FRANCHITTI Hurt At NASCAR Talladaga

He should have stuck to flying Indycars.

Hope he gets well soon.

 

Hopefully Dario is ok.

The number of people that injured (or worse) in NASCAR is astounding. With the exception of Kubica last year, there are very few large F1 wrecks in recent memory.

 

Troll.

 

I have to call you on this. F1 cars are designed to breakaway and absorb most of the kinetic energy from a crash. Many drivers in the past few years have walked away from very serious looking crashes unhurt. Nascar, as an organization, has traditionally been extremely resistant to changing safety standards. They were very slow in making it a requirement of their drivers to wear a HANS device. The device existed before his death, Dale SR was too much of a macho man to wear one. They are behind the IRL and f1 when it comes to an on site medical crew. They don't have one. Jackie Stewart has been a leader in improving driver safety. Sid Watkins has also been a leader in developing driver safety standards.

Most F1 tracks are labelled as "antiseptic" by people, because of the very large runoff areas, with gravel, and tire barriers that are placed in key areas. A road course can have those, an oval, does not provide such areas. I'm not too sure where you are basing your opinions, Tifosiron.

 

Ouch very sorry for Dario: he is a very likeable, interesting guy far more than most current drivers and he has a hell of a lady for a wife (actress Ashley Judd), who is probably fussing over him as I tap this keyboard.

Her coming out of the pits at Indy when he was winning the rain shortened 500 last year, all excited and happy while drenched to the bone in her flowery dress is something no Hollywood movie would dare come up with but it was real and really heartwarming to see!

I wish him to recover and have every successs in redneck taxi cab racing: it is a whole different science but he like Juan Pablo will grind away at it and figure out more and more of it.

 

Not sure if anyone watched the race but I hit the remote by chance and caught the last 45 laps. Not trying to hijack, but i could not believe a veteran driver would have done something that stupid. One of the most idiotic moves I've ever seen in any series and he easily could have been responsible for a fatality. I won't be surprised if they suspend Lepage for 20 races.

 

Almost worth gettin' all busted up for.

 

Have to disagree with you on this one. Nascar was way behind before Dale Sr. accident but has made great advances in safety since then especially after they introduced the COT.
Open wheel cars will always be more dangerous just because the driver's head is exposed. It's the nature of the beast and it'll always be this way. I'm always concerned about an accident where a roll bar fails and a drivers head and neck are crushed in a rollover (Greg Moore) or a drivers head is decapitated ( Wurz and DC) . In such accidents I'd much rather be in a stock car than an open wheel one.

 

+1

I saw that ....what an idiotic move.

Thank god no one was hurt .

 

All the best to Dario. Quick recovery, mate.

Now...if I were Dario, having accomplished what he's done as a driver and waking up to Ashley every morning, well, I'd be a retired racing driver.

 

Almost!

 

I saw much of the Nationwide race. The two incidents reflect two of the dumbest driver moves I can recall seeing in any series. The guy who hit Franchitti was supposedly 8 seconds behind. No excuse for T boning him. Kevin Lepage leaving pit road and entering the racing line with lead pack bearing down on him at 190mph was felony stupid. That said, if you saw Franchitti's car afterwards, you'd think he was lucky to get out with a broken ankle. And that was the old car. It's difficult to make safety comparisons between F1 and NASCAR. NASCAR runs 4 series with up to 43 cars for up to 36 races a year for up to 600 miles long at higher average speeds and generally much shorter tracks. Anyone who thinks a 20 car pileup of F1 cars at 200mph (such as often happens at Daytona and Talledega) would end with all drivers walking away needs professional help. Light, open race cars cannot offer the same protection almost by definition.

Dave

 

I am amazed we don't see more Gordon Smiley types of crashes in open-wheel (youtube.com).

That was one of the most horrific crashes I have even seen, that and Roger Williamson's.
You watch those two - and any others - and it's hard NOT to cry.

And then we see crashes where we cannot believe anyone died - I never would have thought
Earnhardt Sr's. crash was hard enough to kill him, or Neil Bonnett's, or JD McDuffie's....