Racetrack Safety

[Josh Bayko]

The "I heard" comments are running wild here in the Portsmouth area. One of which is that the drivers' Hans device somehow prevented him from escaping the car, that his belts had been undone. I witnessed this accident, and hope to never see anything like it again. It was just a feeling of helplessness. I do agree that the side opening on the cars is very small. You can see drivers struggling to get out of them even at the trophy presentations. The newer Swartz cars appear to be a bit "taller" than the other makes. Craig

Longhorns and XR1 Rockets seem to be a little taller as well.

[grt74]

we have been to topless races and it always bothered me that some of the drivers helmets were sticking up above the halo (REALLY NICE TECH GUYS)this has been going on for years,absolutely no excuse,iin my opinion if you don't have 2inches above your helmet its to close,i used to use a piece of 1 inch square tubing to put between the helmet and the halo and if it was tight we lowered the seat,if you do that i think you'll find that 90% of the cars out there are too short,with todays containment seats and the hans, ect,there needs to be provisions made in that area of the car,90% of the cars today,if you've got your helmet,hans on,try to get out,i think you'll find it pretty hard to get out,I'm actually working on fixing this on one of my cars but now I'm going to fix all of them,GOD SPEED TO THE FAMILY,while we are not going to fix everything in racing this is a very easy one to fix,REMEMBER IF ITS HARD TO GET IN NOW,THINK ABOUT WHEN YOUR UPSIDE DOWN AND THE CAGE HAS BEEN BENT IN A INCH OR TWO,good luck to all and be safe as possible

[Illtsate32]

I'd like to see the volunteer crew do a drill or practice a fire drill once a week...

[pfd60]

I have never posted on this section of 4m, but I want to say a few things. I am a career firefighter and late model racer. I think about fire safety all the time at the race track. Especially after we watched a guy burn alive at a small track in central Illinois 6 or so years ago. I felt so useless we could not do anything to help without the proper equipment to put it out. The track crew was not prepared for a fire at all. They had one extinguisher that worked. The track closed after and everyone there will never forget what they seen. Just like the tragedy from last week. And someone lost their life. It is a terrible thing to read about. I'll admit I was reactive and would not race at a track that did not have an on scene fire crew. I was racing mini sprints at the time. When I moved to late models I didn't check as much about fire crews because I have two fire extinguishers on the car. But, that is not enough. If you have a serious gas leak you have to have a trained fire crew to put it out. I will be leaving from the tracks I go to if they do not have an on scene fire crew with guys geared up ready to go. The other people posting are right if the racers would quit racing until the proper fire equipment was brought to the races it would force the tracks to do it. We all need to think about fire safety at the track and in the home also. 7 people a day die in house fires in the USA. Please check your smoke detectors.

[RW57]

It was a lot of work to raise cage I also added a bar to upper RF corner of hoop.it kind of blocks RS exit a little bit but cage will not collapse on RF corner in reference to a Swartz that is what we kind of copied we I also added a double hoop.bar beside drivers head looks like a funny car or top fuel from.side I would have raised it higher but my son did not want to.to any higher.

[71PRPFan]

What happened was a slow rollover and immediate engulfment. That's really it. I don't know if he was conscious or not after impact and whether that played a role or not. Fuel cell was up hill. Honestly there's so many variables in this whole event where the outcome would have never made it off of tick ridge road. One thing here or there and it would be different