relief and gratitude after witnessing a nightmare crash, again.
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Upon impact, the wall was
deeply moved and thankfully it did its job absorbing the brunt of the impact-multiple times! Ever since Dale Earnhardt’s
death in February 2001, safety has been aggressively pursued in order to avoid another agonizing death in the sport. People
like Jeff Burton and Mark Martin led the charge for driver’s safety in the cars with the HANS device and new design
seats with impact absorption etc. The old car design had been over-tweaked for race-ability until it was no longer wreck-friendly.
Front ends were too stiff. Nothing broke away anymore and wreck impacts were transferred to the driver’s seat which
transferred it to the driver’s body. Safer barriers helped reduce that impact transfer by absorbing the impact of the
car instead of causing the bone-jarring transfer back to the driver. Bravo for NASCAR’s openness to that design &
their continued willingness to pursue every safety measure that helps to reduce injuries to the drivers.
But the real hero of the
wreck is the COT because as it slammed and rolled, it broke up and away from the driver, spewing miscellaneous little parts
from it’s nose, tail and suspension and it ended up on all four wheels in which only the front left tire came off its
rim. Now THAT is exciting! As I watched the replay of the wreck video, I was thrilled to see the nose parts and tail
parts flying away from the car and those areas crunching. When the car came to a stop, after barrel rolling nine times, the
roofline and driver’s compartment were still intact! From front to rear uprights of the rollcage, the driver was protected
through a horrendous wreck.
Wrecks are part of racing.
Rookies make mistakes. The combination can be horrendous and deadly. Accepting the facts about a sport never make it any easier
to accept the consequences when all the wrong parts line up for tragedy. But with this accident, there was something special
to see. A tingling of excitement surged through me as I looked over the wrecked car sitting there on three wheels and Michael
McDowell climbed out. This was new and different for this kind of crash and I liked what I saw, as did everyone in the pits
who were watching intently! You could hear the excitement in the announcer’s voices as they recovered from expecting
the worst to seeing the best outcome!
Granted NASCAR
designed the car to be this safe and protect the driver’s compartment. Undoubtedly, NASCAR engineers tested every aspect
thoroughly and by all their calculations, they most likely had a pretty good idea this would be the outcome in a very bad
wreck or even a potentially fatal wreck like this one. But, they didn’t know for sure because they can’t create
race conditions and human error or individual choices and reactions that set the scene for these horrible wrecks. Friday,
Michael McDowell proved everything anyone ever might have wondered about the COT: it can wreck really bad and the driver will
most likely climb out of the car afterwards. Being a devoted race fan, particularly a Dale Earnhardt Sr. fan, that is the
single most important factor for having changed the cars to this new model. From this moment on, based on safety alone, I
am a fan of the Car of Today.
Questions, Comments:
The
views and opinions in this article are that of the writer(s) and not necessarily that of SCR
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2006 StockCar Review.
