Breaking news: Earnhardt Jr injured in fiery ALMS practice wreck

Jr and Boris Said teamed up to drive the ALMS race today, during morning practice he spun and hit the wall and the fuel cell was compromised and the car broke into a massive inferno. He was airlifted to a hospital and is said to have minor burns and injuries.

 

it was pretty amazing to see the car go up in flames. The in-car cam showed him getting surrounded by flames while he was a bit dazed.

 

The in-car cam really was crazy.

He supposedly has minor burns on his legs and chin.

 

This fire should had never have happened. The fuel filler neck snapped on impact, there really needs to be a better design.

 

Corner workers were asleep, IMO.

There were two there, and they were both messing with flags instead of helping Dale, who was stuck in a burning car, or at least to hit the Halon button. It was apparent that the in-car Halon system either malfunctioned or Dale did not activate it.. One should have smothered the driver's area with fire retardant while the other helped Dale get away from the car as he was flailing on the ground, trying to get clear of the car.

Damn. Dale was lucky, IMO.

 

In the latest reports, they're using the term "moderate" for the burn severity.

Gary

 

Anyone have a link to this video?

 

Why am I not surprised that a NASCAR driver finds out that he's not all-that-good of a driver after all? I guess all those left turns really don't carry well into vehicles that have to turn RIGHT once and awhile.....

 

James for a southern boy you don't know to much about NASCAR and racing. But it is nice to see that you can read.

 

Mr. James that was a gratuitously stupid comment.

FYI, DE Jr. has driven the 24 Hours of Daytona at least twice (once in a Corvette GT car and this year in a prototype) and he knows what he's doing on a road course. His commentary about racing in the rain this year was interesting and very thoughtful and he's very respectful of the skills of guys who turn left and right for a living.

I just love these comments from guys whose entire portfolio of racing experience consists of drinking beer in front of a TV where a race is being shown.

 

video here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5458373/

 

Dale Jr. is a better road racer than anyone on this board can ever dream of being, dimwit.

Especially YOU.

And I would venture to say that the same is true of nearly every other NASCAR driver as well.

Just because you don't like their form of racing, kindly don't show your own ignorance & insecurity by denigrating their skills.
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Quite true, Rob. However, there were 2 corner workers. One should have sprayed "cover" for the other, significantly reducing their risk of having no Nomex. This was truly a disaster scenario, and they were unprepared.

 

This may be beyond common knowlege, but does anyone know if the requirements for saftey crews varies with the series. In other words, would a CART race have different procedures for corner workers? Would a Rolex Series race have more, less, or the same number and training level for corner workers?

By inference, I would assume F1 would provide the best level of safety, but I could be completely wrong after watching the Ralf incident at Indy.

The reason I ask is that it was pretty obvious the workers in the video were ill prepared for such a big fire. I would expect that they were not prepared because the history of the series had led to a certain belief that such a fire was not highly probable and with limited resources, the safety issue must fall towards the areas where historic accidents occur more frequently. (ie pits, starting line, especially dangerous corners, etc.)

Now, would such an accident be investigated by ALMS itself so that any improvements, if any exist, could be instigated, or is the accident investigated by an impartial party and recommendations made to ALMS?

And on a totally unrelated note, who pays for Dale Jr's hospital visit? Does the individual driver carry personal hospitalization like you and I, or is coverage provided by the team, series, etc.?

 

Yes two corner workers whose job was to make sure the other drivers know that their is a problem in the area. The car hit the wall hard and spread fuel. The car came to a stop and then caught fire. As you see on the tape, one of the corner workers did try to help DE even though he had no protection. There was no time to crab a fire bottle just react to the fire and pull the driver clear.

If you have never worked a corner, when something like this happens, or been in the corner at the time, you should not be second guessing the worker.

they do a great job and get very little support from the fans. If something happens that a fan things they should have done, they get the blame. Try going through the training and drills and then work the corners in hot, cold, freezing rain and what ever else nature put in front of them and still keep the drivers informed. Getting up at 4 AM and at the track by 6AM for the morning meetings and assignments and not get off until 8 or 9 in the evening sometimes. The longer races their hours are a lot hare\der to deal with. On top of all that get little to no pay for the abuse.

I have not been a corner worker but I have been in areas where major incadents happened. As a photographer we are told not to go near the problem to let the corner workers and saftey crews handle it. If I'm near a corner worker when this happens, I take the flag and wave so that they can go to the driver. I know how hard these great people work at each race and am very greatful for them being there.

Just my $.02
Bruce

PS: I know that there are misspelled words in this note but I really do not care.
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An acciddent is bad news always. Another piece of news was the Maranello was not in that race. A Covette won the GTS.

Pissed.